If ten men are shipwrecked on a desert island,
they distribute whatever subsistence may remain to them, into equal
portions among themselves. If six of them conspire to deprive the
remaining four of their share, their conduct is termed unjust.
The existence of pain has been shown to be a circumstance which the
human mind regards with dissatisfaction, and of which it desires
the cessation. It is equally according to its nature to desire that
the advantages to be enjoyed by a limited number of persons should
be enjoyed equally by all. This proposition is supported by the
evidence of indisputable facts. Tell some ungarbled tale of a number
of persons being made the victims of the enjoyments of one, and he
who would appeal in favour of any system which might produce such
an evil to the primary emotions of our nature, would have nothing
to reply. Let two persons, equally strangers, make application for
some benefit in the possession of a third to bestow, and to which
he feels that they have an equal claim. They are both sensitive
beings; pleasure and pain affect them alike.
CHAPTER II
It is foreign to the general scope of this little treatise to encumber
a simple argument by controverting any of the trite objections of
habit or fanaticism. But there are two; the first, the basis of all
political mistake, and the second, the prolific cause and effect
of religious error, which it seems useful to refute.
First, it is inquired, 'Wherefore should a man be benevolent and
just?' The answer has been given in the preceding chapter.
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