[50]
16. The interests of society, however, and its1
common bonds will be best conserved, if kindness
be shown to each individual in proportion to the
closeness of his relationship.
But it seems we must trace back to their ultimate2
sources the principles of fellowship and society that
Nature has established among men. The first
principle is that which is found in the connection subsisting between all the members of the human race;
[p. 55]
and that bond of connection is reason and speech,
which by the processes of teaching and learning, of
communicating, discussing, and reasoning associate
men together and unite them in a sort of natural
fraternity. In no other particular are we farther removed from the nature of beasts; for we admit that
they may have courage (horses and lions, for example);
but we do not admit that they have justice, equity,
and goodness; for they are not endowed with reason
or speech.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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