cts. The qualities of the mind
are selfishness and limited generosity: And the situation of external
objects is their easy change, joined to their scarcity in comparison
of the wants and desires of men. But however philosophers may have
been bewildered in those speculations, poets have been guided more
infallibly, by a certain taste or common instinct, which in most kinds
of reasoning goes farther than any of that art and philosophy, with
which we have been yet acquainted. They easily perceived, if every man
had a tender regard for another, or if nature supplied abundantly all
our wants and desires, that the jealousy of interest, which justice
supposes, could no longer have place; nor would there be any occasion
for those distinctions and limits of property and possession, which at
present are in use among mankind. Encrease to a sufficient degree the
benevolence of men, or the bounty of nature, and you render justice
useless, by supplying its place with much nobler virtues, and more
valuable blessings. The selfishness of men is animated by the few
possessions we have, in proportion to our wants; and it is to restrain
this selfishness, that men have been obliged to separate themselves from
the community, and to distinguish betwixt their own goods and those of
others.

Nor need we have recourse to the fictions of poets to learn this; but
beside the reason of the thing, may discover the same truth by common
experience and observation. It is easy to remark, that a cordial
affection renders all things common among friends; and that married
people in particular mutually lose their property, and are unacquainted
with the mine and thine, which are so necessary, and yet cause such
disturbance in human society. The same effect arises from any alteration
in the circumstances of mankind; as when there is such a plenty of any
thing as satisfies all the desires of men: In which case the distinction
of property is entirely lost, and every thing remains in common. This
we may observe with regard to air and water, though the most valuable of
all external objects; and may easily conclude, that if men were supplied
with every thing in the same abundance, or if every one had the same
affection and tender regard for every one as for himself; justice and
injustice would be equally unknown among mankind.

Here then is a proposition, which, I think, may be regarded as certain,
that it is only from the selfishness and confined generosity of me