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For if, of two actions perfectly similar, one be punished, and the other be rewarded or forgiven, which is the consequence of rejecting general rules, the subjects of such a dispensation would no longer know, either what to expect or how to act. Rewards and punishments would cease to be such, would become accidents. Like the stroke of a thunderbolt, or the discovery of a mine, like a blank or a benefit ticket in a lottery, they would occasion pain or pleasure when they happen; but, following in no known order, from any particular course of action, they could have no previous influence or effect upon the conduct.

An attention to general rules, therefore, is included in the very idea of reward and punishment. Consequently, whatever reason there is to expect future reward and punishment at the hand of God, there is the same reason to believe, that he will proceed in the distribution of it by general rules.

BEFORE we prosecute the consideration of general consequences any farther, it may be proper to anticipate a reflection, which will be apt enough to suggest itself, in the progress of our argument.

As the general consequence of an action, upon which so much of the guilt of a bad action depends, consists in the example: it should seem, that if the action be done with perfect secrecy, so as to furnish no bad example, that part of the guilt drops off. In the case of suicide, for instance, if a man can so manage matters, as to take away his own life, without being known or suspected to have done so, he is not chargeable with any mischief from the example; nor does his punishment seem necessary, in order to save the authority of any general rule.

In the first place, those who reason in this manner do not observe, that they are setting up a general rule of all others the least to be endured, namely, that secrecy, whenever secrecy is practicable, will justify any action.

Were such a rule admitted, for instance in the case above produced; is there not reason to fear that people would be disappearing perpetually.

In the next place, I would wish them to be well satisfied about the points proposed in the following queries.

1. Whether the Scriptures do not teach us to expect, that, at the general judgment of the world, the most secret actions will be brought to light.*"

2. For what purpose can this be, but to make them the objects of reward and punishment.

3. Whether, being so brought to light, they will not fall under the

"In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." Rom. xi. 16.- Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart." 1. Cor. iv. 5.

operation of those equal and impartial rules, by which God will deal with his creatures?

They will then become examples, whatever they be now; and require the same treatment from the judge and governor of the moral world, as if they had been detected from the first.

CHAPTER VIII.

The consideration of general consequences pursued.

THE general consequence of any action may be estimated, by asking what would be the consequence, if the same sort of actions were generally permitted. But suppose they were, and a thousand such actions perpetrated under this permission; is it just to charge a single action with the collected guilt and mischief of the whole thousand? I answer, that the reason for prohibiting and punishing an action (and this reason may be called the guilt of the action, if you please) will always be in proportion to the whole mischief that would arise from the general impunity and toleration of actions of the same sort.

"Whatever is expedient, is right." But then it must be expedient on the whole, at the long run, in all its effects collateral and remote, as well as in those which are immediate and direct; as it is obvious, that, in computing consequences, it makes no difference in what way or at what distance they ensue.

To impress this doctrine on the minds of young readers, and to teach them to extend their views beyond the immediate mischief of a crime, I shall here subjoin a string of instances, in which the particular consequence is comparatively insignificant; and where the malignity of the crime, and the severity with which human laws pursue it, is almost entirely founded upon the general consequence.

The particular consequence of coining is, the loss of a guinea, or of half a guinea, to the person who receives the counterfeit money: the general consequence (by which I mean the consequence that would ensue, if the same practice were generally permitted) is, to abolish the money.

use of

The particular consequence of forgery is, a damage of twenty or thirty pounds to the man who accepts the forged bill; the general consequence is, the stoppage of paper currency.

The particular consequence of sheep-stealing, or horse-stealing, is a loss to the owner to the amount of the value of the sheep or horse stolen: the general consequence is, that the land could not be occupied, nor the market supplied with this kind of stock.

The particular consequence of breaking into a house empty of inhabitants, is, the loss of a pair of silver candlesticks, or a few spoons: the general consequence is, that nobody could leave their house empty.

The particular consequence of smuggling may be a deduction from the national fund too minute for computation: the general consequence is, the destruction of one entire branch of public revenue; a proportionable increase of the burden upon other branches; and the ruin of all fair and open trade in the article smuggled.

The particular consequence of an officer's breaking his parole is, the loss of a prisoner, who was possibly not worth keeping the general consequence is, that this mitigation of captivity would be refused to all others.

And what proves incontestably the superior importance of general consequence is, that crimes are the same, and treated in the same manner, though the particular consequence be very different. The crime and fate of the house-breaker is the same, whether his booty be five pounds or fifty. And the reason is, that the general consequence

is the same.

The want of this distinction between particular and general consequences, or rather, the not sufficiently attending to the latter, is the cause of that perplexity which we meet with in ancient moralists. On the one hand, they were sensible of the absurdity of pronouncing actions good or evil, without regard to the good or evil they produced. On the other hand, they were startled at the conclusions to which a steady adherence to consequences seemed sometimes to conduct them. To relieve this difficulty they contrived the rò perov, or the honestum, by which terms they meant to constitute a measure of right, distinct from utility. Whilst the utile served them, that is, whilst it corresponded with their habitual notions of the rectitude of actions, they went by it. When they fell in with such cases as those mentioned in the sixth chapter, they took leave of their guide, and resorted to the honestum. The only account they could give of the matter was, that these actions might be useful; but, because they were not at the same time honesta, they were by no means to be deemed just or right.

