The first feature, then, in our moral nature is that impression of the great design of our Creator which furnishes us the means of deciding on the rectitude of all voluntary action.
The second feature of our moral constitution is what is ordinarily called the sense of justice. It is that susceptibility which is excited at the view of the conduct of others as voluntary causes of good or evil.
In all cases where free agents act to promote happiness, an emotion of approval arises, together with a desire of reward to the author of the good. On the contrary, when there is a voluntary destruction of happiness, there is an emotion of disapproval and a desire for retributive pain on the author of the wrong.
These emotions are instinctive, and not at all regulated by reason in their inception. When an evil is done, an instant desire is felt to discover the cause; and when it is found, an instant desire is felt to inflict some penalty. So irrational is this impulse, that children will exhibit anger and deal blows on inanimate objects that cause pain. Even mature minds are sometimes conscious of this impulse.
It is the office of the intellect to judge whether the deed was a voluntary one, whether the agent intended the mischief, and whether a penalty will be of any use. The impulse to punish is never preceded by any such calculations.
That this impulse is an implanted part of our constitution, and not the result of reason and experience, is seen in the delight manifested by young children in the narration of the nursery tale where the cruel uncle who murdered the Babes in the Wood receives the retributions of Heaven.
Another feature in this sense of justice is the proportion demanded between the evil done and the penalty inflicted. That this also is instinctive, and not the result of reason, is seen in the nursery, where children will approve of slight penalties for slight offenses, and severe ones for great ones, but will revolt from any very great disproportion between the wrong act and its penalty. As a general rule, both in the nursery and in the great family of mature minds, the greater the wrong done, the stronger the desire for a penalty, and the more severe the punishment demanded.
Another very important point of consideration is the universal feeling of mankind that the natural penalties for wrong-doing are not sufficient, and that it is an act of love as well as of justice to add to these penalties. Thus the parent who forbids his child to eat green fruit will not trust to the results of the natural penalty, but restrain by the fear of the immediate and more easily conceived penalty of chastisement.
So, in the great family of man, the natural penalties for theft are not deemed sufficient, but severe penalties for the protection of property are added.
This particular is the foundation of certain distinctions that are of great importance, which will now be pointed out.