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Title: The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men
Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of
Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is
Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.
Author: Adam Smith
Release Date: February 8, 2022 [eBook #67363]
Language: English
Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THEORY OF MORAL
SENTIMENTS ***
THE
THEORY
OF
MORAL SENTIMENTS;
OR,
AN ESSAY
TOWARDS
An ANALYSIS of the PRINCIPLES by which MEN naturally judge concerning
the CONDUCT and CHARACTER, first of their NEIGHBOURS, and afterwards of
THEMSELVES.
TO WHICH IS ADDED,
A DISSERTATION
ON THE
ORIGIN OF LANGUAGES.
BY ADAM SMITH, L.L.D. F.R.S.
Formerly Professor of Philosophy in the University of Glasgow; and
Author of the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations.
THE SIXTH EDITION.
DUBLIN:
Printed for J. BEATTY and C. JACKSON, No. 32, SKINNER-ROW.
M,DCC,LXXVII.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
Of the Propriety of Action.
SECTION I.
Of the sense of propriety Page
1.
CHAP. I. _Of Sympathy_ ibid.
CHAP. II. _Of the Pleasure of mutual Sympathy_ 9
CHAP. III. _Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or
impropriety of the affections of other men, by their concord or
dissonance with our own_ 14
CHAP. IV. _The same subject continued_ 19
CHAP. V. _Of the amiable and respectable virtues_ 27
SECTION II.
Of the degrees of the different passions which are consistent
with propriety 33
CHAP. I. _Of the passions which take their origin from the body_ 34
CHAP. II. _Of those passions which take their origin from a
particular turn or habit of the imagination_ 41
CHAP. III. _Of the unsocial passions_ 46
CHAP. IV. _Of the social passions_ 54
CHAP. V. _Of the selfish passions_ 58
SECTION III.
Of the effects of prosperity and adversity upon the judgment of
mankind with regard to the propriety of action; and why it is
more easy to obtain their approbation in the one state than in
the other 64
CHAP. I. _That though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a
more lively sensation than our sympathy with joy, it commonly
falls much more short of the violence of what is naturally felt
by the person principally concerned_ ibid.
CHAP. II. _Of the origin of ambition, and of the distinction of
ranks_ 74
CHAP. III. _Of the stoical philosophy_ 89
PART II.
Of Merit and Demerit; or of the objects of reward and punishment.
SECTION I.
Of the sense of merit and demerit 97
CHAP. I. _That whatever appears to be the proper object of
gratitude, appears to deserve reward; and that, in the same
manner, whatever appears to be the proper object of resentment,
appears to deserve punishment_ 98
CHAP. II. _Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment_ 102
CHAP. III. _That where there is no approbation of the conduct of
the person who confers the benefit, there is little sympathy
with the gratitude of him who receives it: and that, on the
contrary, where there is no disapprobation of the motives of
the person who does the mischief, there is no sort of sympathy
with the resentment of him who suffers it_ 106
CHAP. IV. _Recapitulation of the foregoing chapters_ 109
CHAP. V. _The analysis of the sense of merit and demerit_ 112
SECTION II.
Of justice and beneficence 119
CHAP. I. _Comparison of those two virtues_ ibid.
CHAP. II. _Of the sense of justice, of remorse, and of the
consciousness of merit_ 126
CHAP. III. _Of the utility of this constitution of nature_ 132
SECTION III.
Of the influence of fortune upon the sentiments of mankind, with
regard to the merit or demerit of actions 145
CHAP. I. _Of the causes of this influence of fortune_ 148
CHAP. II. _Of the extent of this influence of fortune_ 154
CHAP. III. _Of the final cause of this irregularity of
sentiments_ 167
PART III.
Of the foundation of our judgments concerning our own sentiments and
conduct, and of the sense of duty.
CHAP. I. _Of the consciousness of merited praise or blame_ 173
CHAP. II. _In what manner our own judgments refer to what ought
to be the judgments of others: and of the origin of general
rules_ 180
CHAP. III. _Of the influence and authority of the general rules
of morality, and that they are justly regarded as the laws of
the Deity_ 207
CHAP. IV. _In what cases the sense of duty ought to be the sole
principle of our conduct; and in what cases it ought to concur
with other motives_ 223
PART IV.
Of the effect of utility upon the sentiments of approbation.
CHAP. I. _Of the beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows
upon all the productions of art, and of the extensive influence
of this species of beauty_ 237
CHAP. II. _Of the beauty which the appearance of utility bestows
upon the characters and actions of men; and how far the
perception of this beauty may be regarded as one of the
original principles of approbation_ 250
PART V.
Of the influence of custom and fashion upon the sentiments of moral
approbation and disapprobation.
CHAP. I. _Of the influence of custom and fashion upon our notions
of beauty and deformity_ 261
CHAP. II. _Of the influence of custom and fashion upon moral
sentiments_ 271
PART VI.
Of Systems of Moral Philosophy.
SECTION I.
Of the questions which ought to be examined in a theory of moral
sentiments 291
SECTION II.
Of the different accounts which have been given of the nature of
virtue 294
CHAP. I. _Of those systems which make virtue consist in
propriety_ 295
CHAP. II. _Of those systems which make virtue consist in
prudence_ 311
CHAP. III. _Of those systems which make virtue consist in
benevolence_ 321
CHAP. IV. _Of licentious systems_ 331
SECTION III.
Of the different systems which have been formed concerning the
principle of approbation 345
CHAP. I. _Of those systems which deduce the principle of
approbation from self-love_ 346
CHAP. II. _Of those systems which make reason the principle of
approbation_ 350
CHAP. III. _Of those systems which make sentiment the principle
of approbation_ 356
SECTION IV.
Of the manner in which different authors have treated of the
practical rules of morality 367
_Considerations concerning the first formation of languages, and
the different genius of original and compound languages_ 389
PART I.
Of the PROPRIETY of ACTION.
Consisting of three Sections.
SECTION I.
Of the SENSE of PROPRIETY.
CHAP. I.
_Of_ SYMPATHY.
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some
principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others,
and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing
from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or
compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we
either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That
we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact
too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment,
like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means
confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it
with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most
hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form
no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what
we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our brother is
upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will
never inform us of what he suffers. They never did and never can carry
us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can
form any conception of what are his sensations. Neither can that faculty
help us to this any other way, than by representing to us what would be
our own, if we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own senses
only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination
we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all
the same torments, we enter as it were into his body and become in some
measure him, and thence form some idea of his sensations and even feel
something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them.
His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have
thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we
then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. For as to be
in pain or distress of any kind excites the most excessive sorrow, so to
conceive or to imagine that we are in it, excites some degree of the
same emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dullness of the
conception.
That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery of others,
that it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer, that we come
either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels, may be
demonstrated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought
sufficiently evident of itself. When we see a stroke aimed and just
ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink
and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel
it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob,
when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and
twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel
that they themselves must do if in his situation. Persons of delicate
fibres and a weak constitution of body, complain that in looking on the
sores and ulcers which are exposed by beggars in the streets, they are
apt to feel an itching or uneasy sensation in the correspondent part of
their own bodies. The horror which they conceive at the misery of those
wretches affects that particular part in themselves more than any other;
because that horror arises from conceiving what they themselves would
suffer, if they really were the wretches whom they are looking upon, and
if that particular part in themselves was actually affected in the same
miserable manner. The very force of this conception is sufficient, in
their feeble frames, to produce that itching or uneasy sensation
complained of. Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon
sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which
proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man
more delicate than any other part of the body is in the weakest.
Neither is it those circumstances only, which create pain or sorrow,
that call forth our fellow-feeling. Whatever is the passion which arises
from any object in the person principally concerned, an analogous
emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the breast of
every attentive spectator. Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes
of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as our grief for
their distress, and our fellow-feeling with their misery is not more
real than that with their happiness. We enter into their gratitude
towards those faithful friends who did not desert them in their
difficulties; and we heartily go along with their resentment against
those perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived them. In
every passion of which the mind of man is susceptible, the emotions of
the by-stander always correspond to what, by bringing the case home to
himself, he imagines, should be the sentiments of the sufferer.
Pity and compassion are words appropriated to signify our fellow-feeling
with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, though its meaning was, perhaps,
originally the same, may now, however, without much impropriety, be made
use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever.
Upon some occasions sympathy may seem to arise merely from the view of a
certain emotion in another person. The passions, upon some occasions,
may seem to be transfused from one man to another, instantaneously, and
antecedent to any knowledge of what excited them in the person
principally concerned. Grief and joy, for example, strongly expressed in
the look and gestures of any one, at once affect the spectator with some
degree of a like painful or agreeable emotion. A smiling face is, to
every body that sees it, a chearful object; as a sorrowful countenance,
on the other hand, is a melancholy one.
This, however, does not hold universally, or with regard to every
passion. There are some passions of which the expressions excite no sort
of sympathy, but before we are acquainted with what gave occasion to
them, serve rather to disgust and provoke us against them. The furious
behavior of an angry man is more likely to exasperate us against himself
than against his enemies. As we are unacquainted with his provocation,
we cannot bring his case home to ourselves, nor conceive any thing like
the passions which it excites. But we plainly see what is the situation
of those with whom he is angry, and to what violence they may be exposed
from so enraged an adversary. We readily, therefore, sympathize with
their fear or resentment, and are immediately disposed to take part
against the man from whom they appear to be in so much danger.
If the very appearances of grief and joy inspire us with some degree of
the like emotions, it is because they suggest to us the general idea of
some good or bad fortune that has befallen the person in whom we observe
them: and in these passions this is sufficient to have some little
influence upon us. The effects of grief and joy terminate in the person
who feels those emotions, of which the expressions do not, like those of
resentment, suggest to us the idea of any other person for whom we are
concerned, and whose interests are opposite to his. The general idea of
good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some concern for the person who
has met with it, but the general idea of provocation excites no sympathy
with the anger of the man who has received it. Nature, it seems, teaches
us to be more averse to enter into this passion, and, till informed of
its cause, to be disposed rather to take part against it.
Even our sympathy with the grief or joy of another, before we are
informed of the cause of either, is always extremely imperfect. General
lamentations, which express nothing but the anguish of the sufferer,
create rather a curiosity to inquire into his situation, along with some
disposition to sympathize with him, than any actual sympathy that is
very sensible. The first question which we ask is, What has befallen
you? Till this be answered, tho’ we are uneasy both from the vague idea
of his misfortune, and still more from torturing ourselves with
conjectures about what it may be, yet our fellow-feeling is not very
considerable.
Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the
passion, as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes
feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether
incapable; because when we put ourselves in his case, that passion
arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his
from the reality. We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another,
though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own
behavior; because we cannot help feeling with what confusion we
ourselves should be covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.
Of all the calamities to which the condition of mortality exposes
mankind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have the least spark
of humanity, by far the most dreadful, and they behold that last stage
of human wretchedness with deeper commiseration than any other. But the
poor wretch, who is in it, laughs and sings perhaps, and is altogether
insensible of his own misery. The anguish which humanity feels,
therefore, at the sight of such an object, cannot be the reflection of
any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must
arise altogether from the consideration of what he himself would feel if
he was reduced to the same unhappy situation, and, what perhaps is
impossible, was at the same time able to regard it with his present
reason and judgment.
What are the pangs of a mother when she hears the moanings of her infant
that during the agony of disease cannot express what it feels? In her
idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its real helplessness, her own
consciousness of that helplessness, and her own terrors for the unknown
consequences of its disorder; and out of all these, forms, for her own
sorrow, the most complete image of misery and distress. The infant,
however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can
never be great. With regard to the future it is perfectly secure, and in
its thoughtlessness and want of foresight possesses an antidote against
fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human breast, from which
reason and philosophy will in vain attempt to defend it when it grows up
to a man.
We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real
importance in their situation, that awful futurity which awaits them, we
are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our senses, but
can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think,
to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be shut out from life and
conversation; to be laid in the cold grave, a prey to corruption and the
reptiles of the earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be
obliterated in a little time from the affections and almost from the
memory of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we
can never feel too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a
calamity. The tribute of our fellow-feeling seems doubly due to them
now, when they are in danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the
vain honors which we pay to their memory, we endeavor, for our own
misery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their
misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation seems to be
an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is
unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other distress, the regret,
the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort to
them, serves only to exasperate our sense of their misery. The happiness
of the dead, however, most assuredly, is affected by none of these
circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things which can ever
disturb the profound security of their repose. The idea of that dreary
and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their
condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has
been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our
putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be
allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and
thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. It is from
this very illusion of the imagination, that the foresight of our own
dissolution is so terrible to us, and that the idea of those
circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead,
makes us miserable while we are alive. And from thence arises one of the
most important principles in human nature, the dread of death, the great
poison to the happiness, but the great restraint upon the injustice of
mankind, which, while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards
and protects the society.
CHAP. II.
_Of the Pleasure of mutual Sympathy._
But whatever may be the cause of sympathy, or however it may be excited,
nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men a fellow-feeling
with all the emotions of our own breast; nor are we ever so much shocked
as by the appearance of the contrary. Those who are fond of deducing all
our sentiments from certain refinements of self-love, think themselves
at no loss to account, according to their own principles, both for this
pleasure and this pain. Man, say they, conscious of his own weakness and
of the need which he has for the assistance of others, rejoices whenever
he observes that they adopt his own passions, because he is then assured
of that assistance; and grieves whenever he observes the contrary,
because he is then assured of their opposition. But both the pleasure
and the pain are always felt so instantaneously, and often upon such
frivolous occasions, that it seems evident that neither of them can be
derived from any such self-interested consideration. A man is mortified
when, after having endeavored to divert the company, he looks round and
sees that no body laughs at his jests but himself. On the contrary, the
mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards this
correspondence of their sentiments with his own as the greatest
applause.
Neither does his pleasure seem to arise altogether from the additional
vivacity which his mirth may receive from sympathy with theirs, nor his
pain from the disappointment he meets with when he misses this pleasure;
though both the one and the other, no doubt, do in some measure. When we
have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any
amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in
reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty; we
enter into the surprise and admiration which it naturally excites in
him, but which it is no longer capable of exciting in us; we consider
all the ideas which it presents rather in the light in which they appear
to him, than in that in which they appear to ourselves, and we are
amused by sympathy with his amusement which thus enlivens our own. On
the contrary, we should be vexed if he did not seem to be entertained
with it, and we could no longer take any pleasure in reading it to him.
It is the same case here. The mirth of the company, no doubt, enlivens
our own mirth, and their silence, no doubt, disappoints us. But though
this may contribute both to the pleasure which we derive from the one,
and to the pain which we feel from the other, it is by no means the sole
cause of either; and this correspondence of the sentiments of others
with our own appears to be a cause of pleasure, and the want of it a
cause of pain, which cannot be accounted for in this manner. The
sympathy, which my friends express with my joy, might, indeed, give me
pleasure by enlivening that joy: but that which they express with my
grief could give me none, if it served only to enliven that grief.
Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by
presenting another source of satisfaction; and it alleviates grief by
insinuating into the heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it
is at that time capable of receiving.
It is to be observed accordingly, that we are still more anxious to
communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our agreeable passions,
that we derive still more satisfaction from their sympathy with the
former than from that with the latter, and that we are still more
shocked by the want of it.
How are the unfortunate relieved when they have sound out a person to
whom they can communicate the cause of their sorrow? Upon his sympathy
they seem to disburthen themselves of a part of their distress: he is
not improperly said to share it with them. He not only feels a sorrow of
the same kind with that which they feel, but as if he had derived a part
of it to himself, what he feels seems to alleviate the weight of what
they feel. Yet by relating their misfortunes, they in some measure renew
their grief. They awaken in their memory the remembrance of those
circumstances which occasion their affliction. Their tears accordingly
flow faster than before, and they are apt to abandon themselves to all
the weakness of sorrow. They take pleasure, however, in all this, and,
it is evident, are sensibly relieved by it; because the sweetness of his
sympathy more than compensates the bitterness of that sorrow, which, in
order to excite that sympathy, they had thus enlivened and renewed. The
cruelest insult, on the contrary, which can be offered to the
unfortunate, is to appear to make light of their calamities. To seem not
to be affected with the joy of our companions is but want of politeness;
but not to wear a serious countenance when they tell us their
afflictions, is real and gross inhumanity.
Love is an agreeable, resentment a disagreeable passion; and accordingly
we are not half so anxious that our friends should adopt our
friendships, as that they should enter into our resentments. We can
forgive them though they seem to be little affected with the favors
which we may have received, but lose all patience if they seem
indifferent about the injuries which may have been done to us: nor are
we half so angry with them for not entering into our gratitude, as for
not sympathizing with our resentment. They can easily avoid being
friends to our friends, but can hardly avoid being enemies to those with
whom we are at variance. We seldom resent their being at enmity with the
first, though upon that account we may sometimes affect to make an
awkward quarrel with them; but we quarrel with them in good earnest if
they live in friendship with the last. The agreeable passions of love
and joy can satisfy and support the heart without any auxiliary
pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions of grief and resentment more
strongly require the healing consolation of sympathy.
As the person who is principally interested in any event is pleased with
our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we, too, seem to be pleased
when we are able to sympathize with him, and to be hurt when we are
unable to do so. We run not only to congratulate the successful, but to
condole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which we find in the
conversation of one whom in all the passions of his heart we can
entirely sympathize with, seems to do more than compensate the
painfulness of that sorrow with which the view of his situation affects
us. On the contrary, it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot
sympathize with him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption
from sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his
uneasiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which,
however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we feel, can produce
no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked at his grief; and,
because we cannot enter into it, call it pusillanimity and weakness. It
gives us the spleen, on the other hand, to see another too happy or too
much elevated, as we call it, with any little piece of good fortune. We
are disobliged even with his joy, and, because we cannot go along with
it, call it levity and folly. We are even put out of humor if our
companion laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves;
that is, than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.
CHAP. III.
_Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of the
affections of other men, by their concord or dissonance with our own._
When the original passions of the person principally concerned are in
perfect concord with the sympathetic emotions of the spectator, they
necessarily appear to this last just and proper, and suitable to their
objects; and, on the contrary, when, upon bringing the case home to
himself, he finds that they do not coincide with what he feels, they
necessarily appear to him unjust and improper, and unsuitable to the
causes which excite them. To approve of the passions of another,
therefore, as suitable to their objects, is the same thing as to observe
that we entirely sympathize with them; and not to approve of them as
such, is the same thing as to observe that we do not entirely sympathize
with them. The man who resents the injuries that have been done to me,
and observes that I resent them precisely as he does, necessarily
approves of my resentment. The man whose sympathy keeps time to my
grief, cannot but admit the reasonableness of my sorrow. He who admires
the same poem, or the same picture, and admires them exactly as I do,
must surely allow the justness of my admiration. He who laughs at the
same joke, and laughs along with me, cannot well deny the propriety of
my laughter. On the contrary, the person who, upon these different
occasions, either feels no such emotion as that which I feel, or feels
none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot avoid disapproving my
sentiments on account of their dissonance with his own. If my animosity
goes beyond what the indignation of my friend can correspond to; if my
grief exceeds what his most tender compassion can go along with; if my
admiration is either too high or too low to tally with his own; if I
laugh loud and heartily when he only smiles, or, on the contrary, only
smile when he laughs loud and heartily; in all these cases, as soon as
he comes from considering the object, to observe how I am affected by
it, according as there is more or less disproportion between his
sentiments and mine, I must incur a greater or less degree of his
disapprobation: and upon all occasions his own sentiments are the
standards and measures by which he judges of mine.
To approve of another man’s opinions is to adopt those opinions, and to
adopt them is to approve of them. If the same arguments which convince
you convince me likewise, I necessarily approve of your conviction; and
if they do not, I necessarily disapprove of it: neither can I possibly
conceive that I should do the one without the other. To approve or
disapprove, therefore, of the opinions of others is acknowledged, by
every body, to mean no more than to observe their agreement or
disagreement with our own. But this is equally the case with regard to
our approbation or disapprobation of the sentiments or passions of
others.
There are, indeed, some cases in which we seem to approve without any
sympathy or correspondence of sentiments, and in which, consequently,
the sentiment of approbation would seem to be different from the
perception of this coincidence. A little attention, however, will
convince us that even in these cases our approbation is ultimately
founded upon a sympathy or correspondence of this kind. I shall give an
instance in things of a very frivolous nature, because in them the
judgments of mankind are less apt to be perverted by wrong systems. We
may often approve of a jest, and think the laughter of the company quite
just and proper, though we ourselves do not laugh, because, perhaps, we
are in a grave humour, or happen to have our attention engaged with
other objects. We have learned, however, from experience, what sort of
pleasantry as upon most occasions capable of making us laugh, and we
observe that this is one of that kind. We approve, therefore, of the
laughter of the company, and feel that it is natural and suitable to its
object; because, though in our present mood we cannot easily enter into
it, we are sensible that upon most occasions we should very heartily
join in it.
The same thing often happens with regard to all the other passions. A
stranger passes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest
affliction; and we are immediately told that he has just received the
news of the death of his father. It is impossible that, in this case, we
should not approve of his grief. Yet it may often happen, without any
defect of humanity on our part, that, so far from entering into the
violence of his sorrow, we should scarce conceive the first movements of
concern upon his account. Both he and his father, perhaps, are intirely
unknown to us, or we happen to be employed about other things, and do
not take time to picture out in our imagination the different
circumstances of distress which must occur to him. We have learned,
however, from experience, that such a misfortune naturally excites such
a degree of sorrow, and we know that if we took time to consider his
situation, fully and in all its parts, we should, without doubt, most
sincerely sympathize with him. It is upon the consciousness of this
conditional sympathy, that our approbation of his sorrow is founded,
even in those cases in which that sympathy does not actually take place;
and the general rules derived from our preceding experience of what our
sentiments would commonly correspond with, correct upon this, as upon
many other occasions, the impropriety of our present emotions.
The sentiment or affection of the heart from which any action proceeds,
and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ultimately depend, may be
considered under two different aspects, or in two different relations;
first, in relation to the cause which excites it, or the motive which
gives occasion to it; and secondly, in relation to the end which it
proposes, or the effect which it tends to produce.
In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion or
disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or object
which excites it, consists the propriety or impropriety, the decency or
ungracefulness of the consequent action.
In the beneficial or hurtful nature of the effects which the affection
aims at, or tends to produce, consists the merit or demerit of the
action, the qualities by which it is entitled to reward, or is deserving
of punishment.
Philosophers have, of late years, considered chiefly the tendency of
affections, and have given little attention to the relation which they
stand in to the cause which excites them. In common life, however, when
we judge of any person’s conduct, and of the sentiments which directed
it, we constantly consider them under both these aspects. When we blame
in another man the excesses of love, of grief, of resentment, we not
only consider the ruinous effects which they tend to produce, but the
little occasion which was given for them. The merit of his favourite, we
say, is not so great, his misfortune is not so dreadful, his provocation
is not so extraordinary, as to justify so violent a passion. We should
have indulged, we say; perhaps, have approved of the violence of his
emotion, had the cause been in any respect proportioned to it.
When we judge in this manner of any affection, as proportioned or
disproportioned to the cause which excites it, it is scarce possible
that we should make use of any other rule or canon but the correspondent
affection in ourselves. If, upon bringing the case home to our own
breast, we find that the sentiments which it gives occasion to, coincide
and tally with our own, we necessarily approve of them as proportioned
and suitable to their objects; if otherwise, we necessarily disapprove
of them, as extravagant and out of proportion.
Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like
faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my
ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment,
of your love by my love. I neither have nor can have any other way of
judging about them.
CHAP. IV.
_The same subject continued._
We may judge of the propriety or impropriety of the sentiments of
another person by their correspondence or disagreement with our own,
upon two different occasions; either, first, when the objects which
excite them are considered without any peculiar relation, either to
themselves or to the person whose sentiments we judge of; or, secondly,
when they are considered as peculiarly affecting one or other of us.
1. With regard to those objects which are considered without any
peculiar relation either to ourselves or to the person whose sentiments
we judge of; wherever his sentiments intirely correspond with our own,
we ascribe to him the qualities of taste and good judgment. The beauty
of a plain, the greatness of a mountain, the ornaments of a building,
the expression of a picture, the composition of a discourse, the conduct
of a third person, the proportions of different quantities and numbers,
the various appearances which the great machine of the universe is
perpetually exhibiting, with the secret wheels and springs which produce
them; all the general subjects of science and taste, are what we and our
companions regard, as having no peculiar relation to either of us. We
both look at them from the same point of view, and we have no occasion
for sympathy, or for that imaginary change of situations from which it
arises, in order to produce, with regard to these, the most perfect
harmony of sentiments and affections. If, notwithstanding, we are often
differently affected, it arises either from the different degrees of
attention, which our different habits of life allow us to give easily to
the several parts of those complex objects, or from the different
degrees of natural acuteness in the faculty of the mind to which they
are addressed.
When the sentiments of our companion coincide with our own in things of
this kind, which are obvious and easy, and in which, perhaps, we never
found a single person who differed from us, though we, no doubt, must
approve of them, yet he seems to deserve no praise or admiration on
account of them. But when they not only coincide with our own, but lead
and direct our own; when in forming them he appears to have attended to
many things which we had overlooked, and to have adjusted them to all
the various circumstances of their objects; we not only approve of them,
but wonder and are surprised at their uncommon and unexpected acuteness
and comprehensiveness, and he appears to deserve a very high degree of
admiration and applause. For approbation heightened by wonder and
surprise, constitutes the sentiment which is properly palled admiration,
and of which applause is the natural expression. The decision of the man
who judges that exquisite beauty is preferable to the grossest
deformity, or that twice two are equal to four, must certainly be
approved of by all the world, but will not, surely, be much admired. It
is the acute and delicate discernment of the man of taste, who
distinguishes the minute, and scarce perceptible, differences of beauty
and deformity; it is the comprehensive accuracy of the experienced
mathematician, who unravels, with ease, the most intricate and perplexed
proportions; it is the great leader in science and taste, the man who
directs and conducts our own sentiments, the extent and superior
justness of whole talents astonish us with wonder and surprise, who
excites our admiration and seems to deserve our applause: and upon this
foundation is grounded the greater part of the praise which is bestowed
upon what are called the intellectual virtues.
The utility of those qualities, it may be thought, is what first
recommends them to us; and, no doubt, the consideration of this, when we
come to attend to it, gives them a new value. Originally, however, we
approve of another man’s judgment, not as something useful, but as
right, as accurate, as agreeable to truth and reality: and it is evident
we attribute those qualities to it for no other reason but because we
find that it agrees with our own. Taste, in the same manner, is
originally approved of, not as useful, but as just, as delicate, and as
precisely suited to its object. The idea of the utility of all qualities
of this kind, is plainly an after-thought, and not what first
recommended them to our approbation.
2. With regard to those objects, which affect in a particular manner
either ourselves or the person whose sentiments we judge of, it is at
once more difficult to preserve this harmony and correspondence, and at
the same time, vastly more important. My companion does not naturally
look upon the misfortune that has befallen me, or the injury that has
been done me, from the same point of view in which I consider them. They
affect me much more nearly. We do not view them from the same station,
as we do a picture, or a poem, or a system of philosophy, and are,
therefore, apt to be very differently affected by them. But I can much
more easily overlook the want of this correspondence of sentiments with
regard to such indifferent objects as concern neither me nor my
companion, than with regard to what interests me so much as the
misfortune that has befallen me, or the injury that has been done me.
Though you despise that picture, or that poem, or even that system of
philosophy, which I admire, there is little danger of our quarrelling
upon that account. Neither of us can reasonably be much interested about
them. They ought all of them to be matters of great indifference to us
both; so that, though our opinions may be opposite, our affections may
still be very nearly the same. But it is quite otherwise with regard to
those objects by which either you or I are particularly affected. Though
your judgment in matters of speculation, though your sentiments in
matters of taste, are quite opposite to mine, I can easily overlook this
opposition; and if I have any degree of temper, I may still find some
entertainment in your conversation, even upon those very subjects. But
if you have either no fellow-feeling for the misfortunes I have met
with, or none that bears any proportion to the grief which distracts me,
or if you have either no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or
none that bears any proportion to the resentment which transports me, we
can no longer converse upon these subjects. We become intolerable to one
another. I can neither support your company, nor you mine. You are
confounded at my violence and passion, and I am enraged at your cold
insensibility and want of feeling.
In all such cases, that there may be some correspondence of sentiments
between the spectator and the person principally concerned, the
spectator must, first of all, endeavour, as much as he can, to put
himself in the situation of the other, and to bring home to himself
every little circumstance of distress which can possibly occur to the
sufferer. He must adopt the whole case of his companion with all its
minutest incidents; and strive to render as perfect as possible, that
imaginary change of situation upon which his sympathy is founded.
After all this, however, the emotions of the spectator will still be
very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt by the sufferer.
Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never conceive, for what has
befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally animates the
person principally concerned. That imaginary change of situation, upon
which their sympathy is founded, is but momentary. The thought of their
own safety, the thought that they themselves are not really the
sufferers, continually intrudes itself upon them; and though it does not
hinder them from conceiving a passion somewhat analogous to what is felt
by the sufferer, hinders them from conceiving any thing that approaches
to the same degree of violence. The person principally concerned is
sensible of this, and, at the same time passionately desires a more
complete sympathy. He longs for that relief which nothing can afford him
but the entire concord of the affections of the spectators with his own.
To see the emotions of their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his
own, in the violent and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole
consolation. But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his passion
to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of going along with
him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say so, the sharpness of
its natural tone, in order to reduce it to harmony and concord with the
emotions of those who are about him. What they feel, will, indeed,
always be, in some respects, different from what he feels, and
compassion can never be exactly the same with original sorrow; because
the secret consciousness that the change of situations, from which the
sympathetic sentiment arises, is but imaginary, not only lowers it in
degree, but in some measure, varies it in kind, and gives it a quite
different modification. These two sentiments, however, may, it is
evident, have such a correspondence with one another, as is sufficient
for the harmony of society. Though they will never be unisons, they may
be concords, and this is all that is wanted or required.
In order to produce this concord, as nature teaches the spectators to
assume the circumstances of the person principally concerned, so she
teaches this last in some measure to assume those of the spectators. As
they are continually placing themselves in this situation, and thence
conceiving emotions similar to what he feels; so he is as constantly
placing himself in theirs, and thence conceiving some degree of that
coolness about his own fortune, with which he is sensible that they will
view it. As they are constantly considering what they themselves would
feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is as constantly led to
imagine in what manner he would be affected if he was only one of the
spectators of his own situation. As their sympathy makes them look at
it, in some measure, with his eyes, so his sympathy makes him look at
it, in some measure, with theirs, especially when in their presence and
acting under their observation: and as the reflected passion, which he
thus conceives, is much weaker than the original one, it necessarily
abates the violence of what he felt before he came into their presence,
before he began to recollect in what manner they would be affected by
it, and to view his situation in this candid and impartial light.
The mind, therefore, is rarely so disturbed, but that the company of a
friend will restore it to some degree of tranquillity and sedateness.
