me necessary in all civil
society: Hence justice derives its usefulness to the public: And hence
alone arises its merit and moral obligation.

These conclusions are so natural and obvious, that they have not escaped
even the poets, in their descriptions of the felicity attending the
golden age or the reign of Saturn. The seasons, in that first period of
nature, were so temperate, if we credit these agreeable fictions, that
there was no necessity for men to provide themselves with clothes and
houses, as a security against the violence of heat and cold: The
rivers flowed with wine and milk: The oaks yielded honey; and nature
spontaneously produced her greatest delicacies. Nor were these the
chief advantages of that happy age. Tempests were not alone removed from
nature; but those more furious tempests were unknown to human breasts,
which now cause such uproar, and engender such confusion. Avarice,
ambition, cruelty, selfishness, were never heard of: Cordial affection,
compassion, sympathy, were the only movements with which the mind was
yet acquainted. Even the punctilious distinction of MINE and THINE was
banished from among the happy race of mortals, and carried with it the
very notion of property and obligation, justice and injustice.

This POETICAL fiction of the GOLDEN AGE, is in some respects, of a piece
with the PHILOSOPHICAL fiction of the STATE OF NATURE; only that the
former is represented as the most charming and most peaceable condition,
which can possibly be imagined; whereas the latter is painted out as
a state of mutual war and violence, attended with the most extreme
necessity. On the first origin of mankind, we are told, their ignorance
and savage nature were so prevalent, that they could give no mutual
trust, but must each depend upon himself and his own force or cunning
for protection and security. No law was heard of: No rule of justice
known: No distinction of property regarded: Power was the only measure
of right; and a perpetual war of all against all was the result of men's
untamed selfishness and barbarity.

[Footnote: This fiction of a state of nature, as a state of war,
was not first started by Mr. Hobbes, as is commonly imagined. Plato
endeavours to refute an hypothesis very like it in the second, third,
and fourth books de republica. Cicero, on the contrary, supposes it
certain and universally acknowledged in the following passage. 'Quis
enim vestrum, judices, ignorat, ita naturam rer