BOOK III PART II
ready made on this subject.
First, we may conclude from it, that a regard
to public interest, or a strong extensive benev-
olence, is not our first and original motive for
the observation of the rules of justice; since it is
allowed, that if men were endowed with such
a benevolence, these rules would never have
been dreamt of.
Secondly, we may conclude from the same
principle, that the sense of justice is not
founded on reason, or on the discovery of cer-
tain connexions and relations of ideas, which
are eternal, immutable, and universally oblig-
atory. For since it is confest, that such an al-
teration as that above-mentioned, in the tem-
per and circumstances of mankind, would en-
tirely alter our duties and obligations, it is nec-
essary upon the common system, that the sense