The breast is, in some measure, calmed and composed the moment we come
into his presence. We are immediately put in mind of the light in which
he will view our situation, and we begin to view it ourselves in the
same light; for the effect of sympathy is instantaneous. We expect less
sympathy from a common acquaintance than from a friend: we cannot open
to the former all those little circumstances which we can unfold to the
latter: we assume, therefore, more tranquillity before him, and
endeavour to fix our thoughts upon those general outlines of our
situation which he is willing to consider. We expect still less sympathy
from an assembly of strangers, and we assume, therefore, still more
tranquillity before them, and always endeavour to bring down our passion
to that pitch, which the particular company we are in may be expected to
go along with. Nor is this only an assumed appearance: for if we are at
all masters of ourselves, the presence of a mere acquaintance will
really compose us, still more than that of a friend; and that of an
assembly of strangers still more than that of an acquaintance.
Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful remedies for
restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any time, it has
unfortunately lost it; as well as the best preservatives of that equal
and happy temper, which is so necessary to self-satisfaction and
enjoyment. Men of retirement and speculation, who are apt to sit
brooding at home over either grief or resentment, though they may often
have more humanity, more generosity, and a nicer sense of honour, yet
seldom possess that equality of temper which is so common among men of
the world.
CHAP. V.
_Of the amiable and respectable virtues._
Upon these two different efforts, upon that of the spectator to enter
into the sentiments of the person principally concerned, and upon that
of the person principally concerned, to bring down his emotions to what
the spectator can go along with, are founded two different sets of
virtues. The soft, the gentle, the amiable virtues, the virtues of
candid condescension and indulgent humanity, are founded upon the one:
the great, the awful and respectable, the virtues of self-denial, of
self-government, of that command of the passions which subjects all the
movements of our nature to what our own dignity and honour, and the
propriety of our own conduct require, derive their origin from the
other.
How amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart seems to
re-echo all the sentiments of those with whom he converses, who grieves
for their calamities, who resents their injuries, and rejoices at their
good fortune! When we bring home to ourselves the situation of his
companions, we enter into their gratitude, and feel what consolation
they must derive from the tender sympathy of so affectionate a friend.
And for a contrary reason, how disagreeable does he appear to be, whose
hard and obdurate heart feels for himself only, but is altogether
insensible of the happiness or misery of others! We enter, in this case
too, into the pain which his presence must give to every mortal with
whom he converses, to those especially with whom we are most apt to
sympathize, the unfortunate and the injured.
On the other hand, what noble propriety and grace do we feel in the
conduct of those who, in their own case, exert that recollection and
self-command which constitute the dignity of every passion, and which
bring it down to what others can enter into? We are disgusted with that
clamorous grief, which, without any delicacy, calls upon our compassion
with sighs and tears and importunate lamentations. But we reverence that
reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow, which discovers itself only
in the swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks,
and in the distant, but affecting, coldness of the whole behaviour. It
imposes the like silence upon us. We regard it with respectful
attention, and watch with anxious concern over our whole behaviour, lest
by any impropriety we should disturb that concerted tranquillity, which
it requires so great an effort to support.
The insolence and brutality of anger, in the same manner when we indulge
its fury without check or restraint, is, of all subjects, the most
detestable. But we admire that noble and generous resentment which
governs its pursuit of the greatest injuries, not by the rage which they
are apt to excite in the breast of the sufferer, but by the indignation
which they naturally call forth in that of the impartial spectator;
which allows no word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more
equitable sentiment would dictate; which never, even in thought,
attempts any greater vengeance, nor desires to inflict any greater
punishment, than what every indifferent person would rejoice to see
executed.
And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for ourselves,
that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections,
constitutes the perfection of human nature; and can alone produce among
mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consist their
whole grace and propriety. As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves
is the great law of christianity, so it is the great precept of nature
to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the
same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.
As taste and good judgment, when they are considered as qualities which
deserve praise and admiration, are supposed to imply a delicacy of
sentiment and an acuteness of understanding not commonly to be met with;
so the virtues of sensibility and self-command are not apprehended to
consist in the ordinary, but in the uncommon degrees of those qualities.
The amiable virtue of humanity requires, surely, a sensibility, much
beyond what is possessed by the rude vulgar of mankind. The great and
exalted virtue of magnanimity undoubtedly demands much more than that
degree of self-command, which the weakest of mortals are capable of
exerting. As in the common degree of the intellectual qualities, there
are no abilities; so in the common degree of the moral, there is no
virtue. Virtue is excellence, something uncommonly great and beautiful,
which rises far above what is vulgar and ordinary. The amiable virtues
consist in that degree of sensibility which surprises by its exquisite
and unexpected delicacy and tenderness. The awful and respectable, in
that degree of self-command which astonishes by its amazing superiority
over the most ungovernable passions of human nature.
There is, in this respect, a considerable difference between virtue and
mere propriety; between those qualities and actions which deserve to be
admired and celebrated, and those which simply deserve to be approved
of. Upon many occasions, to act with the most perfect propriety,
requires no more than that common and ordinary degree of sensibility or
self-command which the most worthless of mankind are possessed of, and
sometimes even that degree is not necessary. Thus, to give a very low
instance, to eat when we are hungry, is certainly, upon ordinary
occasions, perfectly right and proper, and cannot miss being approved of
as such by every body. Nothing, however, could be more absurd than to
say it is virtuous.
On the contrary, there may frequently be a considerable degree of virtue
in those actions, which fall short of the most perfect propriety;
because they may still approach nearer to perfection than could well be
expected upon occasions in which it was so extremely difficult to attain
it: and this is very often the case upon those occasions which require
the greatest exertions of self-command. There are some situations which
bear so hard upon human nature, that the greatest degree of
self-government, which can belong to so imperfect a creature as man, is
not able to stifle, altogether, the voice of human weakness, or reduce
the violence of the passions to that pitch of moderation, in which the
impartial spectator can entirely enter into them. Though in those cases,
therefore, the behaviour of the sufferer fall short of the most perfect
propriety, it may still deserve some applause, and even in a certain
sense, may be denominated virtuous. It may still manifest an effort or
generosity and magnanimity of which the greater part of men are
incapable; and though it fails of absolute perfection, it may be a much
nearer approximation towards perfection, than what, upon such trying
occasions, is commonly either to be found or to be expected.
In cases of this kind, when we are determining the degree of blame or
applause which seems due to any action, we very frequently make use of
two different standards. The first is the idea of complete propriety and
perfection, which, in those difficult situations, no human conduct ever
did, or even can come up to; and in comparison with which the actions of
all men must for ever appear blameable and imperfect. The second is the
idea of that degree of proximity or distance from this complete
perfection, which the actions of the greater part of men commonly arrive
at. Whatever goes beyond this degree, how far soever it may be removed
from absolute perfection, seems to deserve applause; and whatever falls
short of it, to deserve blame.
It is in the same manner that we judge of the productions of all arts
which address themselves to the imagination. When a critic examines the
work of any of the great masters for poetry or painting, he may
sometimes examine it by an idea of perfection, in his own mind, which
neither that nor any other human work will ever come up to; and as long
as he compares it with this standard, he can see nothing in it but
faults and imperfections. But when he come to consider the rank which it
ought to hold among other works of the same kind, he necessarily
compares it with a very different standard, the common degree of
excellence which is usually attained in this particular art; and when he
judges of it by this new measure, it may often appear to deserve the
highest applause, upon account of its approaching much nearer to
perfection than the greater part of those works which can be brought
into competition with it.
SECTION II.
Of the degrees of the different passions which are consistent with
propriety.
INTRODUCTION.
The propriety of every passion excited by objects peculiarly related to
ourselves the pitch which the spectator can go along with, must lie, it
is evident, in certain mediocrity. If the passion is too high, or if it
is too low, he cannot enter into it. Grief and resentment for private
misfortunes and injuries may easily, for example, be too high, and in
the greater part of mankind they are so. They may likewise, though this
more rarely happens, be too low. We denominate the excess, weakness and
fury: and we call the defect, stupidity, insensibility, and want of
spirit. We can enter into neither of them, but are astonished and
confounded to see them.
This mediocrity, however, in which the point of propriety consists, is
different in different passions. It is high in some, and low in others.
There are some passions which it is indecent to express very strongly,
even upon those occasions, in which it is acknowledged that we cannot
avoid feeling them in the highest degree. And there are others of which
the strongest expressions are upon many occasions extremely graceful,
even though the passions themselves do not, perhaps, arise so
necessarily. The first are those passions with which, for certain
reasons, there is little or no sympathy: the second are those with
which, for other reasons, there is the greatest. And if we consider all
the different passions of human nature, we shall find that they are
regarded as decent, or indecent, just in proportion as mankind are more
or less disposed to sympathize with them.
CHAP. I.
_Of the passions which take their origin from the body._
1. It is indecent to express any strong degree of those passions which
arise from a certain situation or disposition of the body; because the
company, not being in the same disposition, cannot be expected to
sympathize with them. Violent hunger, for example, though upon many
occasions not only natural, but unavoidable, is always indecent, and to
eat voraciously is universally regarded as a piece of ill manners. There
is, however, some degree of sympathy, even with hunger. It is agreeable
to see our companions eat with a good appetite, and all expressions of
loathing are offensive. The disposition of body which is habitual to a
man in health, makes his stomach easily keep time, if I may be allowed
so coarse an expression, with the one, and not with the other. We can
sympathize with the distress which excessive hunger occasions when we
read the description of it in the journal of a siege, or of a sea
voyage. We imagine ourselves in the situation of the sufferers, and
thence readily conceive the grief, the fear and consternation, which
must necessarily distract them. We feel, ourselves, some degree of those
passions, and therefore sympathize with them: but as we do not grow
hungry by reading the description, we cannot properly, even in this
case, be said to sympathize with their hunger.
It is the same case with the passion by which Nature unites the two
sexes. Though naturally the most furious of all passions, all strong
expressions of it are upon every occasion indecent, even between persons
in whom its most complete indulgence is acknowledged by all laws, both
human and divine, to be perfectly innocent. There seems, however, to be
some degree of sympathy even with this passion. To talk to a woman as we
should to a man is improper: it is expected that their company should
inspire us with more gaiety, more pleasantry, and more attention; and an
entire insensibility to the fair sex, renders a man contemptible in some
measure even to the men.
Such is our aversion for all the appetites which take their origin from
the body: all strong expressions of them are loathsome and disagreeable.
According to some ancient philosophers, these are the passions which we
share in common with the brutes, and which having no connexion with the
characteristical qualities of human nature, are upon that account
beneath its dignity. But there are many other passions which we share in
common with the brutes, such as resentment, natural affection, even
gratitude, which do not, upon that account, appear to be so brutal. The
true cause of the peculiar disgust which we conceive for the appetites
of the body when we see them in other men, is that we cannot enter into
them. To the person himself who feels them, as soon as they are
gratified, the object that excited them ceases to be agreeable: even its
presence often becomes offensive to him; he looks round to no purpose
for the charm which transported him the moment before, and he can now as
little enter into his own passion as another person. When we have dined,
we order the covers to be removed; and we should treat in the same
manner the objects of the most ardent and passionate desires, if they
were the objects of no other passions but those which take their origin
from the body.
In the command of those appetites of the body consists that virtue which
is properly called temperance. To restrain them within those bounds,
which regard to health and fortune prescribes, is the part of prudence.
But to confine them within those limits, which grace, which propriety,
which delicacy, and modesty, require, is the office of temperance.
2. It is for the same reason that to cry out with bodily pain, how
intolerable soever, appears always unmanly and unbecoming. There is,
however, a good deal of sympathy even with bodily pain. If, as has
already been observed, I see a stroke aimed, and just ready to fall upon
the leg or arm, of another person, I naturally shrink and draw back my
own leg, or my own arm; and when it does fall, I feel it in some
measure, and am hurt by it as well as the sufferer. My hurt, however,
is, no doubt, excessively slight, and, upon that account, if he makes
any violent out-cry, as I cannot go along with him, I never fail to
despise him. And this is the case of all the passions which take their
origin from the body: they excite either no sympathy at all, or such a
degree of it, as is altogether disproportioned to the violence of what
is felt by the sufferer.
It is quite otherwise with those passions which take their origin from
the imagination. The frame of my body can be but little affected by the
alterations which are brought about upon that of my companion: but my
imagination is more ductile, and more readily assumes, if I may so, the
shape and configuration of the imaginations of those with whom I am
familiar. A disappointment in love, or ambition, will, upon this
account, call forth more sympathy than the greatest bodily evil. Those
passions arise altogether from the imagination. The person who has lost
his whole fortune, if he is in health, feels nothing in his body. What
he suffers is from the imagination only, which represents to him the
loss of his dignity, neglect from his friends, contempt from his
enemies, dependence, want, and misery, coming fast upon him; and we
sympathize with him more strongly upon this account, because our
imaginations can more readily mould themselves upon his imagination,
than our bodies can mould themselves upon his body.
The loss of a leg may generally be regarded as a more real calamity than
the loss of a mistress. It would be a ridiculous tragedy, however, of
which the catastrophe was to turn upon a loss of that kind. A misfortune
of the other kind, how frivolous soever it may appear to be, has given
occasion to many a fine one.
Nothing is so soon forgot as pain. The moment it is gone the whole agony
of it is over, and the thought of it can no longer give us any sort of
disturbance. We ourselves cannot then enter into the anxiety and anguish
which we had before conceived. An unguarded word from a friend will
occasion a more durable uneasiness. The agony which this creates is by
no means over with the word. What at first disturbs us is not the object
of the senses, but the idea of the imagination. As it is an idea,
therefore, which occasions our uneasiness, till time and other accidents
have in some measure effaced it from our memory, the imagination
continues to fret and rankle within, from the thought of it.
Pain never calls forth any very lively sympathy unless it is accompanied
with danger. We sympathize with the fear, though not with the agony of
the sufferer. Fear, however, is a passion derived altogether from the
imagination, which represents, with an uncertainty and fluctuation that
increases our anxiety, not what we really feel, but what we may
hereafter possibly suffer. The gout or the tooth-ache, though
exquisitely painful, excite very little sympathy; more dangerous
diseases, though accompanied with very little pain, excite the highest.
Some people faint and grow sick at the sight of a chirurgical operation,
and that bodily pain which is occasioned by tearing the flesh, seems, in
them, to excite the most excessive sympathy. We conceive in a much more
lively and distinct manner, the pain which proceeds from an external
cause, than we do that which arises from an internal disorder. I can
scarce form an idea of the agonies of my neighbour when he is tortured
with the gout, or the stone; but I have the clearest conception of what
he must suffer from an incision, a wound, or a fracture. The chief
cause, however, why such objects produce such violent effects upon us,
is their novelty. Once who has been witness to a dozen dissections, and
as many amputations, sees, ever after, all operations of this kind with
great indifference, and often with perfect insensibility. Though we have
read or seen represented more than five hundred tragedies, we shall
seldom feel so entire an abatement of our sensibility to the object
which they represent to us.
In some of the Greek tragedies there is an attempt to excite compassion,
by the representation of the agonies of bodily pain. Philoctetes cries
out and faints from the extremity of his sufferings. Hippolytus and
Hercules are both introduced as expiring under the severest tortures,
which, it seems, even the fortitude of Hercules was incapable of
supporting. In all these cases, however, it is not the pain which
interests us, but some other circumstance. It is not the sore foot, but
the solitude, of Philoctetes which affects us, and diffuses over that
charming tragedy, that romantic wildness, which is so agreeable to the
imagination. The agonies of Hercules and Hippolytus are interested only
because we foresee that death is to be the consequence. If those heroes
were to recover, we should think the representation of their sufferings
perfectly ridiculous. What a tragedy would that be of which the distress
consisted in a colic. Yet no pain is more exquisite. These attempts to
excite compassion by the representation of bodily pain, may be regarded
as among the greatest breaches of decorum of which the Greek theatre has
set the example.
The little sympathy which we feel with bodily pain is the foundation of
the propriety of constancy and patience in enduring it. The man, who
under the severest tortures allows no weakness to escape him, vents no
groan, gives way to no passion which we do not entirely enter into,
commands our highest admiration. His firmness enables him to keep time
with our indifference and insensibility. We admire and entirely go along
with the magnanimous effort which he makes for this purpose. We approve
of his behaviour, and from our experience of the common weakness of
human nature, we are surprised, and wonder how he should be able to act
so as to deserve approbation. Approbation, mixed and animated by wonder
and surprise, constitutes the sentiment which is properly called
admiration, of which, applause is the natural expression, as has already
been observed.
CHAP. II.
_Of those passions which take their origin from a particular turn or
habit of the imagination._
Even of the passions derived from the imagination, those which take
their origin from a peculiar turn or habit it has acquired, though they
may be acknowledged to be perfectly natural, are, however, but little
sympathized with. The imaginations of mankind, not having acquired that
particular turn, cannot enter into them; and such passions, though they
may be allowed to be almost unavoidable in some part of life, are always
in some measure ridiculous. This is the case with that strong attachment
which naturally grows up between two persons of different sexes, who
have long fixed their thoughts upon one another. Our imagination not
having run in the same channel with that of the lover, we cannot enter
into the eagerness of his emotions. If our friend has been injured, we
readily sympathize with his resentment, and grow angry with the very
person with whom he is angry. If he has received a benefit, we readily
enter into his gratitude, and have a very high sense of the merit of his
benefactor. But if he is in love, though we may think his passion just
as reasonable as any of the kind, yet we never think ourselves bound to
conceive a passion of the same kind, and for the same person for whom he
has conceived it. The passion appears to every body, but the man who
feels it, entirely disproportioned to the value of the object; and love,
though it is pardoned in a certain age because we know it is natural, is
always laughed at, because we cannot enter into it. All serious and
strong expressions of it appear ridiculous to a third person; and though
a lover may be good company to his mistress, he is so to nobody else. He
himself is sensible of this; and as long as he continues in his sober
senses, endeavours to treat his own passion with raillery and ridicule.
It is the only style in which we care to hear of it; because it is the
only style in which we ourselves are disposed to talk of it. We grow
weary of the grave, pedantic, and long-sentenced love of Cowley and
Propertius, who never have done with exaggerating the violence of their
attachments; but the gaiety of Ovid, and the gallantry of Horace, are
always agreeable.
But though we feel no proper sympathy with an attachment of this kind,
though we never approach even in imagination towards conceiving a
passion for that particular person, yet as we either have conceived, or
may be disposed to conceive, passions of the same kind, we readily enter
into those high hopes of happiness which are proposed from its
gratification, as well as into that exquisite distress which is feared
from its disappointment. It interests us not as a passion, but as a
situation that gives occasion to other passions which interest us; to
hope, to fear, and to distress of every kind: in the same manner as in a
description of a sea voyage, it is not the hunger which interests us,
but the distress which that hunger occasions. Though we do not properly
enter into the attachment of the lover, we readily go along with those
expectations of romantic happiness which he derives from it. We feel how
natural it is for the mind, in a certain situation, relaxed with
indolence, and fatigued with the violence of desire, to long for
serenity and quiet, to hope to find them in the gratification of that
passion which distracts it, and to frame to itself the idea of that life
of pastoral tranquillity and retirement which the elegant, the tender,
and the passionate Tibullus takes so much pleasure in deferring; a life
like what the poets describe in the Fortunate Islands, a life of
friendship, liberty, and repose; free from labour, and from care, and
from all the turbulent passions which attend them. Even scenes of this
kind interest us most, when they are painted rather as what is hoped,
than as what is enjoyed. The grossness of that passion which mixes with,
and is, perhaps, the foundation of love, disappears when its
gratification is far off and at a distance; but renders the whole
offensive, when described as what is immediately possessed. The happy
passion, upon this account, interests us much less than the fearful and
the melancholy. We tremble for whatever can disappoint such natural and
agreeable hopes: and thus enter into all the anxiety, and concern, and
distress of the lover.
Hence it is, that, in some modern tragedies and romances, this passion
appears so wonderfully interesting. It is not so much the love of
Castalio and Monimia which attaches us in the Orphan, as the distress
which that love occasions. The author who should introduce two lovers,
in a scene of perfect security, expressing their mutual fondness for one
another, would excite laughter, and not sympathy. If a scene of this
kind is ever admitted into a tragedy, it is always, in some measure,
improper, and is endured, not from any sympathy with the passion that is
expressed in it, but from concern for the dangers and difficulties with
which the audience foresee that its gratification is likely to be
attended.
The reserve which the laws of society impose upon the fair sex, with
regard to this weakness, renders it more peculiarly distressful in them,
and, upon that very account, more deeply interesting. We are charmed
with the love of Phædra, as it is expressed in the French tragedy of
that name, notwithstanding all the extravagance and guilt which attends
it. That very extravagance and guilt may be said, in some measure, to
recommend it to us. Her fear, her shame, her remorse, her horror, her
despair, become thereby more natural and interesting. All the secondary
passions, if I may be allowed to call them so, which arise from the
situation of love, become necessarily more furious and violent: and it
is with these secondary passions only that we can properly be said to
sympathize.
Of all the passions, however, which are so extravagantly disproportioned
to the value of their objects, love is the only one that appears, even
to the weakest minds, to have any thing in it that is either graceful or
agreeable. In itself, first of all, though it may be ridiculous, it is
not naturally odious; and though its consequences are often fatal and
dreadful, its intentions are seldom mischievous. And then, though there
is little propriety in the passion itself, there is a good deal in some
of those which always accompany it. There is in love a strong mixture of
humanity, generality, kindness, friendship, esteem; passions with which,
of all others, for reasons which shall be explained immediately, we have
the greatest propensity to sympathize, even notwithstanding we are
sensible that they are, in some measure, excessive. The sympathy which
we feel with them, renders the passion which they accompany less
disagreeable, and supports it in our imagination, notwithstanding all
the vices which commonly go along with it; though in the one sex it
necessarily leads to ruin and infamy; and though in the other, where it
is apprehended to be least fatal, it is almost always attended with an
incapacity for labour, a neglect of duty, a contempt of fame, and even
of common reputation. Notwithstanding all this, the degree of
sensibility and generosity with which it is supposed to be accompanied,
renders it to many the object of vanity; and they are fond of appearing
capable of feeling what would do them no honour if they had really felt
it.
It is for a reason of the same kind, that a certain reserve is necessary
when we talk of our own friends, our own studies, our own professions.
All these are objects which we cannot expect should interest our
companions in the same degree in which they interest us. And it is for
want of this reserve, that the one half of mankind make bad company to
the other. A philosopher is company to a philosopher only; the member of
a club, to his own little knot of companions.
CHAP. III.
_Of the unsocial passions._
There is another set of passions, which though derived from the
imagination, yet before we can enter into them, or regard them as
graceful or becoming, must always be brought down to a pitch much lower
than that to which undisciplined nature would raise them. These are
hatred and resentment, with all their different modifications. With
regard to all such passions, our sympathy is divided between the person
who feels them and the person who is the object of them. The interests
of these two are directly opposite. What our sympathy with the person
who feels them would prompt us to wish for, our fellow-feeling with the
other would lead us to fear. As they are both men, we are concerned for
both, and our fear for what the one may suffer, damps our resentment for
what the other has suffered. Our sympathy, therefore, with the man who
has received the provocation, necessarily falls short of the passion
which naturally animates him, not only upon account of those general
causes which render all sympathetic passions inferior to the original
ones, but upon account of that particular cause which is peculiar to
itself, our opposite sympathy with another person. Before resentment,
therefore, can become graceful and agreeable, it must be more humbled
and brought down below that pitch to which it would naturally rise, than
almost any other passion.
Mankind, at the same time, have a very strong sense of the injuries that
are done to another. The villain, in a tragedy or romance, is as much
the object of our indignation, as the hero is that of our sympathy and
affection. We detest Iago as much as we esteem Othello; and delight as
much in the punishment of the one, as we are grieved at the distress of
the other. But though mankind have so strong a fellow-feeling with the
injuries that are done to their brethren, they do not always resent them
the more that the sufferer appears to resent them. Upon most occasions,
the greater his patience, his mildness, his humanity, provided it does
not appear that he wants spirit, or that fear was the motive of his
forbearance, the higher the resentment against the person who injured
him. The amiableness of the character exasperates their sense of the
atrocity of the injury.
These passions, however, are regarded as necessary parts of the
character of human nature. A person becomes contemptible who tamely sits
still, and submits to insults, without attempting either to repel or to
revenge them. We cannot enter into his indifference and insensibility:
we call his behaviour mean-spiritedness, and are as really provoked by
it as by the insolence of his adversary. Even the mob are enraged to see
any man submit patiently to affronts and ill usage. They desire to see
this insolence resented, and resented by the person who suffers from it.
They cry to him with fury, to defend, or to revenge himself. If his
indignation rouses at last, they heartily applaud, and sympathize with
it. It enlivens their own indignation against his enemy, whom they
rejoice to see him attack in turn, and are as really gratified by his
revenge, provided it is not immoderate, as if the injury had been done
to themselves.
But though the utility of those passions to the individual, by rendering
it dangerous to insult or injure him, be acknowledged; and though their
utility to the public, as the guardians of justice, and of the equality
of its administration, be not less considerable, as shall be shewn
hereafter; yet there is still something disagreeable in the passions
themselves, which makes the appearance of them in other men the natural
object of our aversion. The expression of anger towards any body
present, if it exceeds a bare intimation that we are sensible of his ill
usage, is regarded not only as an insult to that particular person, but
as a rudeness to the whole company. Respect for them ought to have
restrained us from giving way to so boisterous and offensive an emotion.
It is the remote effects of these passions which are agreeable; the
immediate effects are mischief to the person against whom they are
directed. But it is the immediate, and not the remote effects of objects
which render them agreeable or disagreeable to the imagination. A prison
is certainly more useful to the public than a palace; and the person who
founds the one is generally directed by a much juster spirit of
patriotism, than he who builds the other. But the immediate effects of a
prison, the confinement of the wretches shut up in it, are disagreeable;
and the imagination either does not take time to trace out the remote
ones, or sees them at too great a distance to be much affected by them.
A prison, therefore, will always be a disagreeable object; and the
fitter it is for the purpose for which it was intended, it will be the
more so. A palace, on the contrary, will always be agreeable; yet its
remote effects may often be inconvenient to the public. It may serve to
promote luxury, and set the example of the dissolution of manners. Its
immediate effects, however, the conveniency, the pleasure, and the
gaiety of the people who live in it, being all agreeable, and suggesting
to the imagination a thousand agreeable ideas, that faculty generally
rests upon them, and seldom goes further in tracing its more distant
consequences. Trophies of the instruments of music or of agriculture,
imitated in painting or in stucco, make a common and an agreeable
ornament of our halls and dining-rooms. A trophy of the same kind,
composed of the instruments of surgery, of dissecting and
amputation-knives, of saws for cutting the bones, of trepanning
instruments, &c. would be absurd and shocking. Instruments of surgery,
however, are always more finely polished, and generally more nicely
adapted to the purposes for which they are intended, than instruments of
agriculture. The remote effects of them too, the health of the patient,
is agreeable, yet as the immediate effect of them is pain and suffering,
the sight of them always displeases us. Instruments of war are
agreeable, though their immediate effect may seem to be in the same
manner pain and suffering. But then it is the pain and suffering of our
enemies, with whom we have no sympathy. With regard to us, they are
immediately connected with the agreeable ideas of courage, victory, and
honour. They are themselves, therefore, supposed to make one of the
noblest parts of dress, and the imitation of them one of the finest
ornaments of architecture. It is the same case with the qualities of the
mind. The ancient stoics were of opinion, that as the world was governed
by the all-ruling providence of a wise, powerful, and good God, every
single event ought to be regarded, as making a necessary part of the
plan of the universe, and as tending to promote the general order and
happiness of the whole: that the vices and follies of mankind,
therefore, made as necessary a part of this plan as their wisdom or
their virtue; and by that eternal art which educes good from ill, were
made to tend equally to the prosperity and perfection of the great
system of nature. No speculation of this kind, however, how deeply
soever it might be rooted in the mind, could diminish our natural
abhorrence for vice, whose immediate effects are so destructive, and
whose remote ones are too distant to be traced by the imagination.
It is the same case with those passions we have been just now
considering. Their immediate effects are so disagreeable, that even when
they are most justly provoked, there is still something about them which
disgusts us. These, therefore, are the only passions of which the
expressions, as I formerly observed, do not dispose and prepare us to
sympathize with them, before we are informed of the cause which excites
them. The plaintive voice of misery, when heard at a distance, will not
allow us to be indifferent about the person from whom it comes. As soon
as it strikes our ear, it interests us in his fortune, and, if
continued, forces us almost involuntarily to fly to his assistance. The
sight of a smiling countenance, in the same manner, elevates even the
pensive into that gay and airy mood, which disposes him to sympathize
with, and share the joy which it expresses; and he feels his heart,
which with thought and care was before that shrunk and depressed,
instantly expanded and elated. But it is quite otherwise with the
expressions of hatred and resentment. The hoarse, boisterous, and
discordant voice of anger, when heard at a distance, inspires us either
with fear or aversion. We do not fly towards it, as to one who cries out
with pain and agony. Women, and men of weak nerves, tremble and are
overcome with fear, though sensible that themselves are not the objects
of the anger. They conceive fear, however, by putting themselves in the
situation of the person who is so. Even those of stouter hearts are
disturbed; not indeed enough to make them afraid, but enough to make
them angry; for anger is the passion which they would feel in the
situation of the other person. It is the same case with hatred. Mere
expressions of spite inspire it against no body, but the man who uses
them. Both these passions are by nature the objects of our aversion.
Their disagreeable and boisterous appearance never excites, never
prepares, and often disturbs our sympathy. Grief does not more
powerfully engage and attract us to the person in whom we observe it,
than these, while we are ignorant of their cause, disgust and detach us
from him. It was, it seems, the intention of Nature, that those rougher
and more unamiable emotions, which drive men from one another, should be
less easily and more rarely communicated.
When music imitates the modulations of grief or joy, it either actually
inspires us with those passions, or at least puts us in the mood which
disposes us to conceive them. But when it imitates the notes of anger,
it inspires us with fear. Joy, grief, love, admiration, devotion, are
all of them passions which are naturally musical. Their natural tones
are all soft, clear, and melodious; and they naturally express
themselves in periods which are distinguished by regular pauses, and
which upon that account are easily adapted to the regular returns of the
correspondent airs of a tune. The voice of anger, on the contrary, and
of all the passions which are akin to it, is harsh and discordant. It
periods too are all irregular, sometimes very long, and sometimes very
short, and distinguished by no regular pauses. It is with difficulty,
therefore, that music can imitate any of those passions; and the music
which does imitate them is not the most agreeable. A whole entertainment
may consist, without any impropriety, of the imitation of the social and
agreeable passions. It would be a strange entertainment which consisted
altogether of the imitations of hatred and resentment.
