the short coat to the other of smaller size. His governor
instructed him better, while he pointed out more enlarged views
and consequences, and informed his pupil of the general,
inflexible rules, necessary to support general peace and order in
society.

The happiness and prosperity of mankind, arising from the social
virtue of benevolence and its subdivisions, may be compared to a
wall, built by many hands, which still rises by each stone that
is heaped upon it, and receives increase proportional to the
diligence and care of each workman. The same happiness, raised by
the social virtue of justice and its subdivisions, may be
compared to the building of a vault, where each individual stone
would, of itself, fall to the ground; nor is the whole fabric
supported but by the mutual assistance and combination of its
corresponding parts.

All the laws of nature, which regulate property, as well as all
civil laws, are general, and regard alone some essential
circumstances of the case, without taking into consideration the
characters, situations, and connexions of the person concerned,
or any particular consequences which may result from the
determination of these laws in any particular case which offers.
They deprive, without scruple, a beneficent man of all his
possessions, if acquired by mistake, without a good title; in
order to bestow them on a selfish miser, who has already heaped
up immense stores of superfluous riches. Public utility requires
that property should be regulated by general inflexible rules;
and though such rules are adopted as best serve the same end of
public utility, it is impossible for them to prevent all