the weak, to curb the violent, and to chas|tize the guilty. Men, tho' naturally sym|pathetic, feel so little for another, with whom they have no particular connection, in comparison of what they feel for them|selves; the misery of one, who is merely their fellow-creature, is of so little impor|tance to them in comparison even of a small conveniency of their own; they have it so much in their power to hurt him, and may have so many temptations to do so, that if this principle did not stand up within them in his defence, and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would, like wild beasts, be at all times ready to fly up|on him; and a man would enter an assem|bly of men as he enters a den of lions.
In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to pro|duce; and in the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for advancing the two great pur|poses of nature, the support of the indivi|dual, and the propogation of the species. But in these, and in all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause of their several motions and organi|zations.
