Seeing also that, with nature’s liberality, were all her gifts equally distributed, every one would have so good a share that no one would have a title to complain; and seeing, farther, that this is the only type of perfect equality or ideal justice—­there is no good ground for falling short of it but the knowledge that the attempt would be pernicious to society.  The writers on the Law of Nature, whatever principles they begin with, must assign as the ultimate reason of law the necessities and convenience of mankind.  Uninstructed nature could never make the distinction between mine and yours; it is a purely artificial product of society.  Even when this distinction is established, and justice requires it to be adhered to, yet we do not scruple in extraordinary cases to violate justice in an individual case for the safety of the people at large.

When the interests of society require a rule of justice, but do not indicate any rule in particular, the resort is to some analogy with a rule already established on grounds of the general interest.

For determining what is a man’s property, there may be many statutes, customs, precedents, analogies, some constant and inflexible, some variable and arbitrary, but all professedly terminating in the interests of human society.  But for this, the laws of property would be undistinguishable from the wildest superstitions.

Such a reference, instead of weakening the obligations of justice, strengthens them.  What stronger foundations can there be for any duty than that, without it, human nature could not subsist; and that, according as it is observed, the degrees of human happiness go on increasing?

Either Justice is evidently founded on Utility, or our regard for it is a simple instinct like hunger, resentment, or self-preservation.  But on this last supposition, property, the subject-matter, must be also discerned by an instinct; no such instinct, however, can be affirmed.  Indeed, no single instinct would suffice for the number of considerations entering into a fact so complex.  To define Inheritance and Contract, a hundred volumes of laws are not enough; how then can nature embrace such complications in the simplicity of an instinct.  For it is not laws alone that we must have, but authorized interpreters.  Have we original ideas of praetors, and chancellors, and juries?

Instincts are uniform in their operation; birds of a species build their nests alike.  The laws of states are uniform to about the same extent as houses, which must have a roof and walls, windows and chimneys, because the end in view demands certain essentials; but beyond these, there is every conceivable diversity.

It is true that, by education and custom, we blame injustice without thinking of its ultimate consequences.  So universal are the rules of justice, from the universality of its end, that we approve of it mechanically.  Still, we have often to recur to the final end, and to ask, What must become of the world if such practices prevail?  How could society subsist under such disorders?