after-consequence, whether it be effected directly, or indirectly, through intermediate links. I shall therefore lay hands on the property as little as on the person of another, and avoid causing him distress, no less mental than bodily. I shall thus not only abstain from doing him physical injury, but also, with equal care I shall guard against inflicting on him the suffering of mind, which mortification and calumny, anxiety and vexation so surely work.

The same sense of Compassion will check me from gratifying my desires at the cost of women's happiness for life, or from seducing another man's wife, or from ruining youths morally and physically by tempting them to paederastia. Not that it is at all necessary in each single case that Compassion should be definitely excited; indeed it would often come too late; but rather