pened, that he eſcaped hanging, though he had deſerved it over and over a hundred times.
Pag. 168.
(19.) Nay, this rigorous Equality of the State of Nature, though practicable in civil Society, would claſh with diſtributive Juſtice; and as on the one hand all the Members of the State owe it Services in Proportion to their Talents and Abilities, they ſhould be diſtinguiſhed on the other in Proportion to the Services which they actually rendered to it. It is in this Senſe we muſt underſtand a Paſſage of Iſocrates, in which he extols the primitive Athenians for having diſtinguiſhed which of the two following kinds of Equality was the moſt uſeful, that which conſiſts in ſharing the ſame Advantages indifferently among all the Citizens, or that which conſiſts in diſtributing them to each according to his Merit. Theſe able Politicians, adds the Orator, baniſhing that unjuſt Inequality which makes no Difference between the Good and the Bad, inviolably adhered to that which rewards and puniſhes every Man according to his Merit. But in the firſt place there never exiſted a Society ſo corrupt as to make no Difference between the Good and the Bad; and in thoſe
