Chap. VIII.]

THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP.

253

this commission, we are induced to believe, that a compulsoryprovision for the relief of the indigent can be generally adminis-tered on a sound and well-defined principle ; and that, under theoperation of this principle, the assurance, that no one need perishfrom want, may be rendered more complete than at present, andthe mendicant and vagrant repressed by disarming them of theirweapon, — the plea of impending starvation.” * * * § To secure thisend, the new act of Parliament was framed, and the new systemis stated to be working well.f

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP.

The question was discussed as early as the time of Cicero,whether mankind are accustomed to associate by the influence ofa natural principle, or in consequence of the mutual aid whichthey may expect, and which they can most effectually give eachother, by living in society and cultivating social intercourse.^Cicero decides the question in favor of a social principle naturalto man, which leads him, independent of any expectation of aid,to associate with his kind ; and his decision has received thegeneral assent of those who have most extensively observedmankind. §

Social intercourse is seen in its highest perfection in the caseof permanent and disinterested friendship ; and every classicalscholar must have had his fancy enlivened, and his heart and im-agination warmed, in perusing the glowing descriptions of thesatisfaction and delight which attend it, as given by the classical

* Report of his (Britannic) Majesty’s Commissioners on the Poor-Laws,1834, p. 227.

t See First Annual Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners, 1835. On thewhole subject of almsgiving, the author has made much use of the AnnualReport of the Association of Benevolent Societies in Boston, for October, 1835,a very valuable and instructive document.

t De Officiis, Lib. I. c. 44.

§ See Ferguson’s Moral and Political Science, Vol. I. pp. 21 - 25.