the desire to punish, is thus, I conceive, the natural feeling of
retaliation or vengeance, rendered by intellect and sympathy applicable
to those injuries, that is, to those hurts, which wound us through, or
in common with, society at large. This sentiment, in itself, has nothing
moral in it; what is moral is, the exclusive subordination of it to the
social sympathies, so as to wait on and obey their call. For the natural
feeling tends to make us resent indiscriminately whatever any one does
that is disagreeable to us; but when moralized by the social feeling, it
only acts in the directions conformable to the general good; just
persons resenting a hurt to society, though not otherwise a hurt to
themselves, and not resenting a hurt to themselves, however painful,
unless it be of the kind which society has a common interest with them
in the repression of.

It is no objection against this doctrine to say, that when we feel our
sentiment of justice outraged, we are not thinking of society at large,
or of any collective interest, but only of the individual case. It is
common enough certainly, though the reverse of commendable, to feel
resentment merely because we have suffered pain; but a person whose
resentment is really a moral feeling, that is, who considers whether an
act is blameable before he allows himself to resent it--such a person,
though he may not say expressly to himself that he is standing up for
the interest of society, certainly does feel that he is asserting a rule
which is for the benefit of others as well as for his own. If he is not
feeling this--if he is regarding the act solely as it affects him
individually--he is not consciously just; he is not concerning himself
about the justice of his actions. This is admitted even by
anti-utilitarian moralists. When Kant (as before remarked) propounds as
the fundamental principle of morals, 'So act, that thy rule of conduct
might be adopted as a law by all rational beings,' he virtually