ave recourse to notions
of property in the definition of justice, and at the same time make use
of the notions of justice in the definition of property. This deceitful
method of reasoning is a plain proof, that there are contained in the
subject some obscurities and difficulties, which we are not able to
surmount, and which we desire to evade by this artifice.

Secondly, Those rules, by which properties, rights, and obligations
are determined, have in them no marks of a natural origin but many of
artifice and contrivance. They are too numerous to have proceeded from
nature: They are changeable by human laws: And have all of them a direct
and evident tendency to public good, and the support, of civil society.
This last circumstance is remarkable upon two accounts. First, because,
though the cause of the establishment of these laws had been a regard
for the public good, as much as the public good is their natural
tendency, they would still have been artificial, as being purposely
contrived and directed to a certain end. Secondly, because, if men had
been endowed with such a strong regard for public good, they would never
have restrained themselves by these rules; so that the laws of justice
arise from natural principles in a manner still more oblique and
artificial. It is self-love which is their real origin; and as the
self-love of one person is naturally contrary to that of another, these
several interested passions are obliged to adjust themselves after such
a manner as to concur in some system of conduct and behaviour. This
system, therefore, comprehending the interest of each individual, is of
course advantageous to the public; though it be not intended for that
purpose by die inventors.

(2) In the second place we may observe, that all kinds of vice and
virtue run insensibly into each other, and may approach by such
imperceptible degrees as will make it very difficult, if not absolutely
impossible, to determine when the one ends, and the other begins; and
from this observation we may derive a new argument for the foregoing
principle. For whatever may be the case, with regard to all kinds
of vice and virtue, it is certain, that rights, and obligations, and
property, admit of no such insensible gradation, but that a man either
has a full and perfect property, or none at all; and is either entirely
obliged to perform any action, or lies under no manner of obligation.
However civil laws may talk of a perfect dominion,