the man who first saw an inhuman mur|der, committed from avarice, envy, or un|just resentment, and upon one too that loved and trusted the murderer, who be|held the last agonies of the dying person, who heard him, with his expiring breath, complain more of the perfidy and ingra|titude of his false friend, than of the vio|lence which had been done to him, there could be no occasion, in order to conceive how horrible such an action was, that he should reflect, that one of the most sacred rules of conduct was what prohibited the taking away the life of an innocent per|son, that this was a plain violation of that rule, and consequently a very blameable action. His detestation of this crime, it is evident, would arise instantaneously and antecedent to his having formed to himself any such general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, which he might afterwards form, would be founded upon the detesta|tion which he felt necessarily arise in his own breast, at the thought of this, and every other particular action of the same kind.
When we read in history or romance, the account of actions either of generosity
