particular hardships, or make beneficial consequences result from
every individual case. It is sufficient, if the whole plan or
scheme be necessary to the support of civil society, and if the
balance of good, in the main, do thereby preponderate much above
that of evil. Even the general laws of the universe, though
planned by infinite wisdom, cannot exclude all evil or
inconvenience in every particular operation.

It has been asserted by some, that justice arises from Human
Conventions, and proceeds from the voluntary choice, consent, or
combination of mankind. If by CONVENTION be here meant a PROMISE
(which is the most usual sense of the word) nothing can be more
absurd than this position. The observance of promises is itself
one of the most considerable parts of justice, and we are not
surely bound to keep our word because we have given our word to
keep it. But if by convention be meant a sense of common
interest, which sense each man feels in his own breast, which he
remarks in his fellows, and which carries him, in concurrence
with others, into a general plan or system of actions, which
tends to public utility; it must be owned, that, in this sense,
justice arises from human conventions. For if it be allowed (what
is, indeed, evident) that the particular consequences of a
particular act of justice may be hurtful to the public as well as
to individuals; it follows that every man, in embracing that
virtue, must have an eye to the whole plan or system, and must
expect the concurrence of his fellows in the same conduct and
behaviour. Did all his views terminate in the consequences of
each act of his own, his benevolence and humanity, as well as his
self-love, might often prescribe to him measures of conduct very
different from those which are agreeable to the strict rules of