Reverse the above suppositions, and imagine a society in such want that the utmost care is unable to prevent the greater number from perishing, and all from the extremes of misery, as in a shipwreck of a siege; in such circumstances, justice is suspended in favour of self-preservation; the possibility of good order is at an end, and Justice, the means, is discarded as useless.  Or, again, suppose a virtuous man to fall into a society of ruffians on the road to swift destruction; his sense of justice would be of no avail, and consequently he would arm himself with the first weapon he could seize, consulting self-preservation alone.  The ordinary punishment of criminals is, as regards them, a suspension of justice for the benefit of society.  A state of war is the remission of justice between the parties as of no use or application.  A civilized nation at war with barbarians must discard even the small relics of justice retained in war with other civilized nations.  Thus the rules of equity and justice depend on the condition that men are placed in, and are limited by their UTILITY in each separate state of things.  The common state of society is a medium between the extreme suppositions now made:  we have our self-partialities, but have learnt the value of equity; we have few enjoyments by nature, but a considerable number by industry.  Hence we have the ideas of Property; to these Justice is essential, and it thus derives its moral obligation.

The poetic fictions of the Golden Age, and the philosophic fictions of a State of Nature, equally adopt the same fundamental assumption; in the one, justice was unnecessary, in the other, it was inadmissible.  So, if there were a race of creatures so completely servile as never to contest any privilege with us, nor resent any infliction, which is very much our position with the lower animals, justice would have no place in our dealings with them.  Or, suppose once more, that each person possessed within himself every faculty for existence, and were isolated from every other; so solitary a being would be as incapable of justice as of speech.  The sphere of this duty begins with society; and extends as society extends, and as it contributes to the well-being of the individual members of society.

The author next examines the particular laws embodying justice and determining property.  He supposes a creature, having reason, but unskilled in human nature, to deliberate with himself how to distribute property.  His most obvious thought would be to give the largest possessions to the most virtuous, so as to give the power of doing good where there was the most inclination.  But so unpracticable is this design, that although sometimes conceived, it is never executed; the civil magistrate knows that it would be utterly destructive of human society; sublime as may be the ideal justice that it supposes, he sets it aside on the calculation of its bad consequences.