destructive of society" unless balanced by considerations of justice.

And what he therein intended may be gathered from the liberal notions of equality he manifested.

"Every person," he wrote in a famous passage, "if possible ought to enjoy the fruits of his labor in a full possession of all the necessaries, and many of the conveniences of life.

No one can doubt but such an equality is most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less the happiness of the rich than it adds to that of the poor." It is clear that we have moved far from the narrow confines of the old political arithmetic.

The theory of utility enables Hume to see the scope of economics--the word itself he did not know--in a more generous perspective than at any previous time.