The first Spring of Injustice is Pride. Children, as I have just observed, have their Minds impressed with a Love of Riches; whence naturally follows an undue Degree of Self-esteem, accompany’d with a Love of Power, Show, and Dignity: now to effect these, a thousand Stratagems are used; every Obstacle which stands in the Way to Wealth or Preferment must be overturned; every Difficulty must be removed. Hence it is easy to see that unjust Means will often be used to gain the desired End; and hence it is plain that those who ascend by indirect and violent Measures, crush down many others as they pass. Parents therefore to obviate this, must teach their Children that nothing can be lawful which injures others; that they may indeed arrive at Honours and acquire Riches; but that unless they are obtained without Guilt, and possessed without Pride, they cannot be just: for even allowing that no undue Means are used to support our Pride, there is Injustice riveted to the Vice itself; for the Proud, to raise themselves, always attempt to depress or debase others.
Another Cause of Injustice is Sloth. Providence has created us to labour; the Head, the Hands, the Feet, all are given to answer in some Degree the same End; that is, the Preservation of ourselves, and the Benefit of others. None are born to be idle, none who are so can with any Truth be said to fill up Life as they ought. Those who have Talents are bound to cultivate them as far as they have Opportunity, that they may counsel, instruct, or assist others: those who have Fortune cannot without Injustice neglect the Care, the Improvement, and the Distribution of it: those who have no Fortune, but enjoy Health and Limbs, are Robbers of Society if they refuse to work: and indeed among the various Objects of Sloth, those who exercise neither Head, nor Hands, nor Feet, but lounge and fawn and beg for a Subsistence, no Matter whether in Rags or Finery, are of all others the most mean, at the same time that they are grossly unjust. The Virtues opposite to this are, Industry, Application, and Oeconomy; which Parents must raise in their Children betimes, and cherish with Zeal and Pains.
A third Source of Injustice is Lust. What I have before said of an universal Regard to Decency both in Words and Actions must not be confined to the State of Childhood, but be enforced by Parents on their Children as Rules that are never to be departed from; since what is in it’s Nature wrong, nothing can make right: for if Innocence be a Virtue, which even the abandoned will hardly dispute, every Deviation from it must be more or less a Vice. As this then is a settled point, enlarging on it here is needless; my only Aim on this Head being to make some Reflections on the Vice when manifestly attended with Injustice.
