rd of
such an instinct? Or is this a subject in which new discoveries can
be made? We may as well expect to discover in the body new senses
which had before escaped the observation of all mankind."--(IV. pp.
273, 4.)

The restriction of the object of justice to property, in this passage,
is singular. Pleasure and pain can hardly be included under the term
property, and yet justice surely deals largely with the withholding of
the former, or the infliction of the latter, by men on one another. If a
man bars another from a pleasure which he would otherwise enjoy, or
actively hurts him without good reason, the latter is said to be injured
as much as if his property had been interfered with. Here, indeed, it
may be readily shown, that it is as much the interest of society that
men should not interfere with one another's freedom, or mutually inflict
positive or negative pain, as that they should not meddle with one
another's property; and hence the obligation of justice in such matters
may be deduced. But, if a man merely thinks ill of another, or feels
maliciously towards him without due cause, he is properly said to be
unjust. In this case it would be hard to prove that any injury is done
to society by the evil thought; but there is no question that it will be
stigmatised as an injustice; and the offender himself, in another frame
of mind, is often ready enough to admit that he has failed to be just
towards his neighbour. However, it may plausibly be said, that so slight
a barrier lies between thought and speech, that any moral quality
attached to the latter is easily transferred to the former; and that,
since open slander is obviously opposed to the interests of society,
injustice of thought, which is silent slander, must become inextricably
associated with the same blame.

But, granting the utility to society of all kinds of benevolence and
justice, why should the quality of those virtues involve the sense of
moral obligation?

Hume answers this question in the fifth section, entitled, _Why Utility
Pleases_. He repudiates the deduction of moral approbation from
self-love, and utterly denies that we approve of benevolent or just
actions because we think of the benefits which they are likely to confer
indirectly on ourselves. The source of the approbation with which we
view an act useful to society must be sought elsewhere; and, in fact, is
to be found in that feeling which is called sympathy.