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THE RELATIVE DUTIES OF MANKIND. [Part III.

tending his affection to those with whom he is united by the tiesof so intimate a relationship. In reviewing the circumstanceswhich tend to strengthen this tie, Cicero adverts even to thecommon sepulchre, that is at last to enclose the bodies of themembers of the same family.* It is a touching reflection, thatthe bonds of affection and concord among members of the samefamily, should derive strength from the common receptacle whichis destined at last to contain their mortal remains. It is an af-fecting image and symbol, by which domestic unanimity andharmony are powerfully taught. Every dissension of man withman excites in us a feeling of painful incongruity. But we feelthat there is a peculiar incongruity in the discord of those whoseinterests are indissolubly the same, whom one roof has protectedduring life, and whose dust is at length to be mingled in a com-mon tomb.f

The duties of brotherhood and sisterhood, then, are the dutiesof a cordial intimacy and friendship, rendered more sacred bytheir common relationship to the parents from whom they havesprung, and to whom they owe common duties, as they havebeen the objects of common hopes, cares, labors, and anxieties.A brother has large resources in a brother’s attachment; a sis-ter in a sister’s. The mutual relation they bear, and the fact,that, the prosperity of the household being a common cause, thehonor or shame, the success or failure, of any member of itconcerns the rest, — authorize each to interest himself with theother by advice and remonstrance, or for him by interferencewith yet other persons. Moreover, each knows the other’s char-acter and history, his advantages and encouragements, deficiencesand dangers. A brother, therefore, can enter fully into a broth-er’s feelings, — a sister into a sister’s; and thus their mutualkindness may usually be better directed, more seasonable, and invarious ways more acceptable, and their sympathy, advice, oraid more profitable, than that of other friends.

A difference, in certain respects, has been remarked betweenthe affection of a brother and sister for one another, and thatwhich subsists between a brother for a brother, and a sister for a

* De Offieiis, Lib. I. c. 17. t Brown’s Philosophy, Vol. III. pp. 374, 375.