Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/187

Rh Hume and Smith, were too prominent to escape altogether the notice of preceding moralists.

The circumstances which distinguish justice from the other virtues, are chiefly two. In the first place, its rules may he laid down with a degree of accuracy, whereof moral precepts do not, in any other instance, admit. Secondly, its rules may be enforced, inasmuch as every transgression of them implies a violation of the rights of others. For the illustration of both propositions, I must refer to the eminent authors just mentioned.

As, in the case of justice, there is always a right, on the one hand, corresponding to an obligation on the other, the various rules enjoined by it may be stated in two different forms; either as a system of duties, or as a system of rights. The former view of the subject belongs properly to the moralist—the latter to the lawyer. It is this last view that the writers on Natural Jurisprudence (most of whom were lawyers by profession) have in general chosen to adopt; although, in the same works, both views will be found to be not unfrequently blended together.

To some indistinct conception among the earlier writers on Natural Law, of these peculiarities in the nature of justice, we may probably ascribe the remarkable contrast pointed out by Mr Smith, between the ethical systems of ancient and of modern times. “In none of the ancient moralists,” he observes, “do we find any attempt towards a particular enumeration of the rules of justice. On the contrary, Cicero in his Offices, and Aristotle in his Ethics, treat of justice in the same general manner in which they treat of generosity or of charity.”

But, although the rules of justice are in every case precise and indispensable; and although their authority is altogether independent of that of the civil magistrate, it would obviously be absurd to spend much time in speculating about the principles of this natural law, as applicable to men, before the establishment of government. The same state of society which diversifies the condition of individuals to so great a degree as to suggest problematical questions with respect to their rights and their duties, necessarily gives birth to certain conventional laws or customs, by which the conduct of the different members of the association is to be guided; and agreeably to which the disputes that may arise among them are to be adjusted. The imaginary state referred to under the title of the State of Nature, though it certainly does not exclude the idea of a moral right of property arising from labour, yet it excludes all that variety of cases concerning its alienation