Chapter 62

our nature. Human beings are dependent upon one another for mutual assistance, and are exposed to mutual injuries. Society might exist without love or beneficence, but not without mutual abstinence from injury. Beneficence is the ornament that embellishes the building; Justice the main pillar that supports it. It is for the observance of Justice that we need that consciousness of ill-desert, and those terrors of mental punishment, growing out of our sympathy with the disapprobation of our fellows. Justice is necessary to the existence of society, and we often defend its dictates on that ground; but, without looking to such a remote and comprehensive end, we are plunged into remorse for its violation by the shorter process of referring to the censure of a supposed spectator [in other words, to the sanction of public opinion].

_Section III.--Of the influence of Fortune upon the sentiments of mankind, with regard to the Merit and the Demerit of actions_.

Every voluntary action consists of three parts:--(1) the Intention or motive, (2) the Mechanism, as when we lift the hand, and give a blow, and (3) the Consequences. It is, in principle, admitted by all, that only the first, the Intention, can be the subject of blame. The Mechanism is in itself indifferent. So the Consequences cannot be properly imputed to the agent, unless intended by him. On this last point, however, mankind do not always adhere to their general maxim; when they come to particular cases, they are influenced, in their estimate of merit and demerit, by the actual consequences of the action.