The word NATURAL is commonly taken in so many senses and is of so
loose a signification, that it seems vain to dispute whether
justice be natural or not. If self-love, if benevolence be
natural to man; if reason and forethought be also natural; then
may the same epithet be applied to justice, order, fidelity,
property, society. Men's inclination, their necessities, lead
them to combine; their understanding and experience tell them
that this combination is impossible where each governs himself by
no rule, and pays no regard to the possessions of others: and
from these passions and reflections conjoined, as soon as we
observe like passions and reflections in others, the sentiment of
justice, throughout all ages, has infallibly and certainly had
place to some degree or other in every individual of the human
species. In so sagacious an animal, what necessarily arises from
the exertion of his intellectual faculties may justly be esteemed
natural.

[Footnote: Natural may be opposed, either to what is UNUSUAL,
MIRACULOUS or ARTIFICIAL. In the two former senses, justice and
property are undoubtedly natural. But as they suppose reason,
forethought, design, and a social union and confederacy among
men, perhaps that epithet cannot strictly, in the last sense, be
applied to them. Had men lived without society, property had
never been known, and neither justice nor injustice had ever
existed. But society among human creatures had been impossible
without reason and forethought. Inferior animals, that unite, are
guided by instinct, which supplies the place for reason. But all
these disputes are merely verbal.]

Among all civilized nations it has been the constant endeavour to