If those passions are disagreeable to the spectator, they are not less
so to the person who feels them. Hatred and anger are the greatest
poison to the happiness of a good mind. There is, in the very feeling of
those passions, something harsh, jarring, and convulsive, something that
tears and distracts the breast, and is altogether destructive of that
composure and tranquillity of mind which is so necessary to happiness,
and which is best promoted by the contrary passions of gratitude and
love. It is not the value of what they lose by the perfidy and
ingratitude of those they live with, which the generous and humane are
most apt to regret. Whatever they may have lost, they can generally be
very happy without it. What most disturbs them is the idea of perfidy
and ingratitude exercised towards themselves; and the discordant and
disagreeable passions which this excites, constitutes, in their own
opinion, the chief part of the injury which they suffer.
How many things are requisite to render the gratification of resentment
compleatly agreeable, and to make the spectator thoroughly sympathize
with our revenge? The provocation must first of all be such that we
should become contemptible, and be exposed to perpetual insults, if we
did not, in some measure, resent it. Smaller offences are always better
neglected; nor is there any thing more despicable than that froward and
captious humour which takes fire upon every slight occasion of quarrel.
We should resent more from a sense of the propriety of resentment, from
a sense that mankind expect and require it of us, than because we feel
in ourselves the furies of that disagreeable passion. There is no
passion, of which the human mind is capable, concerning whose justness
we ought to be so doubtful, concerning whose indulgence we ought so
carefully to consult our natural sense of propriety, or so diligently to
consider what will be the sentiments of the impartial spectator.
Magnanimity, or a regard to maintain our own rank and dignity in
society, is the only motive which can ennoble the expressions of this
disagreeable passion. This motive must characterize our whole stile and
deportment. These must be plain, open, and direct; determined without
positiveness, and elevated without insolence; not only free from
petulance and low scurrility, but generous, candid, and full of all
proper regards, even for the person who has offended us. It must appear,
in short, from our whole manner, without our labouring affectedly to
express it, that passion has not extinguished our humanity; and that if
we yield to the dictates of revenge, it is with reluctance, from
necessity, and in consequence of great and repeated provocations. When
resentment is guarded and qualified in this manner, it may be admitted
to be even generous and noble.
CHAP. IV.
_Of the social passions._
As it is a divided sympathy which renders the whole set of passions just
now mentioned, upon most occasions, so ungraceful and disagreeable; so
there is another set opposite to these, which a redoubled sympathy
renders almost always peculiarly agreeable and becoming. Generosity,
humanity, kindness, compassion, mutual friendship and esteem, all the
social and benevolent affections, when expressed in the countenance or
behaviour, even towards those who are peculiarly connected with
ourselves, please the indifferent spectator upon almost every occasion.
His sympathy with the person who feels those passions, exactly coincides
with his concern for the person who is the object of them. The interest,
which, as a man, he is obliged to take in the happiness of this last,
enlivens his fellow-feeling with the sentiments of the other, whose
emotions are employed about the same object. We have always, therefore,
the strongest disposition to sympathize with the benevolent affections.
They appear in every respect agreeable to us. We enter into the
satisfaction both of the person who feels them, and of the person who is
the object of them. For as to be the object of hatred and indignation
gives more pain than all the evils which a brave man can fear from his
enemies; so there is a satisfaction in the consciousness of being
beloved, which, to a person of delicacy and sensibility, is of more
importance to happiness than all the advantage which he can expect to
derive from it. What character is so detectable as that of one who takes
pleasure to sow dissension among friends, and to turn their most tender
love into mortal hatred? Yet wherein does the atrocity of this so much
abhorred injury consist? Is it in depriving them of the frivolous good
offices, which had their friendship continued, they might have expected
from one another? It is in depriving them of that friendship itself, in
robbing them of each others affections, from which both derived so much
satisfaction; it is in disturbing the harmony of their hearts, and
putting an end to that happy commerce which had before subsisted between
them. These affections, that harmony, this commerce, are felt, not only
by the tender and the delicate, but by the rudest vulgar of mankind, to
be of more importance to happiness than all the little services which
could be expected to flow from them.
The sentiment of love is, in itself, agreeable to the person who feels
it. It sooths and composes the breast, seems to favour the vital
motions, and to promote the healthful state of the human constitution;
and it is rendered still more delightful by the consciousness of the
gratitude and satisfaction which it must excite in him who is the object
of it. Their mutual regard renders them happy in one another, and
sympathy, with this mutual regard, makes them agreeable to every other
person. With what pleasure do we look upon a family, through the whole
of which reign mutual love and esteem, where the parents and children
are companions for one another, without any other difference than what
is made by respectful affection on the one side, and kind indulgence on
the other; where freedom and fondness, mutual raillery, and mutual
kindness, show that no opposition of interest divides the brothers, nor
any rivalship of favour sets the sisters at variance, and where every
thing presents us with the idea of peace, chearfulness, harmony, and
contentment? On the contrary, how uneasy are we made when we go into a
house in which jarring contention sets one half of those who dwell in it
against the other; where amidst affected smoothness and complaisance,
suspicious looks and sudden starts of passion betray the mutual
jealousies which burn within them, and which are every moment ready to
burst out through all the restraints which the presence of the company
imposes?
Those amiable passions, even when they are acknowledged to be excessive,
are never regarded with aversion. There is something agreeable even in
the weakness of friendship and humanity. The too tender mother, the too
indulgent father, the too generous and affectionate friend, may
sometimes, perhaps, on account of the softness of their natures, be
looked upon with a species of pity, in which, however, there is a
mixture of love, but can never be regarded with hatred and aversion, nor
even with contempt, unless by the most brutal and worthless of mankind:
It is always with concern, with sympathy and kindness, that we blame
them for the extravagance of their attachment. There is a helplessness
in the character of extreme humanity which more than any thing interests
our pity. There is nothing in itself which renders it either ungraceful
or disagreeable. We only regret that it is unfit for the world, because
the world is unworthy of it, and because it must expose the person who
is endowed with it as a prey to the perfidy and ingratitude of
insinuating falsehood, and to a thousand pains and uneasinesses, which,
of all men, he the least deserves to feel, and which generally too he
is, of all men, the least capable of supporting. It is quite otherwise
with hatred and resentment. Too violent a propensity to those detestable
passions, renders a person the object of universal dread and abhorrence,
who, like a wild beast, ought, we think, to be hunted out of all civil
society.
CHAP. V.
_Of the selfish passions._
Besides those two opposite sets of passions, the social and unsocial,
there is another which holds a sort of middle place between them; is
never either so graceful as is sometimes the one set, nor is ever so
odious as is sometimes the other. Grief and joy, when conceived upon
account of our own private good or bad fortune, constitute this third
set of passions. Even when excessive, they are never so disagreeable as
excessive resentment, because no opposite sympathy can ever interest us
against them: and when most suitable to their objects they are never so
agreeable as impartial humanity and just benevolence; because no double
sympathy can ever interest us for them. There is, however, this
difference between grief and joy, that we are generally most disposed to
sympathize with small joys and great sorrows. The man, who, by some
sudden revolution of fortune, is lifted up all at once into a condition
of life, greatly above what he had formerly lived in, may be assured
that the congratulations of his best friends are not all of them
perfectly sincere. An upstart, though of the greatest merit, is
generally disagreeable, and a sentiment of envy commonly prevents us
from heartily sympathizing with his joy. If he has any judgment he is
sensible of this, and instead of appearing to be elated with his good
fortune, he endeavours, as much as he can, to smother his joy, and keep
down that elevation of mind with which his new circumstances naturally
inspire him. He affects the same plainness of dress, and the same
modesty of behaviour, which became him in his former station. He
redoubles his attention to his old friends, and endeavours more than
ever to be humble, assiduous, and complaisant. And this is the behaviour
which in his situation we most approve of; because we expect, it seems,
that he should have more sympathy with our envy and aversion to his
happiness, than we have with his happiness. It is seldom that with all
this he succeeds. We suspect the sincerity of his humility, and he grows
weary of this constraint. In a little time, therefore, he generally
leaves all his old friends behind him, some of the meanest of them
excepted, who may, perhaps, condescend to become his dependents: nor
does he always acquire any new ones; the pride of his new connections is
as much affronted at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones
had been by his becoming their superior: and it requires the most
obstinate and persevering modesty to atone for this mortification to
either. He generally grows weary too soon, and is provoked, by the
sullen and suspicious pride of the one, and by the saucy contempt of the
other, to treat the first with neglect, and the second with petulance,
till at last he grows habitually insolent, and forfeits the esteem of
all. If the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness
of being beloved, as I believe it does, those sudden changes of fortune
seldom contribute much to happiness. He is happiest who advances more
gradually to greatness, whom the public destines to every step of his
preferment long before he arrives at it, in whom, upon that account,
when it comes, it can excite no extravagant joy, and with regard to whom
it cannot reasonably create either any jealousy in those he overtakes,
or any envy in those he leaves behind.
Mankind, however, more readily sympathize with those smaller joys which
flow from less important causes. It is decent to be humble amidst great
prosperity; but we can scarce express too much satisfaction in all the
little occurrences of common life, in the company with which we spent
the evening last night, in the entertainment that was set before us, in
what was said and what was done, in all the little incidents of the
present conversation, and in all those frivolous nothings which fill up
the void of human life. Nothing is more graceful than habitual
chearfulness, which is always founded upon a peculiar relish for all the
little pleasures which common occurrences afford. We readily sympathize
with it: it inspires us with the same joy, and makes every trifle turn
up to us in the same agreeable aspect in which it presents itself to the
person endowed with this happy disposition. Hence it is that youth, the
season of gaiety, so easily engages our affections. That propensity to
joy which seems even to animate the bloom, and to sparkle from the eyes
of youth and beauty, though in a person of the same sex, exalts, even
the aged, to a more joyous mood than ordinary. They forget, for a time,
their infirmities, and abandon themselves to those agreeable ideas and
emotions to which they have long been strangers, but which, when the
presence of so much happiness recalls them to their breast, take their
place there, like old acquaintance, from whom they are sorry to have
ever been parted, and whom they embrace more heartily upon account of
this long separation.
It is quite otherwise with grief. Small vexations excite no sympathy,
but deep affliction calls forth the greatest. The man who is made uneasy
by every little disagreeable incident, who is hurt if either the cook or
the butler have failed in the least article of their duty, who feels
every defect in the highest ceremonial of politeness, whether it be
shewn to himself or to any other person, who takes it amiss that his
intimate friend did not bid him good-morrow when they met in the
forenoon, and that his brother hummed a tune all the time he himself was
telling a story; who is put out of humour by the badness of the weather
when in the country, by the badness of the roads when upon a journey,
and by the want of company, and dullness of all public diversions when
in town; such a person, I say, though he should have some reason, will
seldom meet with much sympathy. Joy is a pleasant emotion, and we gladly
abandon ourselves to it upon the slightest occasion. We readily,
therefore, sympathize with it in others, whenever we are not prejudiced
by envy. But grief is painful, and the mind, even when it is our own
misfortune, naturally resists and recoils from it. We would endeavour
either not to conceive it at all, or to shake it off as soon as we have
conceived it. Our aversion to grief will not, indeed, always hinder us
from conceiving it in our own case upon very trifling occasions, but it
constantly prevents us from sympathizing with it in others when excited
by the like frivolous causes: for our sympathetic passions are always
less irresistible than our original ones. There is, besides, a malice in
mankind, which not only prevents all sympathy with little uneasinesses,
but renders them in some measure diverting. Hence the delight which we
all take in raillery, and in the small vexation which we observe in our
companion, when he is pushed, and urged, and teased upon all sides. Men
of the most ordinary good-breeding dissemble the pain which any little
incident may give them; and those who are more thoroughly formed to
society, turn, of their own accord, all such incidents into raillery, as
they know their companions will do for them. The habit which a man, who
lives in the world, has acquired of considering how every thing that
concerns himself will appear to others, makes those frivolous calamities
turn up in the same ridiculous light to him, in which he knows they will
certainly be considered by them.
Our sympathy, on the contrary, with deep distress, is very strong and
very sincere. It is unnecessary to give an instance. We weep even at the
feigned representation of a tragedy. If you labour, therefore, under any
signal calamity, if by some extraordinary misfortune you are fallen into
poverty, into diseases, into disgrace and disappointment; even though
your own fault may have been, in part, the occasion, yet you may
generally depend upon the sincerest sympathy of all your friends, and,
as far as interest and honour will permit, upon their kindest assistance
too. But if your misfortune is not of this dreadful kind, if you have
only been a little baulked in your ambition, if you have only been
jilted by your mistress, or are only hen-pecked by your wife, lay your
account with the raillery of all your acquaintance.
SECTION III.
Of the effects of prosperity and adversity upon the judgment of mankind
with regard to the propriety of action; and why it is more easy to
obtain their approbation in the one state than in the other.
CHAP. I.
_That though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a more lively
sensation than our sympathy with joy, it commonly falls much more short
of the violence of what is naturally felt by the person principally
concerned._
Our sympathy with sorrow, though not more real, has been more taken
notice of than our sympathy with joy. The word sympathy, in its most
proper and primitive signification, denotes our fellow-feeling with the
sufferings, not that with the enjoyments, of others. A late ingenious
and subtile philosopher thought it necessary to prove, by arguments,
that we had a real sympathy with joy, and that congratulation was a
principle of human nature. Nobody, I believe, ever thought it necessary
to prove that compassion was such.
First of all, our sympathy with sorrow is, in some sense, more universal
than that with joy. Though sorrow is excessive, we may still have some
fellow-feeling with it. What we feel does not, indeed, in this case,
amount to that complete sympathy, to that perfect harmony and
correspondence of sentiments which constitutes approbation. We do not
weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the sufferer. We are sensible, on
the contrary, of his weakness, and of the extravagance of his passion,
and yet often feel a very sensible concern upon his account. But if we
do not entirely enter into, and go along with, the joy of another, we
have no sort of regard or fellow-feeling for it. The man who skips and
dances about with that intemperate and senseless joy which we cannot
accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and indignation.
Pain besides, whether of mind or body, is a more pungent sensation than
pleasure, and our sympathy with pain, though it falls greatly short of
what is naturally felt by the sufferer, is generally a more lively and
distinct perception than our sympathy with pleasure, though this last
often approaches more nearly, as I shall show immediately, to the
natural vivacity of the original passion.
Over and above all this, we often struggle to keep down our sympathy
with the sorrow of others. Whenever we are not under the observation of
the sufferer, we endeavour, for our own sake, to suppress it as much as
we can, and we are not always successful. The opposition which we make
to it, and the reluctance with which we yield to it, necessarily oblige
us to take more particular notice of it. But we never have occasion to
make this opposition to our sympathy with joy. If there is any envy in
the case, we never feel the least propensity towards it; and if there is
none, we give way to it without any reluctance. On the contrary, as we
are always ashamed of our own envy, we often pretend, and sometimes
really wish to sympathize with the joy of others, when by that
disagreeable sentiment we are disqualified from doing so. We are glad,
we say, on account of our neighbour’s good fortune, when in our hearts,
perhaps, we are really sorry. We often feel a sympathy with sorrow when
we wish to be rid of it; and we often miss that with joy when we would
be glad to have it. The obvious observation, therefore, which it
naturally falls in our way to make, is that our propensity to sympathize
with sorrow must be very strong, and our inclination to sympathize with
joy very weak.
Notwithstanding this prejudice, however, I will venture to affirm, that,
when there is no envy in the case, our propensity to sympathize with joy
is much stronger than our propensity to sympathize with sorrow; and that
our fellow-feeling for the agreeable emotion approaches much more nearly
to the vivacity of what is naturally felt by the persons principally
concerned, than that which we conceive for the painful one.
We have some indulgence for that excessive grief which we cannot
entirely go along with. We know what a prodigious effort is requisite
before the sufferer can bring down his emotions to compleat harmony and
concord with those of the spectator. Though he fails, therefore, we
easily pardon him. But we have no such indulgence for the intemperance
of joy; because we are not conscious that any such vast effort is
requisite to bring it down to what we can entirely enter into. The man
who, under the greatest calamities, can command his sorrow, seems worthy
of the highest admiration; but he who, in the fulness of prosperity, can
in the same manner master his joy, seems hardly to deserve any praise.
We are sensible that there is a much wider interval in the one case than
in the other, between what is naturally felt by the person principally
concerned, and what the spectator can entirely go along with.
What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is
out of debt, and has a clear conscience? To one in this situation, all
accessions of fortune may properly be said to be superfluous; and if he
is much elevated upon account of them, it must be the effect of the most
frivolous levity. This situation, however, may very well be called the
natural and ordinary state of mankind. Notwithstanding the present
misery and depravity of the world, so justly lamented, this really is
the state of the greater part of men. The greater part of men,
therefore, cannot find any great difficulty in elevating themselves to
all the joy which any accession to this situation can well excite in
their companion.
But though little can be added to this state, much may be taken from it.
Though between this condition and the highest pitch of human prosperity,
the interval is but a trifle; between it and the lowest depth of misery
the distance is immense and prodigious. Adversity, on this account,
necessarily depresses the mind of the sufferer much more below its
natural state, than prosperity can elevate him above it. The spectator,
therefore, must find it much more difficult to sympathize entirely, and
keep perfect time, with his sorrow, than thoroughly to enter into his
joy, and must depart much further from his own natural and ordinary
temper of mind in the one case than in the other. It is on this account,
that, though our sympathy with sorrow is often a more pungent sensation
than our sympathy with joy, it always falls much more short of the
violence of what is naturally felt by the person principally concerned.
It is agreeable to sympathize with joy; and wherever envy does not
oppose it, our heart abandons itself with satisfaction to the highest
transports of that delightful sentiment. But it is painful to go along
with grief, and we always enter into it with reluctance[1]. When we
attend to the representation of a tragedy, we struggle against that
sympathetic sorrow which the entertainment inspires as long as we can,
and we give way to it at last only when we can no longer avoid it: we
even then endeavour to cover our concern from the company. If we shed
any tears, we carefully conceal them, and are afraid lest the
spectators, not entering into this excessive tenderness, should regard
it as effeminacy and weakness. The wretch whose misfortunes call upon
our compassion feels with what reluctance we are likely to enter into
his sorrow, and therefore proposes his grief to us with fear and
hesitation: he even smothers the half of it, and is ashamed, upon
account of this hard-heartedness of mankind, to give vent to the fulness
of his affliction. It is otherwise with the man who riots in joy and
success. Wherever envy does not interest us against him, he expects our
compleatest sympathy. He does not fear, therefore, to announce himself
with shouts of exultation, in full confidence that we are heartily
disposed to go along with him.
Footnote 1:
It has been objected to me that as I found the sentiment of
approbation, which is always agreeable, upon sympathy, it is
inconsistent with my system to admit any disagreeable sympathy. I
answer, that in the sentiment of approbation there are two things to
be taken notice of; first the sympathetic passion of the spectator;
and, secondly, the emotion which arises from his observing the perfect
coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and the
original passion in the person principally concerned. This last
emotion, in which the sentiment of approbation properly consists, is
always agreeable and delightful. The other may either be agreeable or
disagreeable, according to the nature of the original passion, whose
feature it must always, in some measure, retain. Two sounds I suppose,
may, each of them, taken singly, be austere, and yet, if they are
perfect concords, the perception of their harmony and coincidence may
be agreeable.
Why should we be more ashamed to weep than to laugh before company? We
may often have as real occasion to do the one as to do the other: But we
always feel that the spectators are more likely to go along with us in
the agreeable, than in the painful emotion. It is always miserable to
complain, even when we are oppressed by the most dreadful calamities.
But the triumph of victory is not always ungraceful. Prudence, indeed,
would often advise us to bear prosperity with more moderation; because
prudence would teach us to avoid that envy which this very triumph is,
more than any thing, apt to excite.
How hearty are the acclamations of the mob, who never bear any envy to
their superiors, at a triumph or a public entry? And how sedate and
moderate is commonly their grief at an execution? Our sorrow at a
funeral generally amounts to no more than affected gravity; but our
mirth at a christening or a marriage, is always from the heart, and
without any affectation. Upon these, and all such joyous occasions, our
satisfaction, though not so durable, is often as lively as that of the
persons principally concerned. Whenever we cordially congratulate our
friends, which, however, to the disgrace of human nature, we do but
seldom, their joy literally becomes our joy: we are for the moment, as
happy as they are: our heart swells and overflows with real pleasure:
joy and complacency sparkle from our eyes, and animate every feature of
our countenance, and every gesture of our body.
But, on the contrary, when we condole with our friends in their
afflictions, how little do we feel, in comparison of what they feel? We
sit down by them, we look at them, and while they relate to us the
circumstances of their misfortune, we listen to them with gravity and
attention. But while their narration is every moment interrupted by
those natural bursts of passion which often seem almost to choak them in
the midst of it; how far are the languid emotions of our hearts from
keeping time to the transports of theirs? We may be sensible, at the
same time, that their passion is natural, and no greater than what we
ourselves might feel upon the like occasion. We may even inwardly
reproach ourselves with our own want of sensibility, and perhaps on that
account, work ourselves up into an artificial sympathy, which, however,
when it is raised, is always the slightest and most transitory
imaginable; and generally, as soon as we have left the room, vanishes,
and is gone for ever. Nature, it seems, when she has loaded us with our
own sorrows, thought that they were enough, and therefore did not
command us to take any further share in those of others, than what was
necessary to prompt us to relieve them.
It is on account of this dull sensibility to the afflictions of others,
that magnanimity amidst great distress appears always so divinely
graceful. His behaviour is genteel and agreeable who can maintain his
chearfulness amidst a number of frivolous disasters. But he appears to
be more than mortal who can support in the same manner the most dreadful
calamities. We feel what an immense effort is requisite to silence those
violent emotions which naturally agitate and distract those in his
situation. We are amazed to find that he can command himself so
intirely. His firmness, at the same time, perfectly coincides with our
insensibility. He makes no demand upon us for that more exquisite degree
of sensibility which we find, and which we are mortified to find, that
we do not possess. There is the most perfect correspondence between his
sentiments and ours, and on that account the most perfect propriety in
his behaviour. It is a propriety too, which, from our experience of the
usual weakness of human nature, we could not reasonably have expected he
should be able to maintain. We wonder with surprise and astonishment at
that strength of mind which is capable of so noble and generous an
effort. The sentiment of compleat sympathy and approbation, mixed and
animated with wonder and surprise, constitutes what is properly called
admiration, as has already been more than once taken notice of. Cato,
surrounded on all sides by his enemies, unable to resist them, and
disdaining to submit to them, and reduced by the proud maxims of that
age, to the necessity of destroying himself; yet never shrinking from
his misfortunes, never supplicating with the lamentable voice of
wretchedness, those miserable sympathetic tears which we are always so
unwilling to give; but on the contrary, arming himself with manly
fortitude, and the moment before he executes his fatal resolution,
giving, with his usual tranquillity, all necessary orders for the safety
of his friends; appears to Seneca, that great preacher of insensibility,
a spectacle which even the gods themselves might behold with pleasure
and admiration.
Whenever we meet, in common life, with any examples of such heroic
magnanimity, we are always extremely affected. We are more apt to weep
and shed tears for such as, in this manner, seem to feel nothing for
themselves, than for those who give way to all the weakness of sorrow:
and in this particular case, the sympathetic grief of the spectator
appears to go beyond the original passion in the person principally
concerned. The friends of Socrates all wept when he drank the last
potion, while he himself expressed the gayest and most chearful
tranquillity. Upon all such occasions the spectator makes no effort, and
has no occasion to make any, in order to conquer his sympathetic sorrow.
He is under no fear that it will transport him to any thing that is
extravagant and improper; he is rather pleased with the sensibility of
his own heart, and gives way to it with complacence and
self-approbation. He gladly indulges, therefore, the most melancholy
views which can naturally occur to him, concerning the calamity of his
friend, for whom, perhaps, he never felt so exquisitely before, the
tender and tearful passion of love. But it is quite otherwise with the
person principally concerned. He is obliged as much as possible, to turn
away his eyes from whatever is either naturally terrible or disagreeable
in his situation. Too serious an attention to those circumstances, he
fears, might make so violent an impression upon him, that he could no
longer keep within the bounds of moderation, or render himself the
object of the complete sympathy and approbation of the spectators. He
fixes his thoughts, therefore, upon those only which are agreeable; the
applause and admiration which he is about to deserve by the heroic
magnanimity of his behaviour. To feel that he is capable of so noble and
generous an effort, to feel that in this dreadful situation he can still
act as he would desire to act, animates and transports him with joy, and
enables him to support that triumphant gaiety which seems to exult in
the victory he thus gains over his misfortunes.
On the contrary, he always appears, in some measure, mean and
despicable, who is sunk in sorrow and dejection upon account of any
calamity of his own. We cannot bring ourselves to feel for him what he
feels for himself, and what, perhaps, we should feel for ourselves if in
his situation: we, therefore, despise him; unjustly, perhaps, if any
sentiment could be regarded as unjust, to which we are by nature
irresistibly determined. The weakness of sorrow never appears in any
respect agreeable, except when it arises from what we feel for others
more than from what we feel for ourselves. A son, upon the death of an
indulgent and respectable father, may give way to it without much blame.
His sorrow is chiefly founded upon a sort of sympathy with his departed
parent; and we readily enter into this humane emotion. But if he should
indulge the same weakness upon account of any misfortune which affected
himself only, he would no longer meet with any such indulgence. If he
should be reduced to beggary and ruin, if he should be exposed to the
most dreadful dangers, if he should even be led out to a public
execution, and there shed one single tear upon the scaffold, he would
disgrace himself for ever in the opinion of all the gallant and generous
part of mankind. Their compassion for him, however, would be very
strong, and very sincere; but as it would still fall short of this
excessive weakness, they would have no pardon for the man who could thus
expose himself in the eyes of the world. His behaviour would affect them
with shame rather than with sorrow; and the dishonour which he had thus
brought upon himself would appear to them the most lamentable
circumstance in his misfortune. How did it disgrace the memory of the
intrepid Duke of Biron, who had so often braved death in the field, that
he wept upon the scaffold, when he beheld the state to which he was
fallen, and remembered the favour and the glory from which his own
rashness had so unfortunately thrown him!
CHAP. II.
_Of the origin of ambition, and of the distinction of ranks._
It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our
joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal
our poverty. Nothing is so mortifying as to be obliged to expose our
distress to the view of the public, and to feel, that though our
situation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no mortal conceives for us
the half of what we suffer. Nay, it is chiefly from this regard to the
sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty. For to
what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? what is the end
of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power, and
pre-eminence? Is it to supply the necessities of nature? The wages of
the meanest labourer can supply them. We see that they afford him food
and clothing, the comfort of a house, and of a family. If we examine his
œconomy with rigor, we should find that he spends a great part of them
upon conveniences, which may be regarded as superfluities, and that,
upon extraordinary occasions, he can give something even to vanity and
distinction. What then is the cause of our aversion to his situation,
and why should those who have been educated in the higher ranks of life,
regard it as worse than death, to be reduced to live, even without
labour, upon the same simple fare with him, to dwell under the same
lowly roof, and to be clothed in the same humble attire? Do they imagine
that their stomach is better, or their sleep sounder in a palace than in
a cottage? the contrary has been so often observed, and, indeed, is so
very obvious, though it had never been observed, that there is no body
ignorant of it. From whence, then, arises that emulation which runs
through all the different ranks of men, and what are the advantages
which we propose by that great purpose of human life which we call
bettering our condition? To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken
notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the
advantages which we can propose to derive from it. It is the vanity, not
the ease, or the pleasure, which interests us. But vanity is always
founded upon the belief of our being the object of attention and
approbation. The rich man glories in his riches, because he feels that
they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world, and that
mankind are disposed to go along with him in all those agreeable
emotions with which the advantages of his situation so readily inspire
him. At the thought of this, his heart seems to swell and dilate itself
within him, and he is fonder of his wealth upon this account, than for
all the other advantages it procures him. The poor man, on the contrary,
is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it either places him out of the
sight of mankind, or, that, if they take any notice of him, they have,
however, scarce any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he
suffers. He is mortified upon both accounts; for though to be
overlooked, and to be disapproved of, are things entirely different, yet
as obscurity covers us from the daylight of honour and approbation, to
feel that we are taken no notice of necessarily damps the most agreeable
hope, and disappoints the most ardent desire, of human nature. The poor
man goes out and comes in unheeded, and when in the midst of a croud is
in the same obscurity as if shut up in his own hovel. Those humble cares
and painful attentions which occupy those in his situation, afford no
amusement to the dissipated and the gay. They turn away their eyes from
him, or if the extremity of his distress forces them to look at him, it
is only to spurn so disagreeable an object from among them. The
fortunate and the proud wonder at the insolence of human wretchedness,
that it should dare to present itself before them, and with the
loathsome aspect of its misery, presume to disturb the serenity of their
happiness. The man of rank and distinction, on the contrary, is observed
by all the world. Every body is eager to look at him, and to conceive,
at least by sympathy, that joy and exultation with which his
circumstances naturally inspire him. His actions are the objects of the
public care. Scarce a word, scarce a gesture, can fall from him that is
altogether neglected. In a great assembly he is the person upon whom all
direct their eyes; it is upon him that their passions seem all to wait
with expectation, in order to receive that movement and direction which
he shall impress upon them; and if his behaviour is not altogether
absurd, he has, every moment, an opportunity of interesting mankind, and
of rendering himself the object of the observation and fellow-feeling of
every body about him. It is this, which notwithstanding the restraint it
imposes, notwithstanding the loss of liberty with which it is attended,
renders greatness the object of envy, and compensates in the opinion of
mankind, all that toil, all that anxiety, all those mortifications which
must be undergone in the pursuit of it; and what is of yet more
consequence, all that leisure, all that ease, all that careless
security, which are forfeited for ever by the acquisition.
When we consider the condition of the great, in those delusive colours
in which the imagination is apt to paint it, it seems to be almost the
abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. It is the very state which,
in all our waking dreams and idle reveries, we had sketched out to
ourselves as the final object of all our desires. We feel, therefore, a
peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who are in it. We
favour all their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. What pity,
we think, that any thing should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a
situation! We could even wish them immortal; and it seems hard to us,
that death should at last put an end to such perfect enjoyment. It is
cruel, we think, in Nature, to compel them from their exalted stations
to that humble, but hospitable home, which she has provided for all her
children. Great King, live for ever! is the compliment, which after the
manner of eastern adulation, we should readily make them, if experience
did not teach us its absurdity. Every calamity that befalls them, every
injury that is done them, excites in the breast of the spectator ten
times more compassion and resentment than he would have felt, had the
same things happened to other men. It is the misfortunes of Kings only
which afford the proper subjects for tragedy. They resemble, in this
respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those two situations are the chief
which interest us upon the theatre; because, in spite of all that reason
and experience can tell us to the contrary, the prejudices of the
imagination attach to these two states a happiness superior to any
other. To disturb, or to put an end to such perfect enjoyment, seems to
be the most atrocious of all injuries. The traitor who conspires against
the life of his monarch, is thought a greater monster than any other
murderer. All the innocent blood that was shed in the civil wars,
provoked less indignation than the death of Charles I. A stranger to
human nature, who saw the indifference of men about the misery of their
inferiors, and the regret and indignation which they feel for the
misfortunes and sufferings of those above them, would be apt to imagine,
that pain must be more agonizing, and the convulsions of death more
terrible to persons of higher rank, than to those of meaner stations.
