a good correspondence among
men, where these are neglected. Society is absolutely necessary for the
well-being of men; and these are as necessary to the support of society.
Whatever restraint they may impose on the passions of men, they are the
real offspring of those passions, and are only a more artful and more
refined way of satisfying them. Nothing is more vigilant and inventive
than our passions; and nothing is more obvious, than the convention
for the observance of these rules. Nature has, therefore, trusted this
affair entirely to the conduct of men, and has not placed in the mind
any peculiar original principles, to determine us to a set of actions,
into which the other principles of our frame and constitution were
sufficient to lead us. And to convince us the more fully of this truth,
we may here stop a moment, and from a review of the preceding reasonings
may draw some new arguments, to prove that those laws, however
necessary, are entirely artificial, and of human invention; and
consequently that justice is an artificial, and not a natural virtue.

(1) The first argument I shall make use of is derived from the vulgar
definition of justice. Justice is commonly defined to be a constant and
perpetual will of giving every one his due. In this definition it is
supposed, that there are such things as right and property, independent
of justice, and antecedent to it; and that they would have subsisted,
though men had never dreamt of practising such a virtue. I have already
observed, in a cursory manner, the fallacy of this opinion, and shall
here continue to open up a little more distinctly my sentiments on that
subject.

I shall begin with observing, that this quality, which we shall call
property, is like many of the imaginary qualities of the peripatetic
philosophy, and vanishes upon a more accurate inspection into the
subject, when considered a-part from our moral sentiments. It is evident
property does not consist in any of the sensible qualities of the
object. For these may continue invariably the same, while the property
changes. Property, therefore, must consist in some relation of the
object. But it is not in its relation with regard to other external
and inanimate objects. For these may also continue invariably the same,
while the property changes. This quality, therefore, consists in the
relations of objects to intelligent and rational beings. But it is
not the external and corporeal relation, which forms