From the principles delivered in this and the two preceding chapter's a maxim may be explained, which is in every man's mouth, and in most men's without meaning, viz. "not to do evil, that good may come;" that is, let us not violate a general rule, for the sake of any particular good consequence we may expect: which is for the most part a salutary caution, the advantage seldom compensating for the violation of the rule. Strictly speaking that cannot be "evil," from which "good comes;" but in this way, and with a view to the distinction between particular and general consequences it may.

We will conclude this subject of consequences with the following reflection. A man may imagine, that any action of his with respect to the public, must be inconsiderable; so also is the agent. If his crime produce but a small effect upon the universal interest, his punishment or destruction bears a small proportion to the sum of happiness and misery in the creation.

CHAPTER IX.
Of right.

RIGHT and obligation are reciprocal; that is, wherever there is a right in one person, there is a corresponding obligation upon others. If one man has a "right" to an estate; others are" obliged"

to abstain from it.-If parents have a "right" to reverence from their children; children are "obliged" to reverence their parents ;—and so in all other instances.

Now, because moral obligation depends, as we have seen, upon the will of God; right which is correlative to it, must depend upon the same. Right thererefore signifies, consistency with the will of

God.

But if the Divine will determine the distinction of right and wrong, what else is it but an identical proposition, to say of God, that he acts right? or how is it possible to conceive even that he should act wrong? Yet these assertions are intelligible and significant. The case is this: By virtue of the two principles, that God wills the happiness of his creatures, and that the will of God is the measure of right and wrong, we arrive at certain conclusions; which conclusions become rules; and we soon learn to pronounce actions right or wrong, according as they agree or disagree with our rules, without looking any farther and when the habit is once established of stopping at the rules, we can go back and compare with these rules even the Divine conduct itself; and yet it may be true (only not observed by us at the time) that the rules themselves are deduced from the Divine will.

Right is a quality of persons or of actions.

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Of persons, as when we say, such a one has a right" to this estate; parents have a "right" to reverence from their children; the king to allegiance from his subjects; masters have a "right" to their servant's labour; a man has not a "right" over his own life.

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Of actions: as in such expressions as the following: it is "right" to punish murder with death; his behaviour on that occasion was right.;" it is not "right" to send an unfortunate debtor to jail; he did or acted right," who gave up his place, rather than vote against his judgment.

In this latter set of expressions, you may substitute the definition of right above given, for the term itself: e. g. it is "consistent with the will of God" to punish murder with death;-his behaviour on that occasion was "consistent with the will of God;"-it is not 66 consistent with the will of God." to send an unfortunate debtor to jail; he did, or acted, "consistently with the will of God," who gave up his place rather than vote against his judg

ment.

In the former set, you must vary the construction a little, when you introduce the definition instead of the term. Such a one has a right" to this estate, that is, it is "consistent with the will of God” that such a one should have it; parents have a "right" to reverence from their children, that is it is "consistent with the will of God" that children should reverence their parents;-and the same of the rest.

CHAPTER X.

The division of rights

RIGHTS, when applied to persons, are

Natural or adventitious:

Alienable or inalienable:

Perfect or imperfect.

1. Rights are natural or adventitious.

Natural rights are such as would belong to a man, although there subsisted in the world no civil government whatever

Adventitious rights are such as would not.

Natural rights are, a man's right to his life, limbs, and liberty; his right to the produce of his personal labour; to the use, in common with others, of air, light, water. If a thousand different persons, from a thousand different corners of the world, were cast together upon a desert island, they would from the first be every one entitled to these rights.

Adventitious rights are, the right of a king over his subjects; of a general over his soldiers; of a judge over the life and liberty of a prisoner; a right to elect or appoint magistrates, to impose taxes, decide disputes, direct the descent or disposition of property; a right, in a word, in any one man, or particular body of men, to make laws and regulations for the rest. For none of these rights would exist in the newly inhabited island.

And here it will be asked, how adventitious rights are created; or, which is the same thing, how any new rights can accrue from the establishment of civil society; as rights of all kinds, we remember, depend upon the will of God, and civil society is but the ordinance and institution of man? For the solution of this difficulty, we must return to our first principles. God wills the happiness of mankind; and the existence of civil society, as conducive to that happiness. Consequently, many things, which are useful for the support of civil society in general, or for the conduct and conversation of particular societies already established, are, for that reason, "consistent with the will of God," or "right," which, without that reason, i. e, without the establishment of civil society, would not have been so.

From whence also it appears, that adventitious rights, though immer diately derived from human appointment, are not, for that reason, less sacred than natural rights, nor the obligation to respect them less cogent. They both ultimately rely upon the same authority, the will of God. Such a man claims a right to a particular estate. He can shew, it is true, nothing for his right, but a rule of the civil community to which he belongs; and this rule may be arbitrary, capricious, and absurd. Notwithstanding all this, there would be the same sin in dispossessing the man of his estate by craft or violence, as if it had been assigned to him, like the partition of the country amongst the twelve tribes, by the immediate designation and appointment of Heaven.

II. Rights are alienable or inalienable.

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