Upon this disposition of mankind, to go along with all the passions of
the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction of ranks, and the
order of society. Our obsequiousness to our superiors more frequently
arises from our admiration for the advantages of their situation, than
from any private expectations of benefit from their good-will. Their
benefits can extend but to a few; but their fortunes interest almost
every body. We are eager to assist them in compleating a system of
happiness that approaches so near to perfection; and we desire to serve
them for their own sake, without any other recompense but the vanity or
the honour of obliging them. Neither is our deference to their
inclinations founded chiefly, or altogether, upon a regard to the
utility of such submission, and to the order of society, which is best
supported by it. Even when the order of society seems to require that we
should oppose them, we can hardly bring ourselves to do it. That kings
are the servants of the people, to be obeyed, resisted, deposed, or
punished, as the public conveniency may require, is the doctrine of
reason and philosophy; but it is not the doctrine of Nature. Nature
would teach us to submit to them, for their own sake, to tremble and bow
down before their exalted station, to regard their smile as a reward
sufficient to compensate any services, and to dread their displeasure,
though no other evil was to follow from it, as the severest of all
mortifications. To treat them in any respect as men, to reason and
dispute with them upon ordinary occasions, requires such resolution,
that there are few men whose magnanimity can support them in it, unless
they are likewise assisted by familiarity and acquaintance. The
strongest motives, the most furious passions, fear, hatred, and
resentment, are scarce sufficient to balance this natural disposition to
respect them: and their conduct must, either justly or unjustly, have
excited the highest degree of all those passions, before the bulk of the
people can be brought to oppose them with violence, or to desire to see
them either punished or deposed. Even when the people have been brought
this length, they are apt to relent every moment, and easily relapse
into their habitual state of deference to those whom they have been
accustomed to look upon as their natural superiors. They cannot stand
the mortification of their monarch. Compassion soon takes the place of
resentment, they forget all past provocations, their old principles of
loyalty revive, and they run to re-establish the ruined authority of
their old master, with the same violence with which they had opposed it.
The death of Charles I. brought about the Restoration of the royal
family. Compassion for James II. when he was seized by the populace in
making his escape on ship-board, had almost prevented the Revolution,
and made it go on more heavily than before.
Do the great seem insensible of the easy price at which they may acquire
the public admiration; or do they seem to imagine that to them, as to
other men, it must be the purchase either of sweat or of blood? By what
important accomplishments is the young nobleman instructed to support
the dignity of his rank, and to render himself worthy of that
superiority over his fellow-citizens, to which the virtue of his
ancestors had raised them? Is it by knowledge, by industry, by patience,
by self-denial, or by virtue of any kind? As all his words, as all his
motions are attended to, he learns an habitual regard to every
circumstance of ordinary behaviour, and studies to perform all those
small duties with the most exact propriety. As he is conscious how much
he is observed, and how much mankind are disposed to favour all his
inclinations, he acts, upon the most indifferent occasions, with that
freedom and elevation which the thought of this naturally inspires. His
air, his manner, his deportment, all mark that elegant and graceful
sense of his own superiority, which those who are born to inferior
stations can hardly ever arrive at: these are the arts by which he
proposes to make mankind more easily submit to his authority, and to
govern their inclinations according to his own pleasure: and in this he
is seldom disappointed. These arts, supported by rank and pre-eminence,
are, upon ordinary occasions, sufficient to govern the world. Lewis XIV.
during the greater part of his reign, was regarded, not only in France,
but over all Europe, as the most perfect model of a great prince. But
what were the talents and virtues by which he acquired this great
reputation? Was it by the scrupulous and inflexible justice of all his
undertakings, by the immense dangers and difficulties with which they
were attended, or by the unwearied and unrelenting application with
which he pursued them? Was it by his extensive knowledge, by his
exquisite judgment, or by his heroic valour? It was by none of these
qualities. But he was, first of all, the most powerful prince in Europe,
and consequently held the highest rank among kings; and then, says his
historian, “he surpassed all his courtiers in the gracefulness of his
shape, and the majestic beauty of his features. The sound of his voice,
noble and affecting, gained those hearts which his presence intimidated.
He had a step and deportment which could suit only him and his rank, and
which would have been ridiculous in any other person. The embarrassment
which he occasioned to those who spoke to him, flattered that secret
satisfaction with which he felt his own superiority. The old officer,
who was confounded and faultered in asking him a favour, and not being
able to conclude his discourse, said to him, Sir, your majesty, I hope,
will believe that I do not tremble thus before your enemies: had no
difficulty to obtain what he demanded.” These frivolous accomplishments,
supported by his rank, and, no doubt, too, by a degree of other talents
and virtues, which seems, however, not to have been much above
mediocrity, established this prince in the esteem of his own age, and
have drawn, even from posterity, a good deal of respect for his memory.
Compared with those of his own times, and in his own presence, no other
virtue, it seems, appeared to have any merit. Knowledge, industry,
valour, and beneficence, trembled, were abashed, and lost all dignity
before them.
But it is not by accomplishments of this kind, that the man of inferior
rank must hope to distinguish himself. Politeness is so much the virtue
of the great, that it will do little honour to any body but themselves.
The coxcomb, who imitates their manner, and affects to be eminent by the
superior propriety of his ordinary behaviour, is rewarded with a double
share of contempt for his folly and presumption. Why should the man,
whom nobody thinks it worth while to look at, be very anxious about the
manner in which he holds up his head, or disposes of his arms while he
walks through a room? He is occupied surely with a very superfluous
attention, and with an attention too that marks a sense of his own
importance, which no other mortal can go along with. The most perfect
modesty and plainness, joined to as much negligence as is consistent
with the respect due to the company, ought to be the chief
characteristics of the behaviour of a private man. If ever he hopes to
distinguish himself, it must be by more important virtues. He must
acquire dependants to balance the dependants of the great, and he has no
other fund to pay them from, but the labour of his body, and the
activity of his mind. He must cultivate these therefore: he must acquire
superior knowledge in his profession, and superior industry in the
exercise of it. He must be patient in labour, resolute in danger, and
firm in distress. These talents he must bring into public view, by the
difficulty, importance, and, at the same time, good judgment of his
undertakings, and by the severe and unrelenting application with which
he pursues them. Probity and prudence, generosity and frankness, must
characterize his behaviour upon all ordinary occasions; and he must, at
the same time, be forward to engage in all those situations in which it
requires the greatest talents and virtues to act with propriety, but in
which the greatest applause is to be acquired by those who can acquit
themselves with honour. With what impatience does the man of spirit and
ambition, who is depressed by his situation, look round for some great
opportunity to distinguish himself? No circumstances, which can afford
this, appear to him undesirable. He even looks forward with satisfaction
to the prospect of foreign war, or civil dissension; and, with secret
transport and delight, sees through all the confusion and bloodshed
which attend them, the probability of those wished for occasions
presenting themselves, in which he may draw upon himself the attention
and admiration of mankind. The man of rank and distinction, on the
contrary, whose whole glory consists in the propriety of his ordinary
behaviour, who is contented with the humble renown which this can afford
him, and has no talents to acquire any other, is unwilling to embarrass
himself with what can be attended either with difficulty or distress. To
figure at a ball is his great triumph, and to succeed in an intrigue of
gallantry, his highest exploit. He has an aversion to all public
confusions, not from the love of mankind, for the great never look upon
their inferiors as their fellow-creatures; nor yet from want of courage,
for in that he is seldom defective; but from a consciousness that he
possesses none of the virtues which are required in such situations, and
that the public attention will certainly be drawn away from him by
others. He may be willing to expose himself to some little danger, and
to make a campaign when it happens to be the fashion. But he shudders
with horror at the thought of any situation which demands the continual
and long exertion of patience, industry, fortitude, and application of
thought. These virtues are hardly ever to be met with in men who are
born to those high stations. In all governments accordingly, even in
monarchies, the highest offices are generally possessed, and the whole
detail of the administration conducted by men who were educated in the
middle and inferior ranks of life, who have been carried forward by
their own industry and abilities, though loaded with the jealousy, and
opposed by the resentment of all those who were born their superiors,
and to whom the great, after having regarded them first with contempt,
and afterwards with envy, are at last contented to truckle with the same
abject meanness with which they desire that the rest of mankind should
behave to themselves.
It is the loss of this easy empire over the affections of mankind which
renders the fall from greatness so insupportable. When the family of the
King of Macedon was led in triumph by Paulus Æmilius, their misfortunes,
it is said, made them divide with their conqueror the attention of the
Roman people. The sight of the royal children, whose tender age rendered
them insensible of their situation, struck the spectators, amidst the
public rejoicings and prosperity, with the tenderest sorrow and
compassion. The King appeared next in the procession; and seemed like
one confounded and astonished, and bereft of all sentiment, by the
greatness of his calamities. His friends and ministers followed after
him. As they moved along, they often cast their eye upon their fallen
sovereign, and always burst into tears at the sight; their whole
behaviour demonstrating that they thought not of their misfortunes, but
were occupied entirely by the superior greatness of his. The generous
Romans, on the contrary, beheld him with disdain and indignation, and
regarded as unworthy of all compassion the man who could be so
mean-spirited as to bear to live under such calamities. Yet what did
those calamities amount to? According to the greater part of historians,
he was to spend the remainder of his days under the protection of a
powerful and humane people, in a state which in itself should seem
worthy of envy, a state of plenty, ease, leisure, and security, from
which it was impossible for him even by his own folly to fall. But he
was no longer to be surrounded by that admiring mob of fools,
flatterers, and dependants, who had formerly been accustomed to attend
upon all his motions. He was no longer to be gazed upon by multitudes,
nor to have it in his power to render himself the object of their
respect, their gratitude, their love, their admiration. The passions of
nations were no longer to mould themselves upon his inclinations. This
was that insupportable calamity which bereaved the King of all
sentiment; which made his friends forget their own misfortunes; and
which the Roman magnanimity could scarce conceive how any man could be
so mean-spirited as to bear to survive.
“Love, says my Lord Rochefoucault, is commonly succeeded by ambition;
but ambition is hardly ever succeeded by love.” That passion when once
it has got entire possession of the breast, will admit neither a rival
nor a successor. To those who have been accustomed to the possession, or
even to the hope of public admiration, all other pleasures sicken and
decay. Of all the discarded statesmen who for their own ease have
studied to get the better of ambition, and to despise those honours
which they could no longer arrive at, how few have been able to succeed?
The greater part have spent their time in the most listless and insipid
indolence, chagrined at the thoughts of their own insignificancy,
incapable of being interested in the occupations of private life,
without enjoyment except when they talked of their former greatness, and
without satisfaction except when they were employed in some vain project
to recover it. Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty
for the lordly servitude of a Court, but to live free, fearless, and
independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous
resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so
few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition;
nor even bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth
who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you.
Of such mighty importance does it appear to be, in the imaginations of
men, to stand in that situation which sets them most in the view of
general sympathy and attention. And thus, place, that great object which
divides the wives of aldermen, is the end of half the labours of life;
and is the cause of all the tumult and bustle, all the rapine and
injustice, which avarice and ambition have introduced into this world.
People of sense, it is said, indeed despise place; that is, they despise
sitting at the head of the table, and are indifferent who it is that is
pointed out to the company by that frivolous circumstance, which the
smallest advantage is capable of overbalancing. But rank, distinction,
pre-eminence, no man despises, unless he is either raised very much
above, or sunk very much below, the ordinary standard of human nature;
unless he is either so confirmed in wisdom and real philosophy, as to be
satisfied that, while the propriety of his conduct renders him the just
object of approbation, it is of little consequence though he be neither
attended to, nor approved of; or so habituated to the idea of his own
meanness, so sunk in slothful and sottish indifference, as entirely to
have forgot the desire, and almost the very wish, for superiority.
CHAP. III.
_Of the stoical philosophy._
When we examine in this manner into the ground of the different degrees
of estimation which mankind are apt to bestow upon the different
conditions of life, we shall find, that the excessive preference, which
they generally give to some of them above others, is in a great measure
without any foundation. If to be able to act with propriety, and to
render ourselves the proper objects of the approbation of mankind, be,
as we have been endeavouring to show, what chiefly recommends to us one
condition above another, this may equally be attained in them all. The
noblest propriety of conduct may be supported in adversity, as well as
in prosperity; and though it is somewhat more difficult in the first, it
is upon that very account more admirable. Perils and misfortunes are not
only the proper school of heroism, they are the only proper theatre
which can exhibit its virtue to advantage, and draw upon it the full
applause of the world. The man, whose whole life has been one even and
uninterrupted course of prosperity, who never braved any danger, who
never encountered any difficulty, who never surmounted any distress, can
excite but an inferior degree of admiration. When poets and
romance-writers endeavour to invent a train of adventures, which shall
give the greatest lustre to those characters for whom they mean to
interest us, they are all of a different kind. They are rapid and sudden
changes of fortune, situations the most apt to drive those who are in
them to frenzy and distraction, or to abject despair; but in which their
heroes act with so much propriety, or at least with so much spirit and
undaunted resolution, as still to command our esteem. Is not the
unfortunate magnanimity of Cato, Brutus, and Leonidas, as much the
object of admiration, as that of the successful Cæsar or Alexander? To a
generous mind, therefore, ought it not to be as much the object of envy?
If a more dazzling splendor seems to attend the fortunes of successful
conquerors, it is because they join together the advantages of both
situations, the lustre of prosperity to the high admiration which is
excited by dangers encountered, and difficulties surmounted, with
intrepidity and valour.
It was upon this account that, according to the stoical philosophy, to a
wise man all the different conditions of life were equal. Nature, they
said, had recommended some objects to our choice, and others to our
disapprobation. Our primary appetites directed us to the pursuit of
health, strength, ease, and perfection, in all the qualities of mind and
body; and of whatever could promote or secure these, riches, power,
authority: and the same original principle taught us to avoid the
contrary. But in chusing or rejecting, in preferring or postponing,
those first objects of original appetite and aversion, Nature had
likewise taught us, that there was a certain order, propriety, and
grace, to be observed, of infinitely greater consequence to happiness
and perfection, than the attainment of those objects themselves. The
objects of our primary appetites or aversions were to be pursued or
avoided, chiefly because a regard to this grace and propriety required
such conduct. In directing all our actions according to these, consisted
the happiness and glory of human nature. In departing from those rules
which they prescribed to us, its greatest wretchedness and most complete
depravity. The outward appearance of this order and propriety was indeed
more easily maintained in some circumstances than in others. To a fool,
however, to one whose passions were subjected to no proper controul, to
act with real grace and propriety, was equally impossible in every
situation. Though the giddy multitude might admire him, though his
vanity might sometimes be elevated by their ignorant praises into
something that resembled self-approbation, yet still when he turned his
view to what passed within his own breast, he was secretly conscious to
himself of the absurdity and meanness of all his motives, and inwardly
blushed and trembled at the thoughts of the contempt which he knew he
deserved, and which mankind would certainly bestow upon him if they saw
his conduct in the light in which in his own heart he was obliged to
regard it. To a wise man, on the contrary, to one whose passions were
all brought under perfect subjection to the ruling principles of his
nature, to reason and the love of propriety, to act so as to deserve
approbation was equally easy upon all occasions. Was he in prosperity,
he returned thanks to Jupiter for having joined him with circumstances
which were easily mastered, and in which there was little temptation to
do wrong. Was he in adversity, he equally, returned thanks to the
director of this spectacle of human life, for having opposed to him a
vigorous athlete, over whom, though the contest was likely to be more
violent, the victory was more glorious, and equally certain. Can there
be any shame in that distress which is brought upon us without any fault
of our own, and in which we behave with perfect propriety? There can
therefore, be no evil, but, on the contrary, the greatest good and
advantage. A brave man exults in those dangers, in which, from no
rashness of his own, his fortune has involved him. They afford an
opportunity of exercising that heroic intrepidity, whose exertion gives
the exalted delight which flows from the consciousness of superior
propriety and deserved admiration. One who is master of all his
exercises has no aversion to measure his strength and activity with the
strongest. And in the same manner, one who is master of all his
passions, does not dread any circumstances in which the superintendant
of the universe may think proper to place him. The bounty of that Divine
Being has provided him with virtues which render him superior to every
situation. If it is pleasure, he has temperance to refrain from it; if
it is pain, he has constancy to bear it; if it is danger or death, he
has magnanimity and fortitude to despise it. He never complains of the
destiny of providence, nor thinks the universe in confusion when he is
out of order. He does not look upon himself, according to what self-love
would suggest, as a whole, separated and detached from every other part
of nature, to be taken care of by itself, and for itself. He regards
himself in the light in which he imagines the great Genius of human
nature, and of the world, regards him. He enters, if I may say so, into
the sentiments of that Divine Being, and considers himself as an atom, a
particle, of an immense and infinite system, which must, and ought to be
disposed of, according to the conveniency of the whole. Assured of the
wisdom which directs all the events of human life, whatever lot befalls
him, he accepts it with joy, satisfied that, if he had known all the
connexions and dependencies of the different parts of the universe, it
is the very lot which he himself would have wished for. If it is life,
he is contented to live: and if it is death, as Nature must have no
further occasion for his presence here, he willingly goes where he is
appointed. I accept, said a stoical philosopher, with equal joy and
satisfaction, whatever fortune can befal me. Riches or poverty, pleasure
or pain, health or sickness, all is alike: nor would I desire that the
gods should in any respect change my destination. If I was to ask of
them any thing, beyond what their bounty has already bestowed, it should
be that they would inform me beforehand what it was their pleasure
should be done with me, that I might of my own accord place myself in
this situation, and demonstrate the chearfulness with which I embraced
their allotment. If I am going to fail, says Epictetus, I chuse the best
ship, and the best pilot, and I wait for the fairest weather that my
circumstances and duty will allow. Prudence and propriety, the
principles which the gods have given me for the direction of my conduct,
require this of me; but they require no more: and if, notwithstanding, a
storm arises, which neither the strength of the vessel, nor the skill of
the pilot are likely to withstand, I give myself no trouble about the
consequence. All that I had to do, is done already. The directors of my
conduct never command me to be miserable, to be anxious, desponding, or
afraid. Whether we are to be drowned, or to come to a harbour, is the
business of Jupiter, not mine. I leave it entirely to his determination,
nor ever break my rest with considering which way he is likely to decide
it, but receive whatever comes with equal indifference and security.
Such was the philosophy of the stoics, a philosophy which affords the
noblest lessons of magnanimity, is the best school of heroes and
patriots, and to the greater part of whose precepts there can be no
objection, except that honourable one, that they teach us to aim at a
perfection altogether beyond the reach of human nature. I shall not at
present stop to examine it. I shall only observe, in confirmation of
what has formerly been said, that the most dreadful calamities are not
always those which it is most difficult to support. It is often more
mortifying to appear in public, under small disasters, than under great
misfortunes. The first excite no sympathy; but the second, though they
may excite none that approaches to the anguish of the sufferer, call
forth, however, a very lively compassion. The sentiments of the
spectators are, in this last case, therefore, less wide of those of the
sufferer, and their imperfect fellow-feeling lends him some assistance
in supporting his misery. Before a gay assembly, a gentleman would be
more mortified to appear covered with filth and rags than with blood and
wounds. This last situation would interest their pity; the other would
provoke their laughter. The judge who orders a criminal to be set in the
pillory, dishonours him more than if he had condemned him to the
scaffold. The great prince, who, some years ago, caned a general officer
at the head of his army, disgraced him irrecoverably. The punishment
would have been much less had he shot him through the body. By the laws
of honour, to strike with a cane dishonours, to strike with a sword does
not, for an obvious reason. Those slighter punishments when inflicted on
a gentleman, to whom dishonour is the greatest of all evils, come to be
regarded among a humane and generous people, as the most dreadful of
any. With regard to persons of that rank, therefore, they are
universally laid aside, and the law, while it takes their life upon many
occasions, respects their honour upon almost all. To scourge a person of
quality, or to set him in the pillory, upon account of any crime
whatever, is a brutality of which no European government, except that of
Russia, is capable.
A brave man is not rendered contemptible by being brought to the
scaffold; he is, by being set in the pillory. His behaviour in the one
situation may gain him universal esteem and admiration. No behaviour in
the other can render him agreeable. The sympathy of the spectators
supports him in the one case, and saves him from that shame, that
consciousness that his misery is felt by himself only, which is of all
sentiments the most unsupportable. There is no sympathy in the other;
or, if there is any, it is not with his pain, which is a trifle, but
with his consciousness of the want of sympathy with which this pain is
attended. It is with his shame, not with his sorrow. Those who pity him,
blush and hang down their heads for him. He droops in the same manner,
and feels himself irrecoverably degraded by the punishment, though not
by the crime. The man, on the contrary, who dies with resolution, as he
is naturally regarded with the erect aspect of esteem and approbation,
so he wears himself the same undaunted countenance; and, if the crime
does not deprive him of the respect of others, the punishment never
will. He has no suspicion that his situation is the object of contempt
or derision to any body, and he can, with propriety, assume the air, not
only of perfect serenity, but of triumph and exaltation.
“Great dangers,” says the Cardinal de Retz, “have their charms, because
there is some glory to be got, even when we miscarry. But moderate
dangers have nothing but what is horrible, because the loss of
reputation always attends the want of success.” His maxim has the same
foundation with what we have been just now observing with regard to
punishments.
Human virtue is superior to pain, to poverty, to danger, and to death;
nor does it even require its utmost efforts to despise them. But to have
its misery exposed to insult and derision, to be led in triumph, to be
set up for the hand of scorn to point at, is a situation in which its
constancy is much more apt to fail. Compared with the contempt of
mankind, all other evils are easily supported.
PART II.
Of MERIT and DEMERIT; or, of the Objects of REWARD and PUNISHMENT.
CONSISTING OF THREE SECTIONS.
SECTION I.
Of the sense of merit and demerit.
INTRODUCTION.
There is another set of qualities ascribed to the actions and conduct of
mankind, distinct from their propriety or impropriety, their decency or
ungracefulness, and which are the objects of a distinct species of
approbation and disapprobation. These are merit and demerit, the
qualities of deserving reward, and of deserving punishment.
It has already been observed, that the sentiment or affection of the
heart, from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue
or vice depends, may be considered under two different aspects, or in
two different relations: first, in relation to the cause or object which
excites it; and, secondly, in relation to the end which it proposes, or
to the effect which it tends to produce: that upon the suitableness or
unsuitableness, upon the proportion or disproportion, which the
affection seems to bear to the cause or object which excites it, depends
the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the
consequent action; and that upon the beneficial or hurtful effects which
the affection proposes or tends to produce, depends the merit or
demerit, the good or ill desert of the action to which it gives
occasion. Wherein consists our sense of the propriety or impropriety of
actions, has been explained in the former part of this discourse. We
come now to consider, wherein consists that of their good or ill desert.
CHAP. I.
_That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to
deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appears to be the
proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment._
To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which
appears to be the proper and approved object of that sentiment, which
most immediately and directly prompts us to reward, or to do good to
another. And in the same manner, that action must appear to deserve
punishment, which appears to be the proper and approved object of that
sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to publish, or
inflict evil upon another.
The sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to reward,
is gratitude; that which most immediately and directly prompts us to
punish, is resentment.
To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which
appears to be the proper and approved object of gratitude; as, on the
other hand, that action must appear to deserve punishment, which appears
to be the proper and approved object of resentment.
To reward, is to recompense, to remunerate, to return good for good
received. To punish, too, is to recompense, to remunerate, though in a
different manner; it is to return evil for evil that has been done.
There are some other passions, besides gratitude and resentment, which
interest us in the happiness or misery of others; but there are none
which so directly excite us to be the instruments of either. The love
and esteem which grow upon acquaintance and habitual approbation,
necessarily lead us to be pleased with the good fortune of the man who
is the object of such agreeable emotions, and consequently, to be
willing to lend a hand to promote it. Our love, however, is fully
satisfied, though his good fortune should be brought about without our
assistance. All that this passion desires is to see him happy, without
regarding who was the author of his prosperity. But gratitude is not to
be satisfied in this manner. If the person to whom we owe many
obligations, is made happy without our assistance, though it pleases our
love, it does not content our gratitude. Till we have recompensed him,
till we ourselves have been instrumental in promoting his happiness, we
feel ourselves still loaded with that debt which his past services have
laid upon us.
The hatred and dislike, in the same manner, which grow upon habitual
disapprobation, would often lead us to take a malicious pleasure in the
misfortune of the man whose conduct and character excite so painful a
passion. But though dislike and hatred harden us against all sympathy,
and sometimes dispose us even to rejoice at the distress of another,
yet, if there is no resentment in the case, if neither we nor our
friends have received any great personal provocation, these passions
would not naturally lead us to wish to be instrumental in bringing it
about. Tho’ we could fear no punishment in consequence of our having had
some hand it, we would rather that it should happen by other means. To
one under the dominion of violent hatred it would be agreeable, perhaps,
to hear, that the person whom he abhorred and detested was killed by
some accident. But if he had the least spark of justice, which, though
this passion is not very favourable to virtue, he might still have, it
would hurt him excessively to have been himself, even without design,
the occasion of this misfortune. Much more would the very thought of
voluntarily contributing to it shock him beyond all measure. He would
reject with horror even the imagination of so execrable a design; and if
he could imagine himself capable of such an enormity, he would begin to
regard himself in the same odious light in which he had considered the
person who was the object of his dislike. But it is quite otherwise with
resentment: if the person who had done us some great injury, who had
murdered our father or our brother, for example, should soon afterwards
die of a fever, or even be brought to the scaffold upon account of some
other crime, though it might sooth our hatred, it would not fully
gratify our resentment. Resentment would prompt us to desire, not only
that he should be punished, but that he should be punished by our means,
and upon account of that particular injury which he had done to us.
Resentment cannot be fully gratified, unless the offender is not only
made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong
which we have suffered from him. He must be made to repent and be sorry
for this very action, that others, through fear of the like punishment,
may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. The natural
gratification of this passion tends, of its own accord, to produce all
the political ends of punishment; the correction of the criminal, and
the example to the public.
Gratitude and resentment, therefore, are the sentiments which most
immediately and directly prompt to reward and to punish. To us,
therefore, he must appear to deserve reward, who appears to be the
proper and approved object of gratitude; and he to deserve punishment,
who appears to be that of resentment.
CHAP. II.
_Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment._
To be the proper and approved object either of gratitude or resentment,
can mean nothing but to be the object of that gratitude, and of that
resentment, which naturally seems proper, and is approved of.
But these, as well as all the other passions of human nature, seem
proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial spectator
entirely sympathizes with them, when every indifferent by-stander
entirely enters into, and goes along with them.
He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or
persons, is the natural object of a gratitude which every human heart is
disposed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and he, on the other
hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the same manner is to some
person or persons the natural object of a resentment which the breast of
every reasonable man is ready to adopt and sympathize with. To us,
surely, that action must appear to deserve reward, which every body who
knows of it would wish to reward, and therefore delights to see
rewarded: and that action must as surely appear to deserve punishment,
which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that account
rejoices to see punished.
1. As we sympathize with the joy of our companions when in prosperity,
so we join with them in the complacency and satisfaction with which they
naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good fortune. We enter
into the love and affection which they conceive for it, and begin to
love it too. We should be sorry for their sakes if it was destroyed, or
even if it was placed at too great a distance from them, and out of the
reach of their care and protection, though they should lose nothing by
its absence except the pleasure of seeing it. If it is man who has thus
been the fortunate instrument of the happiness of his brethren, this is
still more peculiarly the case. When we see one man assisted, protected,
relieved by another, our sympathy with the joy of the person who
receives the benefit serves only to animate our fellow-feeling with his
gratitude towards him who bestows it. When we look upon the person who
is the cause of his pleasure with the eyes with which we imagine he must
look upon him, his benefactor seems to stand before us in the most
engaging and amiable light. We readily therefore sympathize with the
grateful affection which he conceives for a person to whom he has been
so much obliged; and consequently applaud the returns which he is
disposed to make for the good offices conferred upon him. As we entirely
enter into the affection from which these returns proceed, they
necessarily seem every way proper and suitable to their object.
2. In the same manner, as we sympathize with the sorrow of our
fellow-creature whenever we see his distress, so we likewise enter into
his abhorrence and aversion for whatever has given occasion to it. Our
heart, as it adopts and beats time to his grief, so is it likewise
animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or
destroy the cause of it. The indolent and passive fellow-feeling, by
which we accompany him in his sufferings, readily gives way to that more
vigorous and active sentiment by which we go along with him in the
effort he makes, either to repel them, or to gratify his aversion to
what has given occasion to them. This is still more peculiarly the case,
when it is man who has caused them. When we see one man oppressed or
injured by another, the sympathy which we feel with the distress of the
sufferer seems to serve only to animate our fellow-feeling with his
resentment against the offender. We are rejoiced to see him attack his
adversary in his turn, and are eager and ready to assist him whenever he
exerts himself for defence, or even for vengeance within a certain
degree. If the injured should perish in the quarrel, we not only
sympathize with the real resentment of his friends and relations, but
with the imaginary resentment which in fancy we lend to the dead, who is
no longer capable of feeling that or any other human sentiment. But as
we put ourselves in his situation, as we enter, as it were, into his
body, and in our imaginations, in some measure, animate anew the
deformed and mangled carcass of the slain, when we bring home in this
manner his case to our own bosoms, we feel upon this, as upon many other
occasions, an emotion which the person principally concerned is
incapable of feeling, and which yet we feel by an illusive sympathy with
him. The sympathetic tears which we shed for that immense and
irretrievable loss, which in our fancy he appears to have sustained,
seem to be but a small part of the duty which we owe him. The injury
which he has suffered demands, we think, a principal part of our
attention. We feel that resentment which we imagine he ought to feel,
and which he would feel, if in his cold and lifeless body there remained
any consciousness of what passes upon earth. His blood, we think, calls
aloud for vengeance. The very ashes of the dead seem to be disturbed at
the thought that his injuries are to pass unrevenged. The horrors which
are supposed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghosts which,
superstition imagines, rise from their graves to demand vengeance upon
those who brought them to an untimely end, all take their origin from
this natural sympathy with the imaginary resentment of the slain. And
with regard, at least, to this most dreadful of all crimes, Nature,
antecedent to all reflections upon the utility of punishment, has in
this manner stamped upon the human heart, in the strongest and most
indelible characters, an immediate and instinctive approbation of the
sacred and necessary law of retaliation.
CHAP. III.
