is the object of our love, is distinguished by tendencies
of an amiable nature, which we expect to see manifesting themselves in
affectionate attentions and acts of kindness. Even the admiration we
entertain for the features, the figure, and personal graces of the
object of our regard, is mixed with and heightened by our expectation of
actions and tones that generate approbation, and, if divested of this,
would be of small signification or permanence. In like manner in
the ties of affinity, or in cases where we are impelled by the
consideration, "He also is a man as well as I," the excitement will
carry us but a little way, unless we discover in the being towards whom
we are moved some peculiarities which may beget a moral partiality and
regard.

And, as towards our fellow-creatures, so in relation to ourselves, our
moral sentiments are all involved with, and take their rise in, the
delusive sense of liberty. It is in this that is contained the peculiar
force of the terms virtue, duty, guilt and desert. We never pronounce
these words without thinking of the action to which they refer, as that
which might or might not be done, and therefore unequivocally approve
or disapprove in ourselves and others. A virtuous man, as the term
is understood by all, as soon as we are led to observe upon those
qualities, and the exhibition of those qualities in actual life, which
constitute our nature, is a man who, being in full possession of the
freedom of human action, is engaged in doing those things which a sound
judgment of the tendencies of what we do pronounces to be good.

Duty is a term that can scarcely be said to have a meaning, except that
which it derives from the delusive sense of liberty. According to the
creed of the necessarian, it expresses that mode of action on the part
of the individual, which constitutes the best possible application of
his capacity to the general benefit(30). In the mean time, if we confine
ourselves to this definition, it may as well be taken to describe the
best application of a knife, or any other implement proceeding from the
hands of the manufacturer, as of the powers of a human being.

But we surely have a very different idea in our minds, when we employ
the term duty. It is not agreeable to the use of language that we should
use this term, except we speak of a being in the exercise of volition.

(30) Political Justice, Book II, Chap. IV.

Duty then means that which may justly be r