BOOK III PART II
nothing is more obvious, than the convention
for the observance of these rules. Nature has,
therefore, trusted this affair entirely to the con-
duct of men, and has not placed in the mind
any peculiar original principles, to determine
us to a set of actions, into which the other prin-
ciples of our frame and constitution were suffi-
cient to lead us. And to convince us the more
fully of this truth, we may here stop a moment,
and from a review of the preceding reasonings
may draw some new arguments, to prove that
those laws, however necessary, are entirely ar-
tificial, and of human invention; and conse-
quently that justice is an artificial, and not a
natural virtue.
(1) The first argument I shall make use of is
derived from the vulgar definition of justice.
Justice is commonly defined to be a constant