_That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person who
confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of him
who receives it: and that, on the contrary, where there is no
disapprobation of the motives of the person who does the mischief, there
is no sort of sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it._
It is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial soever on the one
hand, or how hurtful soever on the other, the actions or intentions of
the person who acts may have been to the person who is, if I may say so,
acted upon, yet if in the one case there appears to have been no
propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the
affections which influenced his conduct, we have little sympathy with
the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit: or if, in the
other case, there appears to have been no impropriety in the motives of
the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his
conduct are such as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no sort
of sympathy with the resentment of the person who suffers. Little
gratitude seems due in the one case, and all sort of resentment seems
unjust in the other. The one action seems to merit little reward, the
other to deserve no punishment.
1. First, I say, that wherever we cannot sympathize with the affections
of the agent, wherever there seems to be no propriety in the motives
which influenced his conduct, we are less disposed to enter into the
gratitude of the person who received the benefit of his actions. A very
small return seems due to that foolish and profuse generosity which
confers the greatest benefits from the most trivial motives, and gives
an estate to a man merely because his name and surname happen to be the
same with those of the giver. Such services do not seem to demand any
proportionable recompense. Our contempt for the folly of the agent
hinders us from thoroughly entering into the gratitude of the person to
whom the good office has been done. His benefactor seems unworthy of it.
As when we place ourselves in the situation of the person obliged, we
feel that we could conceive no great reverence for such a benefactor, we
easily absolve him from a great deal of that submissive veneration and
esteem which we should think due to a more respectable character; and
provided he always treats his weak friend with kindness and humanity, we
are willing to excuse him from many attentions and regards which we
should demand to a worthier patron. Those Princes, who have heaped, with
the greatest profusion, wealth, power, and honours, upon their
favourites, have seldom excited that degree of attachment to their
persons which has often been experienced by those who were more frugal
of their favours. The well-natured, but injudicious prodigality of James
the First of Great Britain seems to have attached no body to his person;
and that Prince, notwithstanding his social and harmless disposition,
appears to have lived and died without a friend. The whole gentry and
nobility of England exposed their lives and fortunes in the cause of his
more frugal and distinguishing son, notwithstanding the coldness and
distant severity of his ordinary deportment.
2. Secondly, I say, That wherever the conduct of the agent appears to
have been entirely directed by motives and affections which we
thoroughly enter into and approve of, we can have no sort of sympathy
with the resentment of the sufferer, how great soever the mischief which
may have been done to him. When two people quarrel, if we take part
with, and entirely adopt the resentment of one of them, it is impossible
that we should enter into that of the other. Our sympathy with the
person whose motives we go along with, and whom therefore we look upon
as in the right, cannot but harden us against all fellow-feeling with
the other, whom we necessarily regard as in the wrong. Whatever this
last, therefore, may have suffered, while it is no more than what we
ourselves should have wished him to suffer, while it is no more than
what our own sympathetic indignation would have prompted us to inflict
upon him, it cannot either displease or provoke us. When an inhuman
murderer is brought to the scaffold, though we have some compassion for
his misery, we can have no sort of fellow-feeling with his resentment,
if he should be so absurd as to express any against either his
prosecutor or his judge. The natural tendency of their just indignation
against so vile a criminal is indeed the most fatal and ruinous to him.
But it is impossible that we should be displeased with the tendency of a
sentiment, which, when we bring the case home to ourselves, we feel that
we cannot avoid adopting.
CHAP. IV.
_Recapitulation of the foregoing Chapters._
We do not, therefore, thoroughly and heartily sympathize with the
gratitude of one man towards another, merely because this other has been
the cause of his good fortune, unless he has been the cause of it from
motives which we entirely go along with. Our heart must adopt the
principles of the agent, and go along with all the affections which
influenced his conduct, before it can entirely sympathize with, and beat
time to, the gratitude of the person who has been benefited by his
actions. If in the conduct of the benefactor there appears to have been
no propriety, how beneficial soever its effects, it does not seem to
demand, or necessarily to require, any proportionable recompense.
But when to the beneficent tendency of the action is joined the
propriety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we entirely
sympathize and go along with the motives of the agent, the love which we
conceive for him upon his own account, enhances and enlivens our
fellow-feeling with the gratitude of those who owe their prosperity to
his good conduct. His actions seem then to demand, and, if I may say so,
to call aloud for a proportionable recompense. We then entirely enter
into that gratitude which prompts to bestow it. The benefactor seems
then to be the proper object of reward, when we thus entirely sympathize
with, and approve of, that sentiment which prompts to reward him. When
we approve of, and go along with, the affection from which the action
proceeds, we must necessarily approve of the action, and regard the
person towards whom it is directed as its proper and suitable object.
2. In the same manner, we cannot at all sympathize with the resentment
of one man against another, merely because this other has been the cause
of his misfortune, unless he has been the cause of it from motives which
we cannot enter into. Before we can adopt the resentment of the
sufferer, we must disapprove of the motives of the agent, and feel that
our heart renounces all sympathy with the affections which influenced
his conduct. If there appears to have been no impropriety in these, how
fatal soever the tendency of the action which proceeds from them to
those against whom it is directed, it does not seem to deserve any
punishment, or to be the proper object of any resentment.
But when to the hurtfulness of the action is joined the impropriety of
the affection from whence it proceeds, when our heart rejects with
abhorrence all fellow-feeling with the motives of the agent, we then
heartily and entirely sympathize with the resentment of the sufferer.
Such actions seem then to deserve, and, if I may say so, to call aloud
for, a proportionable punishment; and we entirely enter into, and
thereby approve of, that resentment which prompts to inflict it. The
offender necessarily seems then to be the proper object of punishment,
when we thus entirely sympathize with, and thereby approve of, that
sentiment which prompts to punish. In this case too, when we approve,
and go along with, the affection from which the action proceeds, we must
necessarily approve of the action, and regard the person against whom it
is directed, as its proper and suitable object.
CHAP. V.
_The analysis of the sense of merit and demerit._
1. As our sense, therefore, of the propriety of conduct arises from what
I shall call a direct sympathy with the affections and motives of the
person who acts, so our sense of its merit arises from what I shall call
an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of the person who is, if I may
say so, acted upon.
As we cannot indeed enter thoroughly into the gratitude of the person
who receives the benefit, unless we beforehand approve of the motives of
the benefactor, so, upon this account, the sense of merit seems to be a
compounded sentiment, and to be made up of two distinct emotions; a
direct sympathy with the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect
sympathy with the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his
actions.
We may, upon many different occasions, plainly distinguish those two
different emotions combining and uniting together in our sense of the
good desert of a particular character or action. When we read in history
concerning actions of proper and beneficent greatness of mind, how
eagerly do we enter into such designs? How much are we animated by that
high-spirited generosity which directs them? How keen are we for their
success? How grieved at their disappointment? In imagination we become
the very person whose actions are represented to us: we transport
ourselves in fancy to the scenes of those distant and forgotten
adventures, and imagine ourselves acting the part of a Scipio or a
Camillus, a Timoleon or an Aristides. So far our sentiments are founded
upon the direct sympathy with the person who acts. Nor is the indirect
sympathy with those who receive the benefit of such actions less
sensibly felt. Whenever we place ourselves in the situation of these
last, with what warm and affectionate fellow-feeling do we enter into
their gratitude towards those who served them so essentially? We
embrace, as it were, their benefactor along with them. Our heart readily
sympathizes with the highest transports of their grateful affection. No
honours, no rewards, we think, can be too great for them to bestow upon
him. When they make this proper return for his services, we heartily
applaud and go along with them; but are shocked beyond all measure, if
by their conduct they appear to have little sense of the obligations
conferred upon them. Our whole sense, in short, of the merit and good
desert of such actions, of the propriety and fitness of recompensing
them, and making the person who performed them rejoice in his turn,
arises from the sympathetic emotions of gratitude and love, with which,
when we bring home to our own breast the situation of those principally
concerned, we feel ourselves naturally transported towards the man who
could act with such proper and noble beneficence.
2. In the same manner as our sense of the impropriety of conduct arises
from a want of sympathy, or from a direct antipathy to the affections
and motives of the agent, so our sense of its demerit arises from what I
shall here too call an indirect sympathy with the resentment of the
sufferer.
As we cannot indeed enter into the resentment of the sufferer, unless
our heart beforehand disapproves the motives of the agent, and renounces
all fellow-feeling with them; so upon this account the sense of demerit,
as well as that of merit, seems to be a compounded sentiment, and to be
made up of two distinct emotions; a direct antipathy to the sentiments
of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the resentment of the
sufferer.
We may here too, upon many different occasions, plainly distinguish
those two different emotions combining and uniting together in our sense
of the ill desert of a particular character or action. When we read in
history concerning the perfidy and cruelty of a Borgia or a Nero, our
heart rises up against the detestable sentiments which influenced their
conduct, and renounces with horror and abomination all fellow-feeling
with such execrable motives. So far our sentiments are founded upon the
direct antipathy to the affections of the agent: and the indirect
sympathy with the resentment of the sufferers is still more sensibly
felt. When we bring home to ourselves the situation of the persons whom
those scourges of mankind insulted, murdered, or betrayed, what
indignation do we not feel against such insolent and inhuman oppressors
of the earth? Our sympathy with the unavoidable distress of the innocent
sufferers is not more real nor more lively, than our fellow-feeling with
their just and natural resentment. The former sentiment only heightens
the latter, and the idea of their distress serves only to inflame and
blow up our animosity against those who occasioned it. When we think of
the anguish of the sufferers, we take part with them more earnestly
against their oppressors; we enter with more eagerness into all their
schemes of vengeance, and feel ourselves every moment wreaking, in
imagination, upon such violators of the laws of society, that punishment
which our sympathetic indignation tells us is due to their crimes. Our
sense of the horror and dreadful atrocity of such conduct, the delight
which we take in hearing that it was properly punished, the indignation
which we feel when it escapes this due retaliation, our whole sense and
feeling, in short, of its ill desert, of the propriety and fitness of
inflicting evil upon the person who is guilty of it, and of making him
grieve in his turn, arises from the sympathetic indignation which
naturally boils up in the breast of the spectator, whenever he
thoroughly brings home to himself the case of the sufferer[2].
Footnote 2:
To ascribe in this manner our natural sense of the ill desert of human
actions to a sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, may seem,
to the greater part of people, to be a degradation of that sentiment.
Resentment is commonly regarded as so odious a passion, that they will
be apt to think it impossible that so laudable a principle, as the
sense of the ill desert of vice, should in any respect be founded upon
it. They will be more willing, perhaps, to admit that our sense of the
merit of good actions is founded upon a sympathy with the gratitude of
the persons who receive the benefit of them; because gratitude, as
well as all the other benevolent passions, is regarded as an amiable
principle, which can take nothing from the worth of whatever is
founded upon it. Gratitude and resentment, however, are in every
respect, it is evident, counterparts to one another; and if our sense
of merit arises from a sympathy with the one, our sense of demerit can
scarce miss to proceed from a fellow-feeling with the other.
Let it be considered too that resentment, though, in the degrees in
which we too often see it, the most odious, perhaps, of all the
passions, is not disapproved of when properly humbled and entirely
brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the
spectator. When we, who are the bystanders, feel that our own
animosity entirely corresponds with that of the sufferer, when the
resentment of this last does not in any respect go beyond our own,
when no word, no gesture, escapes him that denotes an emotion more
violent than what we can keep time to, and when he never aims at
inflicting any punishment beyond what we should rejoice to see
inflicted, or what we ourselves would upon this account even desire to
be the instruments of inflicting, it is impossible that we should not
entirely approve of his sentiments. Our own emotion in this case must,
in our eyes, undoubtedly justify his. And as experience teaches us how
much the greater part of mankind are incapable of this moderation, and
how great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and
undisciplined impulse of resentment to this suitable temper, we cannot
avoid conceiving a considerable degree of esteem and admiration for
one who appears capable of exerting so much self-command over one of
the most ungovernable passions of his nature. When indeed the
animosity of the sufferer exceeds, as it almost always does, what we
can go along with, as we cannot enter into it, we necessarily
disapprove of it. We even disapprove of it more than we should of an
equal excess of almost any other passion derived from the imagination.
And this too violent resentment, instead of carrying us along with it,
becomes itself the object of our resentment and indignation. We enter
into the opposite resentment of the person who is the object of this
unjust emotion, and who is in danger of suffering from it. Revenge,
therefore, the excess of resentment, appears to be the most detestable
of all the passions, and is the object of the horror and indignation
of every body. And as in the way in which this passion commonly
discovers itself among mankind, it is excessive a hundred times for
once that it is moderate, we are very apt to consider it as altogether
odious and detestable, because in its most ordinary appearances it is
so. Nature, however, even in the present depraved state of mankind,
does not seem to have dealt so unkindly with us, as to have endowed us
with any principle which is wholly in every respect evil, or which, in
no degree and in no direction, can be the proper object of praise and
approbation. Upon some occasions we are sensible that this passion,
which is generally too strong, may likewise be too weak. We sometimes
complain that a particular person shows too little spirit, and has too
little sense of the injuries that have been done to him; and we are as
ready to despise him for the defect, as to hate him for the excess of
this passion.
The inspired writers would not surely have talked so frequently or so
strongly of the wrath and anger of God, if they had regarded every
degree of those passions as vicious and evil, even in so weak and
imperfect a creature as man.
Let it be considered too, that the present inquiry is not concerning a
matter of right, if I may say so, but concerning a matter of fact. We
are not at present examining upon what principles a perfect being
would approve of the punishment of bad actions; but upon what
principles so weak and imperfect a creature as man actually and in
fact approves of it. The principles which I have just now mentioned,
it is evident, have a very great effect upon his sentiments; and it
seems wisely ordered that it should be so. The very existence of
society requires that unmerited and unprovoked malice should be
restrained by proper punishments; and consequently, that to inflict
those punishments should be regarded as a proper and laudable action.
Though man, therefore, be naturally endowed with a desire of the
welfare and preservation of society, yet the Author of nature has not
entrusted it to his reason to find out that a certain application of
punishments is the proper means of attaining this end; but has endowed
him with an immediate and instinctive approbation of that very
application which is most proper to attain it. The œconomy of nature
is in this respect exactly of a piece with what it is upon many other
occasions. With regard to all those ends which, upon account of their
peculiar importance, may be regarded, if such an expression is
allowable, as the favourite ends of nature, she has constantly in this
manner not only endowed mankind with an appetite for the end which she
proposes, but likewise with an appetite for the means by which alone
this end can be brought about, for their own sakes, and independent of
their tendency to produce it. Thus self-preservation, and the
propagation of the species, are the great ends which Nature seems to
have proposed in the formation of all animals. Mankind are endowed
with a desire of those ends, and an aversion to the contrary; with a
love of life, and a dread of dissolution; with a desire of the
continuance and perpetuity of the species, and with an aversion to the
thoughts of its entire extinction. But though we are in this manner
endowed with a very strong desire of those ends, it has not been
entrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason, to
find out the proper means of bringing them about. Nature has directed
us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts.
Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, the love of
pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for
their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to
those beneficent ends which the great Director of nature intended to
produce by them.
Before I conclude this note, I must take notice of a difference
between the approbation of propriety and that of merit or beneficence.
Before we approve of the sentiments of any person as proper and
suitable to their objects, we must not only be affected in the same
manner as he is, but we must perceive this harmony and correspondence
of sentiments between him and ourselves. Thus, though upon hearing of
a misfortune that had befallen my friend, I should conceive precisely
that degree of concern which he gives way to; yet till I am informed
of the manner in which he behaves, till I perceive the harmony between
his emotions and mine, I cannot be said to approve of the sentiments
which influence his behaviour. The approbation of propriety therefore
requires, not only that we should intirely sympathize with the person
who acts, but that we should perceive this perfect concord between his
sentiments and our own. On the contrary, when I hear of a benefit that
has been bestowed upon another person, let him who has received it be
affected in what manner he pleases, if, by bringing his case home to
myself, I feel gratitude arise in my own breast, I necessarily approve
of the conduct of his benefactor, and regard it as meritorious, and
the proper object of reward. Whether the person who has received the
benefit conceives gratitude or not, cannot, it is evident, in any
degree alter our sentiments with regard to the merit of him who has
bestowed it. No actual correspondence of sentiments, therefore, is
here required. It is sufficient that if he was grateful, they would
correspond; and our sense of merit is often founded upon one of those
illusive sympathies, by which, when we bring home to ourselves the
case of another, we are often affected in a manner in which the person
principally concerned is incapable of being affected. There is a
similar difference between our disapprobation of demerit, and that of
impropriety.
SECTION II.
Of justice and beneficence.
CHAP. I.
_Comparison of those two virtues._
Actions of a beneficent tendency, which proceed from proper motives,
seem alone to require reward; because such alone are the approved
objects of gratitude, or excite the sympathetic gratitude of the
spectator.
Actions of a hurtful tendency, which proceed from improper motives, seem
alone to deserve punishment; because such alone are the approved objects
of resentment, or excite the sympathetic resentment of the spectator.
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force, the mere
want of it exposes to no punishment; because the mere want of
beneficence tends to do no real positive evil. It may disappoint of the
good which might reasonably have been expected, and upon that account it
may justly excite dislike and disapprobation: it cannot, however,
provoke any resentment which mankind will go along with. The man who
does not recompense his benefactor, when he has it in his power, and
when his benefactor needs his assistance, is, no doubt, guilty of the
blackest ingratitude. The heart of every impartial spectator rejects all
fellow-feeling with the selfishness of his motives, and he is the proper
object of the highest disapprobation. But still he does no positive hurt
to any body. He only does not do that good which in propriety he ought
to have done. He is the object of hatred, a passion which is naturally
excited by impropriety of sentiment and behaviour; not of resentment, a
passion which is never properly called forth but by actions which tend
to do real and positive hurt to some particular persons. His want of
gratitude, therefore, cannot be punished. To oblige him by force to
perform what in gratitude he ought to perform, and what every impartial
spectator would approve of him for performing, would if possible, be
still more improper than his neglecting to perform it. His benefactor
would dishonour himself if he attempted by violence to constrain him to
gratitude, and it would be impertinent for any third person, who was not
the superior of either, to intermeddle. But of all the duties of
beneficence, those which gratitude recommends to us approach nearest to
what is called a perfect and complete obligation. What friendship, what
generosity, what charity, would prompt us to do with universal
approbation, is still more free, and can still less be extorted by force
than the duties of gratitude. We talk of the debt of gratitude, not of
charity, or generosity, nor even of friendship, when friendship is mere
esteem, and has not been enhanced and complicated with gratitude for
good offices.
Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for defence, and for
defence only. It is the safeguard of justice and the security of
innocence. It prompts us to beat off the mischief which is attempted to
be done to us, and to retaliate that which is already done; that the
offender may be made to repent of his injustice, and that others,
through fear of the like punishment, may be terrified from being guilty
of the like offence. It must be reserved therefore for these purposes,
nor can the spectator ever go along with it when it is exerted for any
other. But the mere want of the beneficent virtues, though it may
disappoint us of the good which might reasonably be expected, neither
does, nor attempts to do, any mischief from which we can have occasion
to defend ourselves.
There is however another virtue, of which the observance is not left to
the freedom of our own wills, which may be extorted by force, and of
which the violation exposes to resentment, and consequently to
punishment. This virtue is justice: the violation of justice is injury:
it does real and positive hurt to some particular persons, from motives
which are naturally disapproved of. It is, therefore, the proper object
of resentment, and of punishment, which is the natural consequence of
resentment. As mankind go along with, and approve of, the violence
employed to avenge the hurt which is done by injustice, so they much
more go along with, and approve of, that which is employed to prevent
and beat off the injury, and to restrain the offender from hurting his
neighbours. The person himself who meditates an injustice is sensible of
this, and feels that force may, with the utmost propriety, be made use
of, both by the person whom he is about to injure, and by others, either
to obstruct the execution of his crime, or to punish him when he has
executed it. And upon this is founded that remarkable distinction
between justice and all the other social virtues, which has of late been
particularly insisted upon by an author of very great and original
genius, that we feel ourselves to be under a stricter obligation to act
according to justice, than agreeably to friendship, charity, or
generosity; that the practice of these last mentioned virtues seems to
be left in some measure to our own choice, but that, somehow or other,
we feel ourselves to be in a peculiar manner tied, bound, and obliged to
the observation of justice. We feel, that is to say, that force may,
with the utmost propriety and with the approbation of all mankind, be
made use of to constrain us to observe the rules of the one, but not to
follow the precepts of the other.
We must always, however, carefully distinguish what is only blamable, or
the proper object of disapprobation, from what force may be employed
either to punish or to prevent. That seems blamable which falls short of
that ordinary degree of proper beneficence which experience teaches us
to expect of every body; and on the contrary, that seems praise-worthy
which goes beyond it. The ordinary degree itself, seems neither blamable
nor praise-worthy. A father, a son, a brother, who behaves to the
correspondent relation, neither better nor worse than the greater part
of men commonly do, seems properly to deserve neither praise nor blame.
He who surprises us by extraordinary and unexpected, though still proper
and suitable kindness, or on the contrary, by extraordinary and
unexpected, as well as unsuitable unkindness, seems praise-worthy in the
one case, and blamable in the other.
Even the most ordinary degree of kindness or beneficence, however,
cannot, among equals, be extorted by force. Among equals each individual
is naturally, and antecedent to the institution of civil government,
regarded as having a right both to defend himself from injuries, and to
exact a certain degree of punishment for those which have been done to
him. Every generous spectator not only approves of his conduct when he
does this, but enters so far into his sentiments as often to be willing
to assist him. When one man attacks, or robs, or attempts to murder
another, all the neighbours take the alarm, and think that they do right
when they run, either to revenge the person who has been injured, or to
defend him who is in danger of being so. But when a father fails in the
ordinary degree of parental affection towards a son, when a son seems to
want that filial reverence which might be expected to his father; when
brothers are without the usual degree of brotherly affection; when a man
shuts his breast against compassion, and refuses to relieve the misery
of his fellow-creatures, when he can with the greatest ease; in all
these cases, though every body blames the conduct, nobody imagines that
those who might have reason, perhaps, to expect more kindness, have any
right to extort it by force. The sufferer can only complain, and the
spectator can intermeddle no other way than by advice and persuasion.
Upon all such occasions, for equals to use force against one another,
would be thought the highest degree of insolence and presumption.
A superior may, indeed, sometimes, with universal approbation, oblige
those under his jurisdiction to behave, in this respect, with a certain
degree of propriety to one another. The laws of all civilized nations
oblige parents to maintain their children, and children to maintain
their parents, and impose upon men many other duties of beneficence. The
civil magistrate is entrusted with the power not only of preserving the
public peace by retraining injustice, but of promoting the prosperity of
the commonwealth, by establishing good discipline, and by discouraging
every sort of vice and impropriety; he may prescribe rules, therefore,
which not only prohibit mutual injuries among fellow-citizens, but
command mutual good offices to a certain degree. When the sovereign
commands what is merely indifferent, and what, antecedent to his orders,
might have been omitted without any blame, it becomes not only blamable
but punishable to disobey him. When he commands, therefore, what,
antecedent to any such order, could not have been omitted without the
greatest blame, it surely becomes much more punishable to be wanting in
obedience. Of all the duties of a law-giver, however, this, perhaps, is
that which it requires the greatest delicacy and reserve to execute with
propriety and judgment. To neglect it altogether exposes the
commonwealth to many gross disorders and shocking enormities, and to
push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice.
Though the mere want of beneficence seems to merit no punishment from
equals, the greater exertions of that virtue appear to deserve the
highest reward. By being productive of the greatest good, they are the
natural and approved objects of the liveliest gratitude. Though the
breach of justice, on the contrary, exposes to punishment, the
observance of the rules of that virtue seems scarce to deserve any
reward. There is, no doubt, a propriety in the practice of justice, and
it merits, upon that account, all the approbation which is due to
propriety. But as it does no real positive good, it is entitled to very
little gratitude. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative
virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour. The man who
barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the
reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He
fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice,
and does everything which his equals can with propriety force him to do,
or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the
rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.
As every man doth, so shall it be done to him, and retaliation seems to
be the great law which is dictated to us by Nature. Beneficence and
generosity we think due to the generous and beneficent. Those whose
hearts never open to the feelings of humanity, should, we think, be shut
out in the same manner, from the affections of all their
fellow-creatures, and be allowed to live in the midst of society, as in
a great desert where there is nobody to care for them, or to inquire
after them. The violator of the laws of justice ought to be made to feel
himself that evil which he has done to another; and since no regard to
the sufferings of his brethren are capable of restraining him, he ought
to be over-awed by the fear of his own. The man who is barely innocent,
who only observes the law of justice with regard to others, and merely
abstains from hurting his neighbours, can merit only that his neighbours
in their turn should respect his innocence, and that the same laws
should be religiously observed with regard to him.
CHAP. II.
_Of the sense of justice, of remorse, and of the consciousness of
merit._
There can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbour, there can be no
incitement to do evil to another, which mankind will go along with,
except just indignation for evil which that other has done to us. To
disturb his happiness merely because it stands in the way of our own, to
take from him what is of real use to him merely because it may be of
equal or more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expence
of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own
happiness above that of other people, is what no impartial spectator can
go along with. Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally
recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself
than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.
Every man, therefore, is much more deeply interested in whatever
immediately concerns himself, than in what concerns any other man: and
to hear, perhaps, of the death of another person, with whom we have no
particular connexion, will give us less concern, will spoil our stomach,
or break our rest much less than a very insignificant disaster which has
befallen ourselves. But though the ruin of our neighbour may affect us
much less than a very small misfortune of our own, we must not ruin him
to prevent that small misfortune, nor even to prevent our own ruin. We
must, here, as in all other cases, view ourselves not so much according
to that light in which we may naturally appear to ourselves, as
according to that in which we naturally appear to others. Though every
man may, according to the proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the
rest of mankind he is a most insignificant part of it. Though his own
happiness may be of more importance to him than that of all the world
besides, to every other person it is of no more consequence than that of
any other man. Though it may be true, therefore, that every individual,
in his own breast, naturally prefers himself to all mankind, yet he
dares not look mankind in the face, and avow that he acts according to
this principle. He feels that in this preference they can never go along
with him, and that how natural soever it may be to him, it must always
appear excessive and extravagant to them. When he views himself in the
light in which he is conscious that others will view him, he sees that
to them he is but one of the multitude in no respect better than any
other in it. If he would act so as that the impartial spectator may
enter into the principles of his conduct, which is what of all things he
has the greatest desire to do, he must, upon this, as upon all other
occasions, humble the arrogance of his self-love, and bring it down to
something which other men can go along with. They will indulge it so far
as to allow him to be more anxious about, and to pursue with more
earnest assiduity, his own happiness than that of any other person. Thus
far, whenever they place themselves in his situation, they will readily
go along with him. In the race for wealth and honours, and preferments,
he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle,
in order to outstrip all his competitors. But if he should justle, or
throw down any of them, the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at
an end. It is a violation of fair play, which they cannot admit of. This
man is to them, in every respect, as good as he: they do not enter into
that self-love by which he prefers himself so much to this other, and
cannot go along with the motive from which he hurt him. They readily,
therefore, sympathize with the natural resentment of the injured, and
the offender becomes the object of their hatred and indignation. He is
sensible that he becomes so, and feels that those sentiments are ready
to burst out from all sides against him.
As the greater and more irreparable the evil that is done, the
resentment of the sufferer runs naturally the higher, so does likewise
the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, as well as the sense of
guilt in the agent. Death is the greatest evil which one man can inflict
upon another, and excites the highest degree of resentment in those who
are immediately connected with the slain. Murder, therefore, is the most
atrocious of all crimes which affect individuals only, in the sight both
of mankind, and of the person who has committed it. To be deprived of
that which we are possessed of, is a greater evil than to be
disappointed of what we have only the expectation. Breach of property,
therefore, theft and robbery, which take from us what we are possessed
of, are greater crimes than breach of contract, which only disappoints
us of what we expected. The most sacred laws of justice, therefore,
those whose violation seems to call the loudest for vengeance and
punishment, are the laws which guard the life and person of our
neighbour; the next are those which guard his property and possessions;
and last of all come those which guard what are called his personal
rights, or what is due to him from the promises of others.
The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on the
sentiments which mankind must entertain with regard to him, without
feeling all the agonies of shame, and horror, and consternation. When
his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to reflect upon his
conduct, he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. They
appear now as detestable to him as they did always to other people. By
sympathizing with the hatred and abhorrence which other men must
entertain for him, he becomes in some measure the object of his own
hatred and abhorrence. The situation of the person, who suffered by his
injustice, now calls upon his pity. He is grieved at the thought of it;
regrets the unhappy effects of his own conduct, and feels at the same
time that they have rendered him the proper object of the resentment and
indignation of mankind, and of what is the natural consequence of
resentment, vengeance and punishment. The thought of this perpetually
haunts him, and fills him with terror and amazement. He dares no longer
look society in the face, but imagines himself as it were rejected, and
thrown out from the affections of all mankind. He cannot hope for the
consolation of sympathy in this his greatest, and most dreadful
distress. The remembrance of his crimes has shut out all fellow-feelings
with him from the hearts of his fellow-creatures. The sentiments which
they entertain with regard to him, are the very thing which he is most
afraid of. Every thing seems hostile, and he would be glad to fly to
some inhospitable desert, where he might never more behold the face of a
human creature, nor read in the countenance of mankind the condemnation
of his crimes. But solitude is still more dreadful than society. His own
thoughts can present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate,
and disastrous, the melancholy forebodings of incomprehensible misery
and ruin. The horror of solitude drives him back into society, and he
comes again into the presence of mankind, astonished to appear before
them, loaded with shame and distracted with fear, in order to supplicate
some little protection from the countenance of those very judges, who he
knows have already all unanimously condemned him. Such is the nature of
that sentiment, which is properly called remorse; of all the sentiments
which can enter the human breast the most dreadful. It is made up of
shame from the sense of the impropriety of past conduct; of grief for
the effects of it; of pity for those who suffer by it; and of the dread
and terror of punishment from the consciousness of the justly provoked
resentment of all rational creatures.
The opposite behaviour naturally inspires the opposite sentiment. The
man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has
performed a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he has
served, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and
gratitude, and, by sympathy with them, of the esteem and approbation of
all mankind. And when he looks backward to the motive from which he
acted, and surveys it in the light in which the indifferent spectator
will survey it, he still continues to enter into it, and applauds
himself by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed impartial
judge. In both these points of view his own conduct appears to him every
way agreeable. His mind, at the thought of it, is filled with
chearfulness, serenity, and composure. He is in friendship and harmony
with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with confidence
and benevolent satisfaction, secure that he has rendered himself worthy
of their most favourable regards. In the combination of all these
sentiments consists the consciousness of merit, or of deserved reward.
CHAP. III.
_Of the utility of this constitution of nature._
It is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by
nature to that situation for which he was made. All the members of human
society stand in need of each others assistance, and are likewise
exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is
reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship and
esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members
of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection,
and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices.
But though the necessary assistance should not be afforded from such
generous and disinterested motives, though among the different members
of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, the
society, though less happy and agreeable, will not necessarily be
dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among different
merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or
affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be
bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary
exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.
Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready
to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the
moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the bands of
it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted
are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and
opposition of their discordant affections. If there is any society among
robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite
observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another.
Beneficence, therefore, is less essential to the exigence of society
than justice. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable
state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly
destroy it.
Though Nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the
pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought it
necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of
merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament
which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the building, and
which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend, but by no means
necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that
upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense
fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and support seems in
this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care
of Nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms. In order to enforce the
observation of justice, therefore, Nature has implanted in the human
breast that consciousness of ill desert, those terrors of merited
punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safe-guards of
the association of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent,
and to chastise the guilty. Men, though naturally sympathetic, feel so
little for another, with whom they have no particular connexion, in
comparison for what they feel for themselves; the misery of one, who is
merely their fellow-creature, is of so little importance to them in
comparison even of a small conveniency of their own; they have it so
much in their power to hurt him, and may have so many temptations to do
so, that if this principle did not stand up within them in his defence,
and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would, like wild
beasts, be at all times ready to fly upon him; and a man would enter an
assembly of men as he enters a den of lions.
In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest
artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce; and in the
mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is
contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of
the individual, and the propagation of the species. But in these, and in
all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final
cause of their several motions and organizations. The digestion of the
food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several
juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for
the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to account for
them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine
that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord,
and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or
digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end
for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various
motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they
were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not
do it better. Yet we never ascribe any such desire or intention to them,
but to the watch-maker, and we know that they are put in motion by a
spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But
though, in accounting for the operations of bodies, we never fail to
distinguish in this manner the efficient from the final cause, in
accounting for those of the mind, we are very apt to confound those two
different things with one another. When by natural principles we are led
to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason should
recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their
efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those
ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is
the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view this cause seems sufficient
to produce the effects which are ascribed to it; and the system of human
nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its different
operations are in this manner deduced from a single principle.
As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are totally
observed, as no social intercourse can take place among men who do not
generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this
necessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved of
the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those who
violated them. Man, it has been said, has a natural love for society,
and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own
sake, and though he himself was to derive no benefit from it. The
orderly and flourishing state of society is agreeable to him, and he
takes delight in contemplating it. Its disorder and confusion, on the
contrary, is the object of his aversion, and he is chagrined at whatever
tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own interest is
connected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness,
perhaps the preservation of his existence, depends upon its
preservation. Upon every account, therefore, he has an abhorrence at
whatever can tend to destroy society, and is willing to make use of
every means, which can hinder so hated and so dreadful an event.
Injustice necessarily tends to destroy it. Every appearance of
injustice, therefore, alarms him, and he runs, if I may say so, to stop
the progress of what, if allowed to go on, would quickly put an end to
every thing that is dear to him. If he cannot restrain it by gentle and
fair means, he must bear it down by force and violence, and at any rate
must put a stop to its further progress. Hence it is, they say, that he
often approves of the enforcement of the law of justice even by the
capital punishment of those who violate them. The disturber of the
public peace is hereby removed out of the world, and others are
terrified by his fate from imitating his example.
Such is the account commonly given of our approbation of the punishment
of injustice. And so far this account is undoubtedly true, that we
frequently have occasion to confirm our natural sense of the propriety
and fitness of punishment, by reflecting how necessary it is for
preserving the order of society. When the guilty is about to suffer that
just retaliation, which the natural indignation of mankind tells them is
due to his crimes; when the insolence of his injustice is broken and
humbled by the terror of his approaching punishment; when he ceases to
be an object of fear, with the generous and humane he begins to be an
object of pity. The thought of what he is about to suffer extinguishes
their resentment for the sufferings of others to which he has given
occasion. They are disposed to pardon and forgive him, and to save him
from that punishment, which in all their cool hours they had considered
as the retribution due to such crimes. Here, therefore, they have
occasion to call to their assistance the consideration of the general
interest of society. They counterbalance the impulse of this weak and
partial humanity by the dictates of a humanity that is more generous and
comprehensive. They reflect that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the
innocent, and oppose to the emotions of compassion which they feel for a
particular person, a more enlarged compassion which they feel for
mankind.
Sometimes too we have occasion to defend the propriety of observing the
general rules of justice by the consideration of their necessity to the
support of society. We frequently hear the young and the licentious
ridiculing the most sacred rules of morality, and professing, sometimes
from the corruption, but more frequently from the vanity of their
hearts, the most abominable maxims of conduct. Our indignation rouses,
and we are eager to refute and expose such detestable principles. But
though it is their intrinsic hatefulness and detestableness, which
originally inflames us against them, we are unwilling to assign this as
the sole reason why we condemn them, or to pretend that it is merely
because we ourselves hate and detest them. The reason, we think, would
not appear to be conclusive. Yet why should it not; if we hate and
detest them because they are the natural and proper objects of hatred
and detestation? But when we are asked why we should not act in such or
such a manner, the very question seems to suppose that, to those who ask
it, this manner of acting does not appear to be for its own sake the
natural and proper object of those sentiments. We must show them,
therefore, that it ought to be so for the sake of something else. Upon
this account we generally cast about for other arguments, and the
consideration which first occurs to us is the disorder and confusion of
society which would result from the universal prevalence of such
practices. We seldom fail, therefore, to insist upon this topic.
But though it commonly requires no great discernment to see the
destructive tendency of all licentious practices to the welfare of
society, it is seldom this consideration which first animates us against
them. All men, even the most stupid and unthinking, abhor fraud,
perfidy, and injustice, and delight to see them punished. But few men
have reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of
society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be.
That it is not a regard to the preservation of society, which originally
interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against individuals,
may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations. The concern which we
take in the fortune and happiness of individuals does not, in common
cases, arise from that which we take in the fortune and happiness of
society. We are no more concerned for the destruction or loss of a
single man, because this man is a member or part of society, and because
we should be concerned for the destruction of society, than we are
concerned for the loss of a single guinea, because this guinea is a part
of a thousand guineas, and because we should be concerned for the loss
of the whole sum. In neither case does our regard for the individuals
arise from our regard for the multitude: but in both cases our regard
for the multitude is compounded and made up of the particular regards
which we feel for the different individuals of which it is composed. As
when a small sum is unjustly taken from us we do not so much prosecute
the injury from a regard to the preservation of our whole fortune, as
from a regard to that particular sum which we have lost; so when a
single man is injured or destroyed, we demand the punishment of the
wrong that has been done to him, not so much from a concern for the
general interest of society, as from a concern for that very individual
who has been injured. It is to be observed, however, that this concern
does not necessarily include in it any degree of those exquisite
sentiments which are commonly called love, esteem, and affection, and by
which we distinguish our particular friends and acquaintance. The
concern which is requisite for this is no more than the general
fellow-feeling which we have with every man merely because he is our
fellow-creature. We enter into the resentment even of an odious person,
when he is injured by those to whom he has given no provocation. Our
disapprobation of his ordinary character and conduct, does not in this
case altogether prevent our fellow-feeling with his natural indignation;
though with those who are not either extremely candid, or who have not
been accustomed to correct and regulate their natural sentiments by
general rules, it is very apt to damp it.
Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment,
merely from a view to the general interest of society, which, we
imagine, cannot otherwise be secured. Of this kind are all the
punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil
police, or military discipline. Such crimes do not immediately or
directly hurt any particular person; but their remote consequences, it
is supposed, do produce, or might produce, either a considerable
inconveniency, or a great disorder in the society. A centinel, for
example, who falls asleep upon his watch, suffers death by the law of
war, because such carelessness might endanger the whole army. This
severity may, upon many occasions, appear necessary, and, for that
reason, just and proper. When the preservation of an individual is
inconsistent with the safety of a multitude, nothing can be more just
than that the many should be preferred to the one. Yet this punishment,
how necessary soever, always appears to be excessively severe. The
natural atrocity of the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment
so great, that it is with great difficulty that our hearts can reconcile
itself to it. Though such carelessness appears very blamable, yet the
thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resentment, as
would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must
recollect himself, must make an effort, and exert his whole firmness and
resolution, before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go
along with it when it is inflicted by others. It is not, however, in
this manner, that he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful
murderer or parricide. His heart, in this case, applauds with ardour,
and even with transport, the just retaliation which seems due to such
detestable crimes, and which, if, by any accident, they should happen to
escape, he would be highly enraged and disappointed. The very different
sentiment with which the spectator views those different punishments, is
a proof that his approbation of the one is far from being founded upon
the same principles with that of the other. He looks upon the centinel
as an unfortunate victim, who, indeed, must, and ought to be, devoted to
the safety of numbers, but whom still, in his heart, he would be glad to
save; and he is only sorry, that the interest of the many should oppose
it. But if the murderer should escape from punishment, it would excite
his highest indignation, and he would call upon God to avenge, in
another world, that crime which the injustice of mankind had neglected
to chastise upon earth.
For it well deserves to be taken notice of, that we are so far from
imagining that injustice ought to be punished in this life, merely on
account of the order of society, which cannot otherwise be maintained,
that Nature teaches us to hope, and religion, we suppose, authorizes us
to expect, that it will be punished, even in a life to come. Our sense
of its ill desert pursues it, if I may say so, even beyond the grave,
though the example of its punishment there cannot serve to deter the
rest of mankind, who see it not, who know it not, from being guilty of
the like practices here. The justice of God, however, we think, still
requires, that he should hereafter avenge the injuries of the widow and
the fatherless, who are here so often insulted with impunity.
That the Deity loves virtue and hates vice, as a voluptuous man loves
riches and hates poverty, not for their own sakes, but for the effects
which they tend to produce; that he loves the one, only because it
promotes the happiness of society, which his benevolence prompts him to
desire; and that he hates the other, only because it occasions the
misery of mankind, which the same divine quality renders the object of
his aversion; is not the doctrine of untaught nature, but of an
artificial refinement of reason and philosophy. Our untaught, natural
sentiments, all prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is supposed
necessarily to appear to the Deity, as it does to us, for its own sake,
and without any further view, the natural and proper object of love and
reward, so must vice, of hatred and punishment. That the gods neither
resent nor hurt, was the general maxim of all the different sects of the
ancient philosophy: and if, by resenting, be understood, that violent
and disorderly perturbation, which often distracts and confounds the
human breast; or if, by hurting, be understood, the doing mischief
wantonly, and without regard to propriety or justice, such weakness is
undoubtedly unworthy of the divine perfection. But if it be meant, that
vice does not appear to the Deity to be, for its own sake, the object of
abhorrence and aversion, and what, for its own sake, it is fit and right
should be punished, the truth of this maxim seems repugnant to some very
natural feelings. If we consult our natural sentiments, we are even apt
to fear, lest, before the holiness of God, vice should appear to be more
worthy of punishment than the weakness and imperfection of human virtue
can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a Being
of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit,
or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence of his
fellow-creatures, he may even justly elevate himself, and may often have
reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, compared to the
still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is quite different
when about to appear before his infinite Creator. To such a Being, he
fears, that his littleness and weakness can scarce ever appear the
proper object, either of esteem or of reward. But he can easily
conceive, how the numberless violations of duty, of which he has been
guilty, should render him the proper object of aversion and punishment;
and he thinks he can see no reason why the divine indignation should not
be let loose without any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as he
imagines that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for
happiness, he suspects that he cannot demand it from the justice, but
that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow,
humility, contrition at the thought of his past conduct, seem, upon this
account, the sentiments which become him, and to be the only means which
he has left for appeasing that wrath which, he knows, he has justly
provoked. He even distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally
fears, lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be
prevailed upon to spare the crime by the most importunate lamentations
of the criminal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, some
other atonement, he imagines must be made for him, beyond what he
himself is capable of making, before the purity of the divine justice
can be reconciled to his manifold offences. The doctrines of revelation
coincide, in every respect, with those original anticipations of nature;
and as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of
our own virtue, so they show us, at the same time, that the most
powerful intercession has been made, and that the most dreadful
atonement has been paid for our manifold transgressions and iniquities.
SECTION III.
Of the influence of fortune upon the sentiments of mankind, with regard
to the merit or demerit of actions.
INTRODUCTION.
Whatever praise or blame can be due to any action, must belong either,
first, to the intention or affection of the heart, from which it
proceeds; or, secondly, to the external action or movement of the body,
which this affection gives occasion to; or, last, to all the good or bad
consequences, which actually, and in fact, proceed from it. These three
different things constitute the whole nature and circumstances of the
action, and must be the foundation of whatever quality can belong to it.
That the two last of these three circumstances cannot be the foundation
of any praise or blame, is abundantly evident; nor has the contrary ever
been asserted by any body. The external action or movement of the body
is often the same in the most innocent and in the most blamable actions.
He who shoots a bird, and he who shoots a man, both of them perform the
same external movement: each of them draws the tricker of a gun. The
consequences which actually, and in fact, happen to proceed from any
action, are, if possible, still more indifferent either to praise or
blame, than even the external movement of the body. As they depend, not
upon the agent, but upon fortune, they cannot be the proper foundation
for any sentiment, of which his character and conduct are the objects.
The only consequences for which he can be answerable, or by which he can
deserve either approbation or disapprobation of any kind, are those
which were some way or other intended, or those which, at least, show
some agreeable or disagreeable quality in the intention of the heart,
from which he acted. To the intention or affection of the heart,
therefore, to the propriety or impropriety, to the beneficence or
hurtfulness of the design, all praise or blame, all approbation or
disapprobation, of any kind, which can justly be bestowed upon any
action, must ultimately belong.
When this maxim is thus proposed in abstract and general terms, there is
no body who does not agree to it. Its self-evident justice is
acknowledged by all the world, and there is not a dissenting voice among
all mankind. Every body allows, that how different soever the
accidental, the unintended and unforeseen consequences of different
actions, yet, if the intentions or affections from which they arose
were, on the one hand, equally proper and equally beneficent, or, on the
other, equally improper and equally malevolent, the merit or demerit of
the actions is still the same, and the agent is equally the suitable
object either of gratitude or of resentment.
But how well soever we may seem to be persuaded of the truth of this
equitable maxim, when we consider it after this manner, in abstract, yet
when we come to particular cases, the actual consequences which happen
to proceed from any action, have a very great effect upon our sentiments
concerning its merit or demerit, and almost always either enhance or
diminish our sense of both. Scarce, in any one instance, perhaps, will
our sentiments be found, after examination, to be entirely regulated by
this rule, which we all acknowledge ought entirely to regulate them.
This irregularity of sentiment, which every body feels, which scarce any
body is sufficiently aware of, and which no body is willing to
acknowledge, I proceed now to explain; and I shall consider, first, the
cause which gives occasion to it, or the mechanism by which nature
produces it; secondly, the extent of its influence; and, last of all,
the end which it answers, or the purpose which the Author of nature
seems to have intended by it.
CHAP. I.
_Of the causes of this influence of fortune._
The causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they are, or however they
operate, seem to be the objects, which, in all animals, immediately
excite those two passions of gratitude and resentment. They are excited
by inanimated, as well as by animated objects. We are angry, for a
moment, even at the stone that hurts us. A child beats it, a dog barks
at it, a choleric man is apt to curse it. The least reflection, indeed,
corrects this sentiment, and we soon become sensible, that what has no
feeling is a very improper object of revenge. When the mischief,
however, is very great, the object which caused it becomes disagreeable
to us ever after, and we take pleasure to burn or destroy it. We should
treat, in this manner, the instrument which had accidentally been the
cause of the death of a friend, and we should often think ourselves
guilty of a sort of inhumanity, if we neglected to vent this absurd sort
of vengeance upon it.
We conceive, in the same manner, a sort of gratitude for those
inanimated objects, which have been the causes of great, or frequent
pleasure to us. The sailor, who, as soon as he got ashore, should mend
his fire with the plank upon which he had just escaped from a shipwreck,
would seem to be guilty of an unnatural action. We should expect that he
would rather preserve it with care and affection, as a monument that
was, in some measure, dear to him. A man grows fond of a snuff-box, of a
pen-knife, of a staff which he has long made use of, and conceives
something like a real love and affection for them. If he breaks or loses
them, he is vexed out of all proportion to the value of the damage. The
house which we have long lived in, the tree, whose verdure and shade we
have long enjoyed, are both looked upon with a sort of respect that
seems due to such benefactors. The decay of the one, or the ruin of the
other, affects us with a kind of melancholy, though we should sustain no
loss by it. The Dryads and the Lares of the ancients, a sort of genii of
trees and houses, were probably first suggested by this sort of
affection, which the authors of those superstitions felt for such
objects, and which seemed unreasonable, if there was nothing animated
about them.
But, before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude or
resentment, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain, it must
likewise be capable of feeling them. Without this other quality, those
passions cannot vent themselves with any sort of satisfaction upon it.
As they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain, so their
gratification consists in retaliating those sensations upon what gave
occasion to them; which it is to no purpose to attempt upon what has no
sensibility. Animals, therefore, are less improper objects of gratitude
and resentment than inanimated objects. The dog that bites, the ox that
gores, are both of them punished. If they have been the causes of the
death of any person, neither the public, nor the relations of the slain,
can be satisfied, unless they are put to death in their turn: nor is
this merely for the security of the living, but in some measure, to
revenge the injury of the dead. Those animals, on the contrary, that
have been remarkably serviceable to their masters, become the objects of
a very lively gratitude. We are shocked at the brutality of that
officer, mentioned in the Turkish Spy, who stabbed the horse that had
carried him a-cross an arm of the sea, lest that animal should
afterwards distinguish some other person by a similar adventure.
But, though animals are not only the causes of pleasure and pain, but
are also capable of feeling those sensations, they are still far from
being complete and perfect objects, either of gratitude or resentment;
and those passions still feel, that there is something wanting to their
entire gratification. What gratitude chiefly desires, is not only to
make the benefactor feel pleasure in his turn, but to make him conscious
that he meets with this reward on account of his past conduct, to make
him pleased with that conduct, and to satisfy him that the person upon
whom he bestowed his good offices was not unworthy of them. What most of
all charms us in our benefactor, is the concord between his sentiments
and our own, with regard to what interests us so nearly as the worth of
our own character, and the esteem that is due to us. We are delighted to
find a person who values us as well as we value ourselves, and
distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike
that with which we distinguish ourselves. To maintain in him these
agreeable and flattering sentiments, is one of the chief ends proposed
by the returns we are disposed to make to him. A generous mind often
disdains the interested thought of extorting new favours from its
benefactor, by what may be called the importunities of its gratitude.
But to preserve and to increase his esteem, is an interest which the
greatest mind does not think unworthy of its attention. And this is the
foundation of what I formerly observed, that when we cannot enter into
the motives of our benefactor, when his conduct and character appear
unworthy of our approbation, let his services have been ever so great,
our gratitude is always sensibly diminished. We are less flattered by
the distinction; and to preserve the esteem of so weak, or so worthless
a patron, seems to be an object which does not deserve to be pursued for
its own sake.
The object, on the contrary, which resentment is chiefly intent upon, is
not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his turn, as to make him
conscious that he feels it upon account of his past conduct, to make him
repent of that conduct, and to make him sensible, that the person whom
he injured did not deserve to be treated in that manner. What chiefly
enrages us against the man who injures or insults us, is the little
account which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which
he gives to himself above us, and that absurd self-love, by which he
seems to imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to
his conveniency or his humour. The glaring impropriety of this conduct,
the gross insolence and injustice which it seems to involve in it, often
shock and exasperate us more than all the mischief which we have
suffered. To bring him back to a more just sense of what is due to other
people, to make him sensible of what he owes us, and of the wrong that
he has done to us, is frequently the principal end proposed in our
revenge, which is always imperfect when it cannot accomplish this. When
our enemy appears to have done us no injury, when we are sensible that
he acted quite properly, that, in his situation, we should have done the
same thing, and that we deserved from him all the mischief we met with;
in that case, if we have the least spark either of candour or justice,
we can entertain no sort of resentment.
Before any thing, therefore, can be the complete and proper object,
either of gratitude or resentment, it must possess three different
qualifications. First, it must be the cause of pleasure in the one case,
and of pain in the other. Secondly, it must be capable of feeling those
sensations. And, thirdly, it must not only have produced those
sensations, but it must have produced them from design, and from a
design that is approved of in the one case, and disapproved of in the
other. It is by the first qualification, that any object is capable of
exciting those passions: it is by the second, that it is in any respect
capable of gratifying them: the third qualification is both necessary
for their complete satisfaction, and as it gives a pleasure or pain that
is both exquisite and peculiar, it is likewise an additional exciting
cause of those passions.
As what gives pleasure or pain, therefore, either in one way or another,
is the sole exciting cause of gratitude and resentment; though the
intentions of any person should be ever so proper and beneficent, on the
one hand, or ever so improper and malevolent on the other; yet, if he
has failed in producing either the good or evil which he intended, as
one of the exciting causes is wanting in both cases, less gratitude
seems due to him in the one, and less resentment in the other. And, on
the contrary, though in the intentions of any person, there was either
no laudable degree of benevolence on the one hand, or no blamable degree
of malice on the other; yet, if his actions should produce either great
good or great evil, as one of the exciting causes takes place upon both
these occasions, some gratitude is apt to arise towards him in the one,
and some resentment in the other. A shadow of merit seems to fall upon
him in the first, a shadow of demerit in the second. And, as the
consequences of actions are altogether under the empire of Fortune,
hence arises her influence upon the sentiments of mankind, with regard
to merit and demerit.
CHAP. II.
_Of the extent of this influence of fortune._
The effect of this influence of fortune is, first, to diminish our sense
of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the most
laudable or blamable intentions, when they fail of producing their
proposed effects: and, secondly, to increase our sense of the merit or
demerit of actions, beyond what is due to the motives or affections from
which they proceed, when they accidentally give occasion either to
extraordinary pleasure or pain.
1. First, I say, though the intentions of any person should be ever so
proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so improper and
malevolent, on the other, yet, if they fail in producing their effects,
his merit seems imperfect in the one case, and his demerit incomplete in
the other. Nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who
are immediately affected by the consequences of any action. It is felt,
in some measure, even by the impartial spectator. The man who solicits
an office for another, without obtaining it, is regarded as his friend,
and seems to deserve his love and affection. But the man who not only
solicits, but procures it, is more peculiarly considered as his patron
and benefactor, and is entitled to his respect and gratitude. The person
obliged, we are apt to think, may with some justice, imagine himself on
a level with the first: but we cannot enter into his sentiments, if he
does not feel himself inferior to the second. It is common indeed to
say, that we are equally obliged to the man who has endeavoured to serve
us, as to him who actually did so. It is the speech which we constantly
make upon every unsuccessful attempt of this kind; but which, like all
other fine speeches, must be understood with a grain of allowance. The
sentiments which a man of generosity entertains for the friend who
fails, may often indeed be nearly the same with those which he conceives
for him who succeeds: and the more generous he is, the more nearly will
those sentiments approach to an exact level. With the truly generous, to
be beloved, to be esteemed by those whom they themselves think worthy of
esteem, gives more pleasure, and thereby excites more gratitude, than
all the advantages which they can ever expect from those sentiments.
When they lose those advantages therefore, they seem to lose but a
trifle, which is scarce worth regarding. They still however lose
something. Their pleasure therefore, and consequently their gratitude,
is not perfectly complete: and accordingly if, between the friend who
fails and the friend who succeeds, all other circumstances are equal,
there will, even in the noblest and the best mind, be some little
difference of affection in favour of him who succeeds. Nay, so unjust
are mankind in this respect, that though the intended benefit should be
procured, yet if it is not procured by the means of a particular
benefactor, they are apt to think that less gratitude is due to the man,
who with the best intentions in the world could do no more than help it
a little forward. As their gratitude is in this case divided among the
different persons who contributed to their pleasure, a smaller share of
it seems due to any one. Such a person, we hear men commonly say,
intended no doubt to serve us; and we really believe exerted himself to
the utmost of his abilities for that purpose. We are not, however,
obliged to him for this benefit; since had it not been for the
concurrence of others, all that he could have done would never have
brought it about. This consideration, they imagine, should, even in the
eyes of the impartial spectator, diminish the debt which they owe to
him. The person himself who has unsuccessfully endeavoured to confer a
benefit, has by no means the same dependency upon the gratitude of the
man whom he meant to oblige, nor the same sense of his own merit towards
him, which he would have had in the case of success.
Even the merit of talents and abilities which some accident has hindered
from producing their effects, seems in some measure imperfect, even to
those who are fully convinced of their capacity to produce them. The
general who has been hindered by the envy of ministers from gaining some
great advantage over the enemies of his country, regrets the loss of the
opportunity for ever after. Nor is it only upon account of the public
that he regrets it. He laments that he was hindered from performing an
action which would have added a new lustre to his character in his own
eyes, as well as in those of every other person. It satisfies neither
himself nor others to reflect that the plan or design was all that
depended on him, that no greater capacity was required to execute it
than what was necessary to concert it: that he was allowed to be every
way capable of executing it, and that had he been permitted to go on,
success was infallible. He still did not execute it; and though he might
deserve all the approbation which is due to a magnanimous and great
design, he still wanted the actual merit of having performed a great
action. To take the management of any affair of public concern from the
man who has almost brought it to a conclusion, is regarded as the most
invidious injustice. As he had done so much, he should, we think, have
been allowed to acquire the complete merit of putting an end to it. It
was objected to Pompey, that he came in upon the victories of Lucullus,
and gathered those laurels which were due to the fortune and valour of
another. The glory of Lucullus, it seems, was less complete even in the
opinion of his own friends, when he was not permitted to finish that
conquest which his conduct and courage had put in the power of almost
any man to finish. It mortifies an architect when his plans are either
not executed at all, or when they are so far altered as to spoil the
effect of the building. The plan, however, is all that depends upon the
architect. The whole of his genius is, to good judges, as completely
discovered in that as in the actual execution. But a plan does not, even
to the most intelligent, give the same pleasure as a noble and
magnificent building. They may discover as much both of taste and genius
in the one as in the other. But their effects are still vastly
different, and the amusement derived from the first, never approaches to
the wonder and admiration which are sometimes excited by the second. We
may believe of many men, that their talents are superior to those of
Cæsar and Alexander; and that in the same situations they would perform
still greater actions. In the mean time, however, we do not behold them
with that astonishment and admiration with which those two heroes have
been regarded in all ages and nations. The calm judgments of the mind
may approve of them more, but they want the splendor of great actions to
dazzle and transport it. The superiority of virtues and talents have
not, even upon those who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect
with the superiority of atchievements.
As the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to do good seems thus, in the
eyes of ungrateful mankind, to be diminished by the miscarriage, so does
likewise the demerit of an unsuccessful attempt to do evil. The design
to commit a crime, how clearly soever it may be proved, is scarce ever
punished with the same severity as the actual commission of it. The case
of treason is perhaps the only exception. That crime immediately
affecting the being of the government itself, the government is
naturally more jealous of it than of any other. In the punishment of
treason, the sovereign resents the injuries which are immediately done
to himself: in the punishment of other crimes, he resents those which
are done to other men. It is his own resentment which he indulges in the
one case: it is that of his subjects which by sympathy he enters into it
in the other. In the first case, therefore, as he judges in his own
cause, he is very apt to be more violent and sanguinary in his
punishments than the impartial spectator can approve of. His resentment
too rises here upon smaller occasions, and does not always, as in other
cases, wait for the perpetration of the crime, or even for the attempt
to commit it. A treasonable concert, though nothing has been done, or
even attempted in consequence of it, nay, a treasonable conversation, is
in many countries punished in the same manner as the actual commission
of treason. With regard to all other crimes, the mere design, upon which
no attempt has followed, is seldom punished at all, and is never
punished severely. A criminal design, and a criminal action, it may be
said indeed, do not necessarily suppose the same degree of depravity,
and ought not therefore to be subjected to the same punishment. We are
capable, it may be said, of resolving, and even of taking measures to
execute, many things which, when it comes to the point, we feel
ourselves altogether incapable of executing. But this reason can have no
place when the design has been carried the length of the last attempt.
The man, however, who fires a pistol at his enemy, but misses him, is
punished with death by the laws of scarce any country. By the old law of
Scotland, though he should wound him, yet, unless death ensues within a
certain time, the assassin is not liable to the last punishment. The
resentment of mankind, however, runs so high against this crime, their
terror for the man who shows himself capable of committing it, is so
great, that the mere attempt to commit it ought in all countries to be
capital. The attempt to commit smaller crimes is almost always punished
very lightly, and sometimes is not punished at all. The thief, whose
hand has been caught in his neighbour’s pocket before he had taken any
thing out of it, is punished with ignominy only. If he had got time to
take away an handkerchief, he would have been put to death. The
house-breaker, who has been found setting a ladder to his neighbour’s
window, but had not got into it, is not exposed to the capital
punishment. The attempt to ravish is not punished as a rape. The attempt
to seduce a married woman is not punished at all, though seduction is
punished severely. Our resentment against the person who only attempted
to do a mischief, is seldom so strong as to bear us out in inflicting
the same punishment upon him, which we should have thought due if he had
actually done it. In the one case, the joy of our deliverance alleviates
our sense of the atrocity of his conduct; in the other, the grief of our
misfortune increases it. His real demerit, however, is undoubtedly the
same in both cases, since his intentions were equally criminal: and
there is in this respect, therefore, an irregularity in the sentiments
of all men, and a consequent relaxation of discipline in the laws of, I
believe, all nations, of the most civilized, as well as of the most
barbarous. The humanity of a civilized people disposes them either to
dispense with, or to mitigate punishments wherever their natural
indignation is not goaded on by the consequences of the crime.
Barbarians, on the other hand, when no actual consequence has happened
from any action, are not apt to be very delicate or inquisitive about
the motives.
The person himself who either from passion, or from the influence of bad
company, has resolved, and perhaps taken measures to perpetrate some
crime, but who has fortunately been prevented by an accident which put
it out of his power, is sure, if he has any remains of conscience, to
regard this event all his life after as a great and signal deliverance.
He can never think of it without returning thanks to Heaven for having
been thus graciously pleased to save him from the guilt in which he was
just ready to plunge himself, and to hinder him from rendering all the
rest of his life a scene of horror, remorse, and repentance. But though
his hands are innocent, he is conscious that his heart is equally guilty
as if he had actually executed what he was so fully resolved upon. It
gives great ease to his conscience, however, to consider that the crime
was not executed, though he knows that the failure arose from no virtue
in him. He still considers himself as less deserving of punishment and
resentment; and this good fortune either diminishes, or takes away
altogether, all sense of guilt. To remember how much he was resolved
upon it, has no other effect than to make him regard his escape as the
greater and more miraculous: for he still fancies that he has escaped,
and he looks back upon the danger to which his peace of mind was
exposed, with that terror, with which one who is in safety may sometimes
remember the hazard he was in of falling over a precipice, and shudder
with horror at the thought.
