side.  This is a certain encouragement to each man to perform his own part, in hope that the other party concerned may do the same.  Still, the reciprocity occasionally fails, and with that the benefits to the just agent.  It is necessary to urge strongly upon individuals, to impress upon the young, the necessity of performing their duty to society; it is equally implied, and equally indispensable, that society should perform its part to them.  The suppressing of the correlative obligation of the State to the individual leaves a one-sided doctrine; the motive of the suppression, doubtless, is that society does not often fail of its duties to the individual, whereas individuals frequently fail of their duties to society.  This may be the fact generally, but not always.  It is not the fact where there are bad laws and corrupt administration.  It is not the fact where the restraints on liberty are greater than the exigencies of the State demand.  It is not the fact, so long as there is a single vestige of persecution for opinions.  To be thoroughly veracious, for example, in a society that restrains the discussion and expression of opinions, is more than such a society is entitled to.

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[PLEASURES OF BENEVOLENCE CONDITIONAL.]

The same fallacy occurs in an allied theme,—­the joys of Love and Benevolence.  That love and benevolence are productive of great happiness is beyond question; but then the feeling must be mutual, it must be reciprocated.  One-sided love or benevolence is a virtue, which is as much as to say it is not a pleasure.  The delights of benevolence are the delights of reciprocated benevolence; until reciprocated, in some form, the benevolent man has, strictly speaking, the sacrifice and nothing more.  There is a great reluctance to encounter this simple naked truth; to state it in theory, at least, for it is fully admitted in practice.  We fence it off by the assumption that benevolence will always have its reward somehow; that if the objects of it are ungrateful, others will make good the defect at last.  Now these qualifications are very pertinent, very suitable to be urged after allowing the plain truth, that benevolence is intrinsically a sacrifice, a painful act; and that this act is redeemed, and far more than redeemed, by a fair reciprocity of benevolence.  Only such an admission can keep us out of a mesh of contradictions.  Like justice in itself, Benevolence in itself is painful; any virtue is pain in the first instance, although, when equally responded to, it brings a surplus of pleasure.  There may be acts of a beneficent tendency that cost the performer nothing, or that even may chance to be agreeable; but these examples must not be given as the rule, or the type.  It is the essence of virtuous acts, the prevailing character of the class, to tax the agent, to deprive him of some satisfaction to himself; this is what we must start from; we are then in a position to explain how and when, and under what circumstances, and with what limitations, the virtuous man, whether his virtue be justice or benevolence, is from that cause a happy man.