The house of Lancaster ruled in this island about sixty years, yet the
partisans of the white rose seemed daily to multiply in England. The
present establishment has taken place during a still longer period.
Have all views of right in another family been extinguished, even
though scarce any man now alive had arrived at years of discretion
when it was expelled, or could have consented to its dominion, or have
promised it allegiance? A sufficient indication surely of the general
sentiment of mankind on this head. For we blame not the partisans
of the abdicated family merely on account of the long time during
which they have preserved their imaginary fidelity; we blame them for
adhering to a family which, we affirm, has been justly expelled, and
which, from the moment the new settlement took place, had forfeited all
title to authority.
But would we have a more regular, at least a more philosophical,
refutation of this principle of an original contract or popular
consent, perhaps the following observations may suffice.
All moral duties may be divided into two kinds. The first are those to
which men are impelled by a natural instinct or immediate propensity
which operates in them, independent of all ideas of obligation and of
all views, either to public or private utility. Of this nature are
love of children, gratitude to benefactors, pity to the unfortunate.
When we reflect on the advantage which results to society from such
humane instincts, we pay them the just tribute of moral approbation and
esteem; but the person actuated by them feels their power and influence
antecedent to any such reflection.
The second kind of moral duties are such as are not supported by any
original instinct of nature, but are performed entirely from a sense
of obligation, when we consider the necessities of human society and
the impossibility of supporting it if these duties were neglected. It
is thus justice or a regard to the property of others, fidelity or the
observance of promises, become obligatory and acquire an authority over
mankind. For as it is evident that every man loves himself better than
any other person, he is naturally impelled to extend his acquisitions
as much as possible; and nothing can restrain him in this propensity
but reflection and experience, by which he learns the pernicious
effects of that licence and the total dissolution of society which must
ensue from it. His original inclination, therefore, or instinct, is
here checked and restrained by a subsequent judgment or observation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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