2. The second effect of this influence of fortune, is to increase our
sense of the merit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the
motives or affection from which they proceed, when they happen to give
occasion to extraordinary pleasure or pain. The agreeable or
disagreeable effects of the action often throw a shadow of merit or
demerit upon the agent, though in his intention there was nothing that
deserved either praise or blame, or at least that deserved them in the
degree in which we are apt to bestow them. Thus, even the messenger of
bad news is disagreeable to us, and, on the contrary, we feel a sort of
gratitude for the man who brings us good tidings. For a moment we look
upon them both as the authors, the one of our good, the other of our bad
fortune, and regard them in some measure as if they had really brought
about the events which they only give an account of. The first author of
our joy is naturally the object of a transitory gratitude: we embrace
him with warmth and affection, and should be glad, during the instant of
our prosperity, to reward him as for some signal service. By the custom
of all courts, the officer who brings the news of a victory, is entitled
to considerable preferments, and the general always chuses one of his
principal favourites to go upon so agreeable an errand. The first author
of our sorrow is, on the contrary, just as naturally the object of a
transitory resentment. We can scarce avoid looking upon him with chagrin
and uneasiness; and the rude and brutal are apt to vent upon him that
spleen which his intelligence gives occasion to. Tigranes, King of
Armenia, struck off the head of the man who brought him the first
account of the approach of a formidable enemy. To punish in this manner
the author of bad tidings, seems barbarous and inhuman: yet, to reward
the messenger of good news, is not disagreeable to us; we think it
suitable to the bounty of kings. But why do we make this difference,
since, if there is no fault in the one, neither is there any merit in
the other? It is because any sort of reason seems sufficient to
authorize the exertion of the social and benevolent affections; but it
requires the most solid and substantial to make us enter into that of
the unsocial and malevolent.
But though in general we are averse to enter into the unsocial and
malevolent affections, though we lay it down for a rule that we ought
never to approve of their gratification, unless so far as the malicious
and unjust intention of the person, against whom they are directed
renders him their proper object; yet, upon some occasions, we relax of
this severity. When the negligence of one man has occasioned some
unintended damage to another, we generally enter so far into the
resentment of the sufferer, as to approve of his inflicting a punishment
upon the offender much beyond what the offence will have appeared to
deserve, had no such unlucky consequence followed from it.
There is a degree of negligence, which would appear to deserve some
chastisement though it should occasion no damage to any body. Thus, if a
person should throw a large stone over a wall into a public street
without giving warning to those who might be passing by, and without
regarding where it was likely to fall, he would undoubtedly deserve some
chastisement. A very accurate police would punish so absurd an action,
even though it had done no mischief. The person who has been guilty of
it, shows an insolent contempt of the happiness and safety of others.
There is real injustice in his conduct. He wantonly exposes his
neighbour to what no man in his senses would chuse to expose himself,
and evidently wants that sense of what is due to his fellow-creatures
which is the basis of justice and of society. Gross negligence therefore
is, in the law, said to be almost equal to malicious design[3]. When any
unlucky consequences happen from such carelessness, the person who has
been guilty of it is often punished as if he had really intended those
consequences; and his conduct, which was only thoughtless and insolent,
and what deserved some chastisement, is considered as atrocious, and as
liable to the severest punishment. Thus if, by the imprudent action
above-mentioned, he should accidentally kill a man, he is, by the laws
of many countries, particularly by the old law of Scotland, liable to
the last punishment. And though this is no doubt excessively severe, it
is not altogether inconsistent with our natural sentiments. Our just
indignation against the folly and inhumanity of his conduct is
exasperated by our sympathy with the unfortunate sufferer. Nothing
however would appear more shocking to our natural sense of equity, than
to bring a man to the scaffold merely for having thrown a stone
carelessly into the street without hurting any body. The folly and
inhumanity of his conduct, however, would in this case be the same; but
still our sentiments would be very different. The consideration of this
difference may satisfy us how much the indignation, even of the
spectator, is apt to be animated by the actual consequences of the
action. In cases of this kind there will, if I am not mistaken, be found
a great degree of severity in the laws of almost all nations; as I have
already observed that in those of an opposite kind there was a very
general relaxation of discipline.
Footnote 3:
Lata culpa prope dolum est.
There is another degree of negligence which does not involve in it any
sort of injustice. The person who is guilty of it treats his neighbour
as he treats himself, means no harm to any body, and is far from
entertaining any insolent contempt for the safety and happiness of
others. He is not, however, so careful and circumspect in his conduct as
he ought to be, and deserves upon this account some degree of blame and
censure, but no sort of punishment. Yet if by a negligence[4] of this
kind he should occasion some damage to another person, he is by the laws
of, I believe, all countries, obliged to compensate it. And though this
is no doubt a real punishment, and what no mortal would have thought of
inflicting upon him, had it not been for the unlucky accident which his
conduct gave occasion to; yet this decision of the law is approved of by
the natural sentiments of all mankind. Nothing, we think, can be more
just than that one man should not suffer by the carelessness of another;
and that the damage occasioned by blamable negligence should be made up
by the person who was guilty of it.
Footnote 4:
Culpa levis.
There is another species of negligence[5], which consists merely in a
want of the most anxious timidity and circumspection, with regard to all
the possible consequences of our actions. The want of this painful
attention, when no bad consequences follow from it, is so far from being
regarded as blamable, that the contrary quality is rather considered as
such. That timid circumspection which is afraid of every thing, is never
regarded as a virtue, but as a quality which more than any other
incapacitates for action and business. Yet when, from a want of this
excessive care, a person happens to occasion some damage to another, he
is often by the law obliged to compensate it. Thus, by the Aquilian law,
the man, who not being able to manage a horse that had accidentally
taken fright, should happen to ride down his neighbour’s slave, is
obliged to compensate the damage. When an accident of this kind happens,
we are apt to think that he ought not to have rode such a horse, and to
regard his attempting it as an unpardonable levity; though without this
accident we should not only have made no such reflection, but should
have regarded his refusing it as the effect of timid weakness, and of an
anxiety about merely possible events, which it is to no purpose to be
aware of. The person himself, who by an accident even of this kind has
involuntarily hurt another, seems to have some sense of his own ill
desert, with regard to him. He naturally runs up to the sufferer to
express his concern for what has happened, and to make every
acknowledgment in his power. If he has any sensibility, he necessarily
desires to compensate the damage, and to do every thing he can to
appease that animal resentment, which he is sensible will be apt to
arise in the breast of the sufferer. To make no apology, to offer no
atonement, is regarded as the highest brutality. Yet why should he make
an apology more than any other person? Why should he, since he was
equally innocent with any other by-stander, be thus singled out from
among all mankind, to make up for the bad fortune of another? This task
would surely never be imposed upon him, did not even the impartial
spectator feel some indulgence for what may be regarded as the unjust
resentment of that other.
Footnote 5:
Culpa levissima.
CHAP. III.
_Of the final cause of this irregularity of sentiments._
Such is the effect of the good or bad consequence of actions upon the
sentiments both of the person who performs them, and of others; and
thus, Fortune, which governs the world, has some influence where we
should be least willing to allow her any, and directs in some measure
the sentiments of mankind, with regard to the character and conduct both
of themselves and others. That the world judges by the event, and not by
the design, has been in all ages the complaint, and is the great
discouragement of virtue. Every body agrees to the general maxim, that
as the event does not depend on the agent, it ought to have no influence
upon your sentiments, with regard to the merit or propriety of his
conduct. But when we come to particulars, we find that our sentiments
are scarce in any one instance exactly conformable to what this
equitable maxim would direct. The happy or unprosperous event of any
action, is not only apt to give us a good or bad opinion of the prudence
with which it was conducted, but almost always too animates our
gratitude or resentment, our sense of the merit or demerit of the
design.
Nature, however, when the implanted the seeds of this irregularity in
the human breast, seems, as upon all other occasions, to have intended
the happiness and perfection of the species. If the hurtfulness of the
design, if the malevolence of the affection, were alone the causes which
excited our resentment, we should feel all the furies of that passion
against any person in whose breast we suspected or believed such designs
or affections were harboured, though they had never broke out into any
actions. Sentiments, thoughts, intentions, would become the objects of
punishment; and if the indignation of mankind ran as high against them
as against actions; if the baseness of the thought which had given birth
to no action, seemed in the eyes of the world as much to call aloud for
vengeance as the baseness of the action, every court of judicature would
become a real inquisition. There would be no safety for the most
innocent and circumspect conduct. Bad wishes, bad views, bad designs,
might still be suspected; and while these excited the same indignation
with bad conduct, while bad intentions were as much resented as bad
actions, they would equally expose the person to punishment and
resentment. Actions therefore which either produce actual evil, or
attempt to produce it, and thereby put us in the immediate fear of it,
are by the Author of nature rendered the only proper and approved
objects of human punishment and resentment. Sentiments, designs,
affections, though it is from these that according to cool reason human
actions derive their whole merit or demerit, are placed by the great
Judge of hearts beyond the limits of every human jurisdiction, and are
reserved for the cognizance of his own unerring tribunal. That necessary
rule of justice, therefore, that men in this life are liable to
punishment for their actions only, not for their designs and intentions,
is founded upon this salutary and useful irregularity in human
sentiments concerning merit or demerit, which at first sight appears so
absurd and unaccountable. But every part of nature, when attentively
surveyed, equally demonstrates the providential care of its Author, and
we may admire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and
folly of men.
Nor is that irregularity of sentiments altogether without its utility,
by which the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to serve, and much more
that of mere good inclinations and kind wishes, appears to be imperfect.
Man was made for action, and to promote by the exertion of his faculties
such changes in the external circumstances both of himself and others,
as may seem most favourable to the happiness of all. He must not be
satisfied with indolent benevolence, nor fancy himself the friend of
mankind, because in his heart he wishes well to the prosperity of the
world. That he may call forth the whole vigour of his soul, and strain
every nerve, in order to produce those ends which it is the purpose of
his being to advance, Nature has taught him, that neither himself nor
mankind can be fully satisfied with his conduct, nor bestow upon it the
full measure of applause, unless he has actually produced them. He is
made to know, that the praise of good intentions, without the merit of
good offices, will be but of little avail to excite either the loudest
acclamations of the world, or even the highest degree of self-applause.
The man who has performed no single action of importance, but whose
whole conversation and deportment express the justest, the noblest, and
most generous sentiments, can be entitled to demand no very high reward,
even though his inutility should be owing to nothing but the want of an
opportunity to serve. We can still refuse it him without blame. We can
still ask him, what have you done? What actual service can you produce,
to entitle you to so great a recompense? We esteem you, and love you;
but we owe you nothing. To reward indeed that latent virtue which has
been useless only for want of an opportunity to serve, to bestow upon it
those honours and preferments, which, though in some measure it may be
said to deserve them, it could not with propriety have insisted upon, is
the effect of the most divine benevolence. To punish, on the contrary,
for the affections of the heart only, where no crime has been committed,
is the most insolent and barbarous tyranny. The benevolent affections
seem to deserve most praise, when they do not wait till it becomes
almost a crime for them not to exert themselves. The malevolent, on the
contrary, can scarce be too tardy, too slow, or deliberate.
It is even of use that the evil which is done without design should be
regarded as a misfortune to the doer as well as to the sufferer. Man is
thereby taught to reverence the happiness of his brethren, to tremble
lest he should, even unknowingly, do any thing that can hurt them, and
to dread that animal resentment which he feels is ready to burst out
against him, if he should without design be the unhappy instrument of
their calamity.
Notwithstanding, however, all these seeming irregularities of sentiment,
if man should unfortunately either give occasion to those evils which he
did not intend, or fail in producing that good which he intended, nature
has not left his innocence altogether without consolation, nor his
virtue altogether without reward. He then calls to his assistance that
just and equitable maxim, that those events which did not depend upon
our conduct ought not to diminish the esteem that is due to us. He
summons up his whole magnanimity and firmness of soul, and strives to
regard himself, not in the light in which he at present appears, but in
that in which he ought to appear, in which he would have appeared had
his generous designs been crowned with success, and in which he would
still appear, notwithstanding their miscarriage, if the sentiments of
mankind were either altogether candid and equitable, or even perfectly
consistent with themselves. The more candid and humane part of mankind
entirely go along with the efforts which he thus makes to support
himself in his own opinion. They exert their whole generosity and
greatness of mind, to correct in themselves this irregularity of human
nature, and endeavour to regard his unfortunate magnanimity in the same
light in which, had it been successful, they would, without any such
generous exertion, have naturally been disposed to consider it.
PART III.
Of the foundation of our judgments concerning our own sentiments and
conduct, and of the sense of duty.
CONSISTING OF ONE SECTION.
CHAP. I.
_Of the consciousness of merited praise or blame._
In the two foregoing parts of this discourse, I have chiefly considered
the origin and foundation of our judgments concerning the sentiments and
conduct of others. I come now to consider the origin of those concerning
our own.
The desire of the approbation and esteem of those we live with, which is
of such importance to our happiness, cannot be fully and entirely
contented but by rendering ourselves the just and proper objects of
those sentiments, and by adjusting our own character and conduct
according to those measures and rules by which esteem and approbation
are naturally bestowed. It is not sufficient, that from ignorance or
mistake, esteem and approbation should some way or other be bestowed
upon us. If we are conscious that we do not deserve to be so favourably
thought of, and that if the truth was known, we should be regarded with
very opposite sentiments, our satisfaction is far from being complete.
The man who applauds us either for actions which we did not perform, or
for motives which had no sort of influence upon our conduct, applauds
not us, but another person. We can derive no sort of satisfaction from
his praises. To us they should be more mortifying than any censure, and
should perpetually call to our minds, the most humbling of all
reflections, the reflection upon what we ought to be, but what we are
not. A woman who paints to conceal her ugliness, could derive, one
should imagine, but little vanity from the compliments that are paid to
her beauty. These, we should expect, ought rather to put her in mind of
the sentiments which her real complexion would excite, and mortify her
more by the contrast. To be pleased with such groundless applause is a
proof of the most superficial levity and weakness. It is what is
properly called vanity, and is the foundation of the most ridiculous and
contemptible vices, the vices of affectation and common lying; follies
which, if experience did not teach us how common they are, one should
imagine the least spark of common sense would save us from. The foolish
liar, who endeavours to excite the admiration of the company by the
relation of adventures which never had any existence, the important
coxcomb who gives himself airs of rank and distinction which he well
knows he has no just pretensions to, are both of them, no doubt, pleased
with the applause which they fancy they meet with. But their vanity
arises from so gross an illusion of the imagination, that it is
difficult to conceive how any rational creature should be imposed upon
by it. When they place themselves in the situation of those whom they
fancy they have deceived, they are struck with the highest admiration
for their own persons. They look upon themselves, not in that light in
which, they know, they ought to appear to their companions, but in that
in which they believe their companions actually look upon them. Their
superficial weakness and trivial folly hinder them from ever turning
their eyes inwards, or from seeing themselves in that despicable point
of view in which their own consciences should tell them that they would
appear to every body, if the real truth should ever come to be known.
As ignorant and groundless praise can give no solid joy, no satisfaction
that will bear any serious examination, so, on the contrary, it often
gives real comfort to reflect, that though no praise should actually be
bestowed upon us, our conduct, however, has been such as to deserve it,
and has been in every respect suitable to those measures and rules by
which praise and approbation are naturally and commonly bestowed. We are
pleased not only with praise, but with having done what is
praise-worthy. We are pleased to think that we have rendered ourselves
the natural objects of approbation, though no approbation, should ever
actually be bestowed upon us: and we are mortified to reflect that we
have justly incurred the blame of those we live with, though that
sentiment should never actually be exerted against us. The man who is
conscious to himself that he has exactly observed those measures of
conduct which experience informs him are generally agreeable, reflects
with satisfaction on the propriety of his own behaviour; when he views
it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he
thoroughly enters into all the motives which influenced it; he looks
back upon every part of it with pleasure and approbation, and though
mankind should never be acquainted with what he has done, he regards
himself not so much according to the light in which they actually regard
him, as according to that, in which they would regard him if they were
better informed. He anticipates the applause and admiration which in
this case would be bestowed upon him, and he applauds and admires
himself by sympathy with sentiments which do not indeed actually take
place, but which the ignorance of the public alone hinders from taking
place, which he knows are the natural and ordinary effects of such
conduct, which his imagination strongly connects with it, and which he
has acquired a habit of conceiving as something that naturally and in
propriety ought to flow from it. Men have often voluntarily thrown away
life to acquire after death a renown which they could no longer enjoy.
Their imagination, in the mean time, anticipated that fame which was
thereafter to be bestowed upon them. Those applauses which they were
never to hear rung in their ears; the thoughts of that admiration, whose
effects they were never to feel, played about their hearts, banished
from their breasts the strongest of all natural fears, and transported
them to perform actions which seem aimed beyond the reach of human
nature. But in point of reality there is surely no great difference
between that approbation which is not to be bestowed till we can no
longer enjoy it, and that which indeed is never to be bestowed, but
which would be bestowed if the world was ever made to understand
properly the real circumstances of our behaviour. If the one often
produces such violent effects, we cannot wonder that the other should
always be highly regarded.
On the contrary, the man who has broke through all those measures of
conduct, which can alone render him agreeable to mankind, tho’ he should
have the most perfect assurance that what he had done was for ever to be
concealed from every human eye, it is all to no purpose. When he looks
back upon it, and views it in the light in which the impartial spectator
would view it, he finds that he can enter into none of the motives which
influenced it. He is abashed and confounded at the thoughts of it, and
necessarily feels a very high degree of that shame which he would be
exposed to, if his actions should ever come to be generally known. His
imagination, in this case too, anticipates the contempt and derision
from which nothing saves him but the ignorance of those he lives with.
He still feels that he is the natural object of these sentiments, and
still trembles at the thought of what he would suffer if they were ever
actually exerted against him. But if what he had been guilty of was not
merely one of those improprieties which are the objects of simple
disapprobation, but one of those enormous crimes which excite
detestation and resentment, he could never think of it, as long as he
had any sensibility left, without feeling all the agony of horror and
remorse; and though he could be assured that no man was ever to know it,
and could even bring himself to believe that there was no God to revenge
it, he would still feel enough of both these sentiments to embitter the
whole of his life: He would still regard himself as the natural object
of the hatred and indignation of all his fellow-creatures; and if his
heart was not grown callous by the habit of crimes, he could not think
without terror and astonishment even of the manner in which mankind
would look upon him, of what would be the expression of their
countenance and of their eyes, if the dreadful truth should ever come to
be known. These natural pangs of an affrighted conscience are the
dæmons, the avenging furies which in this life haunt the guilty, which
allow them neither quiet nor repose, which often drive them to despair
and distraction, from which no assurance of secrecy can protect them,
from which no principles of irreligion can entirely deliver them, and
from which nothing can free them but the vilest and most abject of all
states, a complete insensibility of honour and infamy, to vice and
virtue. Men of the most detestable characters, who, in the execution of
the most dreadful crimes, had taken their measures so coolly as to avoid
even the suspicion of guilt, have sometimes been driven, by the horror
of their situation, to discover of their own accord, what no human
sagacity could ever have investigated. By acknowledging their guilt, by
submitting themselves to the resentment of their offended citizens, and
by thus satiating that vengeance of which they were sensible that they
were become the proper objects, they hoped by their death to reconcile
themselves, at least in their own imagination, to the natural sentiments
of mankind, to be able to consider themselves as less worthy of hatred
and resentment, to atone in some measure for their crimes, and, if
possible, to die in peace and with the forgiveness of all their
fellow-creatures. Compared to what they felt before the discovery, even
the thought of this, it seems, was happiness.
CHAP. II.
_In what manner our own judgments refer to what ought to be the
judgments of others: and of the origin of general rules._
A great part, perhaps the greatest part, of human happiness and misery
arises from the view of our past conduct, and from the degree of
approbation or disapprobation which we feel from the consideration of
it. But in whatever manner it may affect us, our sentiments of this kind
have always some secret reference either to what are, or to what upon a
certain condition would be, or to what we imagine ought to be the
sentiments of others. We examine it as we imagine an impartial spectator
would examine it. If upon placing ourselves in his situation we
thoroughly enter into all the passions and motives which influenced it,
we approve of it by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed
equitable judge. If otherwise, we enter into his disapprobation and
condemn it.
Was it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in some
solitary place without any communication with his own species, he could
no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his
own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind,
than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. All these are objects
which he cannot easily see, which naturally he does not look at; and
with regard to which he is provided with no mirror which can present
them to his view. Bring him into society, and he is immediately provided
with the mirror which he wanted before. It is placed in the countenance
and behaviour of those he lives with, which always mark when they enter
into, and when they disapprove of his sentiments; and it is here that he
first views the propriety and impropriety of his own passions, the
beauty and deformity of his own mind. To a man who from his birth was a
stranger to society, the objects of his passions, the external bodies
which either pleased or hurt him, would occupy his whole attention. The
passions themselves, the desires or aversions, the joys or sorrows,
which those objects excited, though of all things the most immediately
present to him, could scarce ever be the objects of his thoughts. The
idea of them could never interest him so much as to call upon his
attentive consideration. The consideration of his joy could in him
excite no new joy, nor that of his sorrow any new sorrow, though the
consideration of the causes of those passions might often excite both.
Bring him into society, and all his own passions will immediately become
the causes of new passions. He will observe that mankind approve of some
of them, and are disgusted by others. He will be elevated in the one
case, and cast down in the other; his desires and aversions, his joys
and sorrows will now often become the causes of new desires and new
aversions, new joys and new sorrows: they will now therefore interest
him deeply, and often call upon his most attentive consideration.
Our first ideas of personal beauty and deformity, are drawn from the
shape and appearance of others, not from our own. We soon become
sensible, however, that others exercise the same criticism upon us. We
are pleased when they approve of our figure, and are disobliged when
they seem to be disgusted. We become anxious to know how far our
appearance deserves either their blame or approbation. We examine our
own persons limb by limb, and by placing ourselves before a
looking-glass, or by some such expedient, endeavour, as much as
possible, to view ourselves at the distance and with the eyes of other
people. If after this examination we are satisfied with our own
appearance, we can more easily support the most disadvantageous
judgments of others: if, on the contrary, we are sensible that we are
the natural objects of distaste, every appearance of their
disapprobation mortifies us beyond all measure. A man who is tolerably
handsome, will allow you to laugh at any little irregularity in his
person; but all such jokes are commonly insupportable to one who is
really deformed. It is evident, however, that we are anxious about our
own beauty and deformity only on account of its effect upon others. If
we had no connexion with society, we should be altogether indifferent
about either.
In the same manner our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the
characters and conduct of other people; and we are all very forward to
observe how each of these affects us. But we soon learn, that others are
equally frank with regard to our own. We become anxious to know how far
we deserve their censure or applause, and whether to them we must
necessarily appear those agreeable or disagreeable creatures which they
represent us. We begin upon this account to examine our own passions and
conduct, and to consider how these must appear to them, by considering
how they would appear to us if in their situation. We suppose ourselves
the spectators of our own behaviour, and endeavour to imagine what
effect it would, in this light, produce upon us. This is the only
looking-glass by which we can, in some measure, with the eyes of others,
scrutinize the propriety of our own conduct. If in this view it pleases
us, we are tolerably satisfied. We can be more indifferent about the
applause, and, in some measure, despise the censure of others; secure
that, however misunderstood or misrepresented, we are the natural and
proper objects of approbation. On the contrary, if we are displeased
with it, we are often upon that very account more anxious to gain their
approbation, and, provided we have not already, as they say, shaken
hands with infamy, we are altogether distracted at the thoughts of their
censure, which then strikes us with double severity.
When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass
sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident
that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons,
and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from
that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of.
The first is the spectator, whose sentiments with regard to my own
conduct I endeavour to enter into, by placing myself in his situation,
and by considering how it would appear to me when seen from that
particular point of view. The second is the agent, the person whom I
properly call myself, and of whose conduct, under the character of a
spectator, I was endeavouring to form some opinion. The first is the
judge; the second the pannel. But that the judge should, in every
respect, be the same with the pannel, is as impossible, as that the
cause should, in every respect, be the same with the effect.
To be amiable and to be meritorious, that is, to deserve love and to
deserve reward, are the great characters of virtue, and to be odious and
punishable, of vice. But all these characters have an immediate
reference to the sentiments of others. Virtue is not said to be amiable
or to be meritorious, because it is the object of its own love, or of
its own gratitude; but because it excites those sentiments in other men.
The consciousness that it is the object of such favourable regards is
the source of that inward tranquillity and self-satisfaction with which
it is naturally attended, as the suspicion of the contrary gives
occasion to the torments of vice. What so great happiness as to be
beloved, and to know that we deserve to be beloved? What so great misery
as to be hated, and to know that we deserve to be hated?
Man is considered as a moral, because he is regarded as an accountable
being. But an accountable being, as the word expresses, is a being that
must give an account of its actions to some other, and that consequently
must regulate them according to the good liking of this other. Man is
accountable to God and his fellow-creatures. But though he is, no doubt,
principally accountable to God; in the order of time, he must
necessarily conceive himself as accountable to his fellow-creatures,
before he can form any idea of the Deity, or of the rules by which that
divine being will judge of his conduct. A child surely conceives itself
as accountable to its parents, and is elevated or cast down by the
thought of their merited approbation or disapprobation, long before it
forms any idea of its accountableness to the Deity, or of the rules by
which that divine being will judge of its conduct.
The great judge of the world, has, for the wisest reasons, thought
proper to interpose, between the weak eye of human reason, and the
throne of his eternal justice, a degree of obscurity and darkness, which
though it does not entirely cover that great tribunal from the view of
mankind, yet renders the impression of it faint and feeble in comparison
of what might be expected from the grandeur and importance of so mighty
an object. If those infinite rewards and punishments which the Almighty
has prepared for those who obey or transgress his will, were perceived
as distinctly as we foresee the frivolous and temporary retaliations
which we may expect from one another, the weakness of human nature,
astonished at the immensity of objects so little fitted to its
comprehension, could no longer attend to the little affairs of this
world; and it is absolutely impossible that the business of society
could have been carried on, if, in this respect, there had been a fuller
revelation of the intentions of Providence than that which has already
been made. That men, however, might never be without a rule to direct
their conduct by, nor without a judge whose authority should enforce its
observation, the Author of nature has made man the immediate judge of
mankind, and has, in this respect, as in many others, created him after
his own image, and appointed him his vicegerent upon earth, to
superintend the behaviour of his brethren. They are taught by nature to
acknowledge that power and jurisdiction which has thus been conferred
upon him, and to tremble and exult according as they imagine that they
have either merited his censure, or deserved his applause.
But whatever may be the authority of this inferior tribunal which is
continually before their eyes, if at any time it should decide contrary
to those principles and rules, which Nature has established for
regulating its judgments, men feel that they may appeal from this unjust
decision, and call upon a superior tribunal, the tribunal established in
their own breasts, to redress the injustice of this weak or partial
judgment.
There are certain principles established by Nature for governing our
judgment concerning the conduct of those we live with. As long as we
decide according to those principles, and neither applaud nor condemn
any thing which Nature has not rendered the proper object of applause or
condemnation, nor any further than she has rendered it such, as our
sentence is, in this case, if I may say so, quite agreeable to law, it
is liable neither to repeal nor to correction of any kind. The person
concerning whom we form these judgments, must himself necessarily
approve of them. When he puts himself into our situation, he cannot
avoid viewing his own conduct in the very same light in which we appear
to view it. He is sensible, that to us, and to every impartial
spectator, he must necessarily appear the natural and proper object of
those sentiments which we express with regard to him. Those sentiments,
therefore, must necessarily produce their full effect upon him, and he
cannot fail to conceive all the triumph of self-approbation from, what
appears to him, such merited applause, as well as all the horrors of
shame from, what, he is sensible, is such deserved condemnation.
But it is otherwise, if we have either applauded or condemned him,
contrary to those principles and rules which Nature has established for
the direction of our judgments concerning every thing of this kind. If
we have either applauded or condemned him for what, when he put himself
into our situation, does not appear to him to be the object either of
applause or condemnation; as in this case he cannot enter into our
sentiments, provided he has any constancy or firmness, he is but little
affected by them, and can neither be much elevated by the favourable,
nor greatly mortified by the unfavourable decision. The applause of the
whole world will avail but little, if our own conscience condemn us; and
the disapprobation of all mankind is not capable of oppressing us, when
we are absolved by the tribunal within our own breast, and when our own
mind tells us that mankind are in the wrong.
But though this tribunal within the breast be thus the supreme arbiter
of all our actions, though it can reverse the decisions of all mankind
with regard to our character and conduct, and mortify us amidst the
applause, or support us under the censure of the world; yet, if we
inquire into the origin of its institution, its jurisdiction we shall
find is in a great measure derived from the authority of that very
tribunal, whose decisions it so often and so justly reverses.
When we first come into the world, from the natural desire to please, we
accustom ourselves to consider what behaviour is likely to be agreeable
to every person we converse with, to our parents, to our masters, to our
companions. We address ourselves to individuals, and for some time
fondly pursue the impossible and absurd project of gaining the good-will
and approbation of every body. We are soon taught by experience,
however, that this universal approbation is altogether unattainable. As
soon as we come to have more important interests to manage, we find,
that by pleasing one man, we almost certainly disoblige another, and
that by humouring an individual, we may often irritate a whole people.
The fairest and most equitable conduct must frequently obstruct the
interests, or thwart the inclinations of particular persons, who will
seldom have candour enough to enter into the propriety of our motives,
or to see that this conduct, how disagreeable soever to them, is
perfectly suitable to our situation. In order to defend ourselves from
such partial judgments, we soon learn to set up in our own minds a judge
between ourselves and those we live with. We conceive ourselves as
acting in the presence of a person quite candid and equitable, of one
who has no particular relation either to ourselves, or to those whose
interests are affected by our conduct, who is neither father, nor
brother, nor friend either to them or to us, but is merely a man in
general, an impartial spectator who considers our conduct with the same
indifference with which we regard that of other people. If, when we
place ourselves in the situation of such a person, our own actions
appear to us under an agreeable aspect, if we feel that such a spectator
cannot avoid entering into all the motives which influenced us, whatever
may be the judgments of the world, we must still be pleased with our own
behaviour, and regard ourselves, in spite of the censure of our
companions, as the just and proper objects of approbation.
On the contrary, if the man within condemns us, the loudest acclamations
of mankind appear but as the noise of ignorance and folly, and whenever
we assume the character of this impartial judge, we cannot avoid viewing
our own actions with this distaste and dissatisfaction. The weak, the
vain, and the frivolous, indeed, may be mortified by the most groundless
censure, or elated by the most absurd applause. Such persons are not
accustomed to consult the judge within concerning the opinion which they
ought to form of their own conduct. This inmate of the breast, this
abstract man, the representative of mankind, and substitute of the
Deity, whom Nature has constituted the supreme judge of all their
actions, is seldom appealed to by them. They are contented with the
decision of the inferior tribunal. The approbation of their companions,
of the particular persons whom they have lived and conversed with, has
generally been the ultimate object of all their wishes. If they obtain
this, their joy is complete; and if they fail, they are entirely
disappointed. They never think of appealing to the superior court. They
have seldom inquired after its decisions, and are altogether
unacquainted with the rules and forms of its procedure. When the world
injures them, therefore, they are incapable of doing themselves justice,
and are, in consequence, necessarily the slaves of the world. But it is
otherwise with the man who has, upon all occasions, been accustomed to
have recourse to the judge within, and to consider, not what the world
approves or disapproves of, but what appears to this impartial
spectator, the natural and proper object of approbation or
disapprobation. The judgment of this supreme arbiter of his conduct, is
the applause, which he has been accustomed principally to court, is the
censure which he has been accustomed principally to fear. Compared with
this final decision, the sentiments of all mankind, though not
altogether indifferent, appear to be but of small moment; and he is
incapable of being either much elevated by their favourable, or greatly
depressed by their most disadvantageous judgment.
