determining property
The author next examines the _particular laws_ embodying justice and
determining property. He supposes a creature, having reason, but
unskilled in human nature, to deliberate with himself how to distribute
property. His most obvious thought would be to give the largest
possessions to the most virtuous, so as to give the power of doing good
where there was the most inclination. But so unpracticable is this
design, that although sometimes conceived, it is never executed; the
civil magistrate knows that it would be utterly destructive of human
society; sublime as may be the ideal justice that it supposes, he sets
it aside on the calculation of its bad consequences.
beercooler
