justice
The whole of duty towards others is not however comprehended in
justice. Conscience complains, if we have only not done injustice to
one in suffering. There is a new class of duties--_consolation,
charity, sacrifice_--to which indeed correspond no rights, and which
therefore are not so obligatory as justice, but which cannot be said
not to be obligatory. From their nature, they cannot be reduced to an
exact formula; their beauty lies in liberty. But in charity, he adds,
there is also a danger, from its effacing, to a certain extent, the
moral personality of the object of it. In acting upon others, we risk
interfering with their natural rights; charity is therefore to be
proportioned to the liberty and reason of the person benefited, and is
never to be made the means of usurping power over another.
