XXIX. In examining the different degrees of guilt, we ought to take into the account the motives which impelled the offender to commit the act--the motives, which ought to have restrained him therefrom, and how far he was capable of yielding to either. Scarce any one does a wicked action without some motive, or so far strips himself of the nature of man, as to delight in such acts from pure malignity. Most men are led away by the indulgence of their appetites, which engender sin. Under the name of appetite also may be comprehended the strong desire of avoiding evil, which is the most consonant to nature, and therefore to be reckoned amongst the most laudable of all desires. So that offences committed for the sake of avoiding death, imprisonment, pain, or extreme want are generally deemed the most excusable. Which gave occasion to Demosthenes to say, "that we are justly more exasperated against those, who, abounding in riches, commit evil actions, than against those, who are impelled by want to do the same. Humane judges are always ready to make allowance for necessity: but where wealth is united with injustice, no pretext can be pleaded in excuse." On this score, Polybius excuses the Acarnanians, for having neglected, when threatened with impending danger themselves, to fulfil the terms of a defensive treaty made with the Greeks against the Aetolians. Besides the desire of avoiding evil there are other desires tending to some good, either real or imaginary. Real advantages, considered apart from virtues, and those actions, which have a virtuous tendency, are either such as give delight themselves, or, like abundance of riches, can procure those things, which administer to pleasure. Among advantages purely imaginary, we may reckon that of desiring to excel others, from a spirit of rivalry, rather than from any laudable intention, or the power of gratifying resentments, which the farther they deviate from natural justice the more shocking they are to natural feeling. These appetites the Apostle has described in terms of marked censure, calling them, the "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life." Here the first member of the sentence expresses the love of pleasure, the second implies the insatiable love of riches, and the third comprehends the pursuit of vain glory, and the desire of revenge. XXX. The very injustice of all offences ought to be a GENERAL motive with men, to restrain them from the commission of them. For at present we are not considering sins of any kind, but those, which extend their consequences beyond the offender himself, and affect others. And injustice is the more heinous and criminal in proportion to the greatness of the injury, which it inflicts.