A Treatise of Human Nature

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BOOK III PART II


We come now to the second question we pro-
posed, viz. Why we annex the idea of virtue
to justice, and of vice to injustice. This ques-
tion will not detain us long after the princi-
ples, which we have already established, All
we can say of it at present will be dispatched
in a few words: And for farther satisfaction,
the reader must wait till we come to the third
part of this book. The natural obligation to
justice, viz, interest, has been fully explained;
but as to the moral obligation, or the sentiment
of right and wrong, it will first be requisite
to examine the natural virtues, before we can
give a full and satisfactory account of it. Af-
ter men have found by experience, that their
selfishness and confined generosity, acting at
their liberty, totally incapacitate them for soci-
ety; and at the same time have observed, that
society is necessary to the satisfaction of those

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