It is only by consulting this judge within, that we can see whatever
relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions, or that we can
make any proper comparison between our own interests and those of other
men.
As to the eye of the body, objects appear great or small, not so much
according to their real dimensions, as according to the nearness or
distance of their situation; so do they likewise to what may be called
the natural eye of the mind: and we remedy the defects of both these
organs pretty much in the same manner. In my present situation an
immense landscape of lawns, and woods, and distant mountains, seems to
do no more than cover the little window which I write by, and to be out
of all proportion less than the chamber in which I am sitting. I can
form a just comparison between those great objects and the little
objects around me, in no other way, than by transporting myself, at
least in fancy, to a different station, from whence I can survey both at
nearly equal distances, and thereby form some judgment of their real
proportions. Habit and experience have taught me to do this so easily
and so readily, that I am scarce sensible that I do it; and a man must
be, in some measure, acquainted with the philosophy of vision, before he
can be thoroughly convinced, how little those distant objects would
appear to the eye, if the imagination, from a knowledge of their real
magnitudes, did not swell and dilate them.
In the same manner, to the selfish and original passions of human
nature, the loss or gain of a very small interest of our own, appears to
be of vastly more importance, excites a much more passionate joy or
sorrow, a much more ardent desire or aversion, than the greatest concern
of another with whom we have no particular connexion. His interests, as
long as they are surveyed from this station, can never be put into the
balance with our own, can never restrain us from doing whatever may tend
to promote our own, how ruinous soever to him. Before we can make any
proper comparison of those opposite interests, we must change our
position. We must view them, neither from our own place, nor yet from
his, neither with our own eyes nor yet with his, but from the place, and
with the eyes of a third person, who has no particular connexion with
either, and who judges with impartiality between us. Here too, habit and
experience have taught us to do this so easily and so readily, that we
are scarce sensible that we do it; and it requires, in this case too,
some degree of reflection, and even of philosophy to convince us, how
little interest we should take in the greatest concerns of our
neighbour, how little we should be affected by whatever relates to him,
if the sense of propriety and justice did not correct the otherwise
natural inequality of our sentiments.
Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of
inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us
consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion
with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving
intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of
all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy
people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the
precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man,
which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if
he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the
effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe,
and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this
fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once
fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his
repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no
such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could
befal himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose
his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but provided
he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over
the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of
that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him,
than this paultry misfortune of his own. To prevent therefore, this
paultry misfortune to himself would a man of humanity be willing to
sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he
had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought,
and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced
such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes
this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid
and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be
so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply
affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other
men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the
mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater
interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not
that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the
human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest
impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive,
which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle,
conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great
judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he, who, whenever we are about
to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us with a voice
capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we
are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it;
and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to
others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and
execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of
ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural
misrepresentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this
impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generality
and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of resigning the greatest
interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the
deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain
the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour,
it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to
the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more
powerful affection which generally takes place upon such occasions, the
love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and
superiority of our own characters.
When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our
conduct, we dare not, as self-love would suggest to us, prefer any
little interest of our own, to the yet greater interest of our
neighbour. We feel that we should become the proper objects of the
resentment and indignation of our brethren, and the sense of the
impropriety of this affection is supported and enlivened by the yet
stronger sense of the demerit of the action, which it would in this case
give occasion to. But when the happiness or misery of others in no
respect depends upon our conduct, when our own interests are altogether
separated and detached from theirs, so that there is neither connexion
nor competition between them, as the sense of demerit does not in this
case interpose, the mere sense of impropriety is seldom able to restrain
us from abandoning ourselves to our natural anxiety about our own
affairs, and to our natural indifference about those of other men. The
most vulgar education teaches us to act, upon all important occasions,
with some sort of impartiality between ourselves and others, and even
the ordinary commerce of the world is capable of adjusting our active
principles to some degree of propriety. But it is the most artificial
and refined education only, which pretends to correct the inequalities
of our passive feelings, and we must for this purpose have recourse to
the severest, as well as to the profoundest philosophy.
Two different sets of philosophers have attempted to teach us this
hardest of all the lessons of morality. One set have laboured to
increase our sensibility to the interests of others; another to diminish
that to our own. The first would have us feel for others as we naturally
feel for ourselves. The second would have us feel for ourselves, as we
naturally feel for others.
The first are those melancholy moralists, who are perpetually
reproaching us with our happiness, while so many of our brethren are in
misery,[6] who regard as impious the natural joy of prosperity, which
does not think of the many wretches that are at every instant labouring
under all sorts of calamities, in the languor of poverty, in the agony
of disease, in the horrors of death, under the insults and oppression of
their enemies. Commiseration for those miseries which we never saw,
which we never heard of, but which we may be assured are at all times
infecting such numbers of our fellow-creatures, ought, they think, to
damp the pleasures of the fortunate, and to render a certain melancholy
dejection habitual to all men. But first of all, this extreme sympathy
with misfortunes, which we know nothing about, seems altogether absurd
and unreasonable. Take the whole earth at an average, for one man who
suffers pain or misery, you will find twenty in prosperity and joy, or
at least in tolerable circumstances. No reason, surely, can be assigned
why we should rather weep with the one than rejoice with the twenty.
This artificial commiseration, besides, is not only absurd, but seems
altogether unattainable; and those who affect this character have
commonly nothing but a certain hypocritical sadness, which, without
reaching the heart, serves only to render the countenance and
convocation impertinently dismal and disagreeable. And last of all, this
disposition of mind, though it could be attained, would be perfectly
useless, and could serve no other purpose than to render miserable the
person who was possessed of it. Whatever interest we take in the fortune
of those with whom we have no acquaintance or connexion, and who are
placed altogether out of the sphere of our activity, can produce only
anxiety to ourselves, without any manner of advantage to them. To what
purpose should we trouble ourselves about the world in the moon? All
men, even those at the greatest distance, are no doubt entitled to our
good wishes, and our good wishes we naturally give them. But if,
notwithstanding, they should be unfortunate, to give ourselves any
anxiety upon that account, seems to be no part of our duty. That we
should be but little interested, therefore, in the fortune of those whom
we can neither serve nor hurt, and who are in every respect so very
remote from us, seems wisely ordered by nature; and if it were possible
to alter in this respect the original constitution of our frame, we
could yet gain nothing by the change.
Footnote 6:
See Thomson’s Seasons, Winter:
“Ah! little think the gay licentious proud,” &c.
See also Pascal.
Among the moralists who endeavour to correct the natural inequality of
our passive feelings by diminishing our sensibility to what peculiarly
concerns ourselves, we may count all the ancient sects of philosophers,
but particularly the ancient stoics. Man, according to the stoics, ought
to regard himself, not as something separated and detached, but as a
citizen of the world, a member of the vast commonwealth of nature. To
the interest of this great community, he ought at all times to be
willing that his own little interest should be sacrificed. Whatever
concerns himself, ought to affect him no more than whatever concerns any
other equally important part of this immense system. We should view
ourselves, not in the light in which our own selfish passions are apt to
place us, but in the light in which any other citizen of the world would
view us. What befalls ourselves we should regard as what befalls our
neighbour, or, what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour regards
what befalls us. “When our neighbour,” says Epictetus, “loses his wife
or his son, there is nobody who is not sensible that this is a human
calamity, a natural event altogether, according to the ordinary course
of things: but when the same thing happens to ourselves, then we cry
out, as if we had suffered the most dreadful misfortune. We ought,
however, to remember how we were affected when this accident happened to
another, and such as we were in his case, such ought we to be in our
own.” How difficult soever it may be to attain this supreme degree of
magnanimity and firmness, it is by no means either absurd or useless to
attempt it. Though few men have the stoical idea of what this perfect
propriety requires, yet all men endeavour in some measure to command
themselves, and to bring down their selfish passions to something which
their neighbour can go along with. But this can never be done so
effectually as by viewing whatever befalls themselves in the light in
which their neighbours are apt to view it. The stoical philosophy, in
this respect, does little more than unfold our natural ideas of
perfection. There is nothing absurd or improper, therefore, in aiming at
this perfect self-command. Neither would the attainment of it be
useless, but, on the contrary, the most advantageous of all things, as
establishing our happiness upon the most solid and secure foundation, a
firm confidence in that wisdom and justice which governs the world, and
an entire resignation of ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves
to the all-wise disposal of this ruling principle in nature.
It scarce ever happens, however, that we are capable of adjusting our
passive feelings to this perfect propriety. We indulge ourselves, and
even the world indulges us, in some degree of irregularity in this
respect. Though we should be too much affected by what concerns
ourselves, and too little by what concerns other men, yet, if we always
act with impartiality between ourselves and others, if we never actually
sacrifice any great interest of others, to any little interest of our
own, we are easily pardoned: and it were well, if, upon all occasions,
those who desire to do their duty were capable of maintaining even this
degree of impartiality between themselves and others. But this is very
far from being the case. Even in good men, the judge within is often in
danger of being corrupted by the violence and injustice of their selfish
passions, and is often induced to make a report very different from what
the real circumstances of the case are capable of authorizing.
There are two different occasions, upon which we examine our own
conduct, and endeavour to view it in the light in which the impartial
spectator would view it. First, when we are about to act; and, secondly,
after we have acted. Our views are very partial in both cases, but they
are most so, when it is of most importance that they should be
otherwise.
When we are about to act, the eagerness of passion will seldom allow us
to consider what we are doing with the candour of an indifferent person.
The violent emotions which at that time agitate us, discolour our views
of things, even when we are endeavouring to place ourselves in the
situation of another, and to regard the objects that interest us, in the
light in which they will naturally appear to him. The fury of our own
passions constantly calls us back to our own place, where every thing
appears magnified and misrepresented by self-love. Of the manner in
which those objects would appear to another, of the view which he would
take of them, we can obtain, if I may say so, but instantaneous
glimpses, which vanish in a moment, and which even while they last are
not altogether just. We cannot even for that moment divest ourselves
entirely of the heat and keenness with which our peculiar situation
inspires us, nor consider what we are about to do with the complete
impartiality of an equitable judge. The passions, upon this account, as
father Malebranche says, all justify themselves, and seem reasonable,
and proportioned to their objects, as long as we continue to feel them.
When the action is over, indeed, and the passions which prompted it have
subsided, we can enter more coolly into sentiments of the indifferent
spectator. What before interested us, is now become almost as
indifferent to us as it always was to him, and we can now examine our
own conduct with his candour and impartiality. But our judgments now are
of little importance, compared to what they were before; and when they
are most severely impartial, can commonly produce nothing but vain
regret, and unavailing repentance, without securing us from the like
errors for the future. It is seldom, however, that they are quite candid
even in this case. The opinion which we entertain of our own character,
depends entirely on our judgment concerning our past conduct. It is so
disagreeable to think ill of ourselves, that we often purposely turn
away our view from those circumstances which might render that judgment
unfavourable. He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not
tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person; and he is
often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil
of self-delusion, which covers from his view the deformities of his own
conduct. Rather than see our own behaviour under so disagreeable an
aspect, we too often, foolishly and weakly, endeavour to exasperate anew
those unjust passions which had formerly misled us; we endeavour by
artifice to awaken our old hatreds, and irritate afresh our almost
forgotten resentments: we even exert ourselves for this miserable
purpose, and thus persevere in injustice, merely because we once were
unjust, and because we are ashamed and afraid to see that we were so.
So partial are the views of mankind with regard to the propriety of
their own conduct, both at the time of action and after it; and so
difficult is it for them to view it in the light in which any
indifferent spectator would consider it. But if it was by a peculiar
faculty, such as the moral sense is supposed to be, that they judged of
their own conduct, if they were endued with a particular power of
perception, which distinguished the beauty or deformity of passions and
affections; as their own passions would be more immediately exposed to
the view of this faculty, it would judge with more accuracy concerning
them, than concerning those of other men, of which it had only a more
distant prospect.
This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half
the disorders of human life. If we saw ourselves in the light in which
others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a
reformation would generally be unavoidable. We could not otherwise
endure the sight.
Nature, however, has not left this weakness, which is of so much
importance, altogether without a remedy; nor has she abandoned us
entirely to the delusions of self-love. Our continual observations upon
the conduct of others, insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain
general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to
be avoided. Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments. We
hear every body about us express the like detestation against them. This
still further confirms, and even exasperates our natural sense of their
deformity. It satisfies us that we view them in the proper light, when
we see other people view them in the same light. We resolve never to be
guilty of the like, nor ever, upon any account, to render ourselves in
this manner the objects of universal disapprobation. We thus naturally
lay down to ourselves a general rule, that all such actions are to be
avoided, as tending to render us odious, contemptible, or punishable,
the objects of all those sentiments for which we have the greatest dread
and aversion. Other actions, on the contrary, call forth our
approbation, and we hear every body around us express the same
favourable opinion concerning them. Every body is eager to honour and
reward them. They excite all those sentiments for which we have by
nature the strongest desire; the love, the gratitude, the admiration of
mankind. We become ambitious of performing the like; and thus naturally
lay down to ourselves a rule of another kind, that every opportunity of
acting in this manner is carefully to be sought after.
It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are
ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our
moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve, or
disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular
actions; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or
inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the
contrary, is formed by finding from experience, that all actions of a
certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or
disapproved of. To the man who first saw an inhuman murder, committed
from avarice, envy, or unjust resentment, and upon one too that loved
and trusted the murderer, who beheld the last agonies of the dying
person, who heard him, with his expiring breath, complain more of the
perfidy and ingratitude of his false friend, than of the violence which
had been done to him, there could be no occasion, in order to conceive
how horrible such an action was, that he should reflect, that one of the
most sacred rules of conduct was what prohibited the taking away the
life of an innocent person, that this was a plain violation of that
rule, and consequently a very blamable action. His detestation of this
crime, it is evident, would arise instantaneously and antecedent to his
having formed to himself any such general rule. The general rule, on the
contrary, which he might afterwards form, would be founded upon the
detestation which he felt necessarily arise in his own breast, at the
thought of this, and every other particular action of the same kind.
When we read in history or romance, the account of actions either of
generosity or of baseness, the admiration which we conceive for the one,
and the contempt which we feel for the other, neither of them arise from
reflecting that there are certain general rules which declare all
actions of the one kind admirable, and all actions of the other
contemptible. Those general rules, on the contrary, are all formed from
the experience we have had of the effects which actions of all different
kinds naturally produce upon us.
An amiable action, a respectable action, an horrid action, are all of
them actions which naturally excite the love, the respect, or the horror
of the spectator, for the person who performs them. The general rules
which determine what actions are, and what are not, the objects of each
of those sentiments, can be formed no other way than by observing what
actions actually and in fact excite them.
When these general rules, indeed, have been formed, when they are
universally acknowledged and established, by the concurring sentiments
of mankind, we frequently appeal to them as to the standards of
judgment, in debating concerning the degree of praise or blame that is
due to certain actions of a complicated and dubious nature. They are
upon these occasions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of what
is just and unjust in human conduct; and this circumstance seems to have
misled several very eminent authors, to draw up their systems in such a
manner, as if they had supposed that the original judgments of mankind
with regard to right and wrong, were formed like the decisions of a
court of judicatory, by considering first the general rule, and then,
secondly, whether the particular action under consideration fell
properly within its comprehension.
Those general rules of conduct, when they have been fixed in our mind by
habitual reflection, are of great use in correcting misrepresentations
of self-love concerning what is fit and proper to be done in our
particular situation. The man of furious resentment, if he was to listen
to the dictates of that passion, would perhaps regard the death of his
enemy, as but a small compensation for the wrong, he imagines, he has
received; which, however, may be no more than a very slight provocation.
But his observations upon the conduct of others, have taught him how
horrible all such sanguinary revenges appear. Unless his education has
been very singular, he has laid it down to himself as an inviolable
rule, to abstain from them upon all occasions. This rule preserves its
authority with him, and renders him incapable of being guilty of such a
violence. Yet the fury of his own temper may be such, that had this been
the first time in which he considered such an action, he would
undoubtedly have determined it to be quite just and proper, and what
every impartial spectator would approve of. But that reverence for the
rule which past experience has impressed upon him, checks the
impetuosity of his passion, and helps him to correct the too partial
views which self-love might otherwise suggest, of what was proper to be
done in his situation. If he should allow himself to be so far
transported by passion as to violate this rule, yet even in this case,
he cannot throw off altogether the awe and respect with which he has
been accustomed to regard it. At the very time of acting, at the moment
in which passion mounts the highest, he hesitates and trembles at the
thought of what he is about to do: he is secretly conscious to himself
that he is breaking through those measures of conduct, which, in all his
cool hours, he had resolved never to infringe, which he had never seen
infringed by others without the highest disapprobation, and of which the
infringement, his own mind forebodes, must soon render him the object of
the same disagreeable sentiments. Before he can take the last fatal
resolution, he is tormented with all the agonies of doubt and
uncertainty; he is terrified at the thought of violating so sacred a
rule, and at the same time is urged and goaded on by the fury of his
desires to violate it. He changes his purpose every moment; sometimes he
resolves to adhere to his principle, and not indulge a passion which may
corrupt the remaining part of his life with the horrors of shame and
repentance; and a momentary calm takes possession of his breast, from
the prospect of that security and tranquillity which he will enjoy when
he thus determines not to expose himself to the hazard of a contrary
conduct. But immediately the passion rouses anew, and with fresh fury
drives him on to commit what he had the instant before resolved to
abstain from. Wearied and distracted with those continual irresolutions,
he at length, from a sort of despair, makes the last fatal and
irrecoverable step; but with that terror and amazement with which one
flying from an enemy, throws himself over a precipice, where he is sure
of meeting with more certain destruction than from any thing that
pursues him from behind. Such are his sentiments even at the time of
acting; though he is then, no doubt, less sensible of the impropriety of
his own conduct than afterwards, when his passion being gratified and
palled, he begins to view what he has done in the light in which others
are apt to view it; and actually feels, what he had only foreseen very
imperfectly before, the stings of remorse and repentance begin to
agitate and torment him.
CHAP. III.
_Of the influence and authority of the general rules of morality, and
that they are justly regarded as the laws of the Deity._
The regard to those general rules of conduct, is what is properly called
a sense of duty, a principle of the greatest consequence in human life,
and the only principle by which the bulk of mankind are capable of
directing their actions. Many men behave very decently, and through the
whole of their lives avoid any considerable degree of blame, who yet,
perhaps, never felt the sentiment upon the propriety of which we found
our approbation of their conduct, but acted merely from a regard to what
they saw were the established rules of behaviour. The man who has
received great benefits from another person, may, by the natural
coldness of his temper, feel but a very small degree of the sentiment of
gratitude. If he has been virtuously educated, however, he will often
have been made to observe how odious those actions appear which denote a
want of this sentiment, and how amiable the contrary. Tho’ his heart
therefore is not warmed with any grateful affection, he will strive to
act as if it was, and will endeavour to pay all those regards and
attentions to his patron which the liveliest gratitude could suggest. He
will visit him regularly; he will behave to him respectfully; he will
never talk of him but with expressions of the highest esteem, and of the
many obligations which he owes to him. And what is more, he will
carefully embrace every opportunity of making a proper return for past
services. He may do all this too without any hypocrisy or blamable
dissimulation, without any selfish intention of obtaining new favours,
and without any design of imposing either upon his benefactor or the
public. The motive of his actions may be no other than a reverence for
the established rule of duty, a serious and earnest desire of acting, in
every respect, according to the law of gratitude. A wife, in the same
manner, may sometimes not feel that tender regard for her husband which
is suitable to the relation that subsists between them. If she has been
virtuously educated, however, she will endeavour to act as if she felt
it, to be careful, officious, faithful, and sincere, and to be deficient
in none of those attentions which the sentiment of conjugal affection
could have prompted her to perform. Such a friend, and such a wife, are
neither of them, undoubtedly, the very best of their kinds; and though
both of them may have the most serious and earnest desire to fulfil
every part of their duty, yet they will fail in many nice and delicate
regards, they will miss many opportunities of obliging, which they could
never have overlooked if they had possessed the sentiment that is proper
to their situation. Though not the very first of their kinds, however,
they are perhaps the second; and if the regard to the general rules of
conduct has been very strongly impressed upon them, neither of them will
fail in any essential part of their duty. None but those of the happiest
mould are capable of suiting, with exact justness, their sentiments and
behaviour to the smallest difference of situation, and of acting upon
all occasions with the most delicate and accurate propriety. The coarse
clay of which the bulk of mankind are formed, cannot be wrought up to
such perfection. There is scarce any man, however, who by discipline,
education, and example, may not be impressed with a regard to general
rules, as to act upon almost every occasion with tolerable decency, and
through the whole of his life avoid any considerable degree of blame.
Without this sacred regard to general rules, there is no man whose
conduct can be much depended upon. It is this which constitutes the most
essential difference between a man of principle and honour and a
worthless fellow. The one adheres, on all occasions, steadily and
resolutely to his maxims, and preserves through the whole of his life
one even tenour of conduct. The other, acts variously and accidentally,
as humour, inclination, or interest chance to be uppermost. Nay, such
are the inequalities of humour to which all men are subject, that
without this principle, the man who, in his cool hours, had the most
delicate sensibility to the propriety of conduct, might often be led to
act absurdly upon the most frivolous occasions, and when it was scarce
possible to assign any serious motive for his behaviour in this manner.
Your friend makes you a visit when you happen to be in a humour which
makes it disagreeable to receive him: in your present mood this civility
is very apt to appear an impertinent intrusion; and if you were to give
way to the views of things which at this time occur, though civil in
your temper, you would behave to him with coldness and contempt. What
renders you incapable of such a rudeness, is nothing but a regard to the
general rules of civility and hospitality, which prohibit it. That
habitual reverence which your former experience has taught you for
these, enables you to act, upon all such occasions, with nearly equal
propriety, and hinders those inequalities of temper, to which all men
are subject, from influencing your conduct in any very sensible degree.
But if without regard to these general rules, even the duties of
politeness, which are so easily observed, and which can scarce have any
serious motive to violate, would yet be so frequently violated, what
would become of the duties of justice, of truth, of chastity, of
fidelity, which it is often so difficult to observe, and which there may
be so many strong motives to violate? But upon the tolerable observance
of these duties, depends the very existence of human society, which
would crumble into nothing if mankind were not generally impressed with
a reverence for those important rules of conduct.
This reverence is still further enhanced by an opinion which is first
impressed by nature, and afterwards confirmed by reasoning and
philosophy, that those important rules of morality, are the commands and
laws of the Deity, who will finally reward the obedient, and punish the
transgressors of their duty.
This opinion or apprehension, I say, seems first to be impressed by
nature. Men are naturally led to ascribe to those mysterious beings,
whatever they are, which happen, in any country, to be the objects of
religious fear, all their own sentiments and passions. They have no
other, they can conceive no other to ascribe to them. Those unknown
intelligences which they imagine but see not, must necessarily be formed
with some sort of resemblance to those intelligences of which they have
experience. During the ignorance and darkness of pagan superstition,
mankind seem to have formed the ideas of their divinities with so little
delicacy, that they ascribed to them, indiscriminately, all the passions
of human nature, those not excepted which do the least honour to our
species, such as lust, hunger, avarice, envy, revenge. They could not
fail therefore, to ascribe to those beings, for the excellence of whose
nature they still conceived the highest admiration, those sentiments and
qualities which are the great ornaments of humanity, and which seem to
raise it to a resemblance of divine perfection, the love of virtue and
beneficence, and the abhorrence of vice and injustice. The man who was
injured, called upon Jupiter to be witness of the wrong that was done to
him, and could not doubt, but that divine being would behold it with the
same indignation which would animate the meanest of mankind, who looked
on when injustice was committed. The man who did the injury, felt
himself to be the proper object of detestation and resentment of
mankind; and his natural fears led him to impute the same sentiments to
those awful beings, whose presence he could not avoid, and whose power
he could not resist. These natural hopes and fears, and suspicions, were
propagated by sympathy, and confirmed by education; and the gods were
universally represented and believed to be the rewarders of humanity and
mercy, and the avengers of perfidy and injustice. And thus religion,
even in its rudest form, gave a sanction to the rules of morality, long
before the age of artificial reasoning and philosophy. That the terrors
of religion should thus enforce the natural sense of duty, was of too
much importance to the happiness of mankind, for nature to leave it
dependent upon the slowness and uncertainty of philosophical researches.
These researches, however, when they came to take place, confirmed those
original anticipations of nature. Upon whatever we suppose that our
moral faculties are founded, whether upon a certain modification of
reason, upon an original instinct, called a moral sense, or upon some
other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted, that they were
given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They carry along
with them the most evident badges of this authority, which denote that
they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our
actions, to superintend all our senses, passions, and appetites, and to
judge how far each of them was either to be indulged or restrained. Our
moral faculties are by no means, as some have pretended, upon a level in
this respect with the other faculties and appetites of our nature,
endowed with no more right to restrain these last, than these last are
to restrain them. No other faculty or principle of action judges of any
other. Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment of love. Those
two passions may be opposite to one another, but cannot, with any
propriety, be said to approve or disapprove of one another. But it is
the peculiar office of those faculties now under our consideration to
judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all the other principles of
our nature. They may be considered as a sort of senses of which those
principles are the objects. Every sense is supreme over its own objects.
There is no appeal from the eye with regard to the beauty of colours,
nor from the ear with regard to the harmony of sounds, nor from the
taste with regard to the agreeableness of flavours. Each of those senses
judges in the last resort of its own objects. Whatever gratifies the
taste is sweet, whatever pleases the eye is beautiful, whatever sooths
the ear is harmonious. The very essence of each of those qualities
consists in being fitted to please the sense to which it is addressed.
It belongs to our moral faculties, in the same manner to determine when
the ear ought to be soothed, when the eye ought to be indulged, when the
taste ought to be gratified, when and how far every other principle of
our nature ought to be indulged or restrained. What is agreeable to our
moral faculties, is fit, and right, and proper to be done; the contrary
wrong, unfit, and improper. The sentiments which they approve of, are
graceful and unbecoming. The very words, right, wrong, fit, improper,
graceful, unbecoming, mean only what pleases or displeases those
faculties.
Since these, therefore, were plainly intended to be the governing
principles of human nature, the rules which they prescribe, are to be
regarded as the commands and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those
vicegerents which he has thus set up within us. All general rules are
commonly denominated laws: thus the general rules which bodies observe
in the communication of motion, are called the laws of motion. But those
general rules which our moral faculties observe in approving or
condemning whatever sentiment or action is subjected to their
examination, may much more justly be denominated such. They have a much
greater resemblance to what are properly called laws, those general
rules which the sovereign lays down to direct the conduct of his
subjects. Like them they are rules to direct the free actions of men:
they are prescribed most surely by a lawful superior, and are attended
to in the sanction of rewards and punishments. Those vicegerents of God
within us, never fail to punish the violation of them, by the torments
of inward shame, and self-condemnation; and on the contrary, always
reward obedience with tranquillity of mind, with contentment, and
self-satisfaction.
There are innumerable other considerations which serve to confirm the
same conclusion. The happiness of mankind, as well as of all other
rational creatures, seems to have been the original purpose intended by
the Author of nature, when he brought them into existence. No other end
seems worthy of that supreme wisdom and divine benignity which we
necessarily ascribe to him; and this opinion, which we are led to by the
abstract consideration of his infinite perfections, is still more
confirmed by the examination of the works of nature, which seem all
intended to promote happiness, and to guard against misery. But by
acting according to the dictates of our moral faculties, we necessarily
pursue the most effectual means for promoting the happiness of mankind,
and may therefore be said, in some sense, to co-operate with the Deity,
and to advance as far as in our power the plan of Providence. By acting
otherways, on the contrary, we seem to obstruct, in some measure, the
scheme which the Author of nature has established for the happiness and
perfection of the world, and to declare ourselves, if I may say so, in
some measure the enemies of God. Hence we are naturally encouraged to
hope for his extraordinary favour and reward in the one case, and to
dread his vengeance and punishment in the other.
There are besides many other reasons, and many other natural principles,
which all tend to confirm and inculcate the same salutary doctrine. If
we consider the general rules by which external prosperity and adversity
are commonly distributed in this life, we shall find, that
notwithstanding the disorder in which all things appear to be in this
world, yet even here every virtue naturally meets with its proper
reward, with the recompense which is most fit to encourage and promote
it; and this too so surely, that it requires a very extraordinary
concurrence of circumstances entirely to disappoint it. What is the
reward most proper for encouraging industry, prudence, and
circumspection? Success in every sort of business. And is it possible
that in the whole of life these virtues should fail of attaining it?
Wealth and external honours are their proper recompense, and the
recompense which they can seldom fail of acquiring. What reward is most
proper for promoting the practice of truth, justice, and humanity? The
confidence, the esteem, and love of those we live with. Humanity does
not desire to be great, but to be beloved. It is not in being rich that
truth and justice would rejoice, but in being trusted and believed,
recompenses which those virtues must almost always acquire. By some very
extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to be
suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and upon that
account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part of his life to
the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident of this kind he may
be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his integrity and justice; in
the same manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his utmost
circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake or an inundation.
Accidents of the first kind, however, are perhaps still more rare, and
still more contrary to the common course of things than those of the
second; and still it remains true, that the practice of truth, justice,
and humanity, is a certain and almost infallible method of acquiring
what those virtues chiefly aim at, the confidence and love of those we
live with. A person may be very easily misrepresented with regard to a
particular action; but it is scarce possible that he should be so with
regard to the general tenor of his conduct. An innocent man may be
believed to have done wrong: this, however, will rarely happen. On the
contrary, the established opinion of the innocence of his manners, will
often lead us to absolve him where he has really been in the fault,
notwithstanding very strong presumptions. A knave, in the same manner
may escape censure, or even meet applause, for a particular knavery, in
which his conduct is not understood. But no man was ever habitually
such, without being almost universally known to be so, and without being
even frequently suspected of guilt, when he was in reality perfectly
innocent. And so far as vice and virtue can be either punished or
rewarded by the sentiments and opinions of mankind, they both, according
to the common course of things, meet even here with something more than
exact and impartial justice.
But though the general rules by which prosperity and adversity are
commonly distributed, when considered in this cool and philosophical
light, appear to be perfectly suited to the situation of mankind in this
life, yet they are by no means suited to some of our natural sentiments.
Our natural love and admiration for some virtues is such, that we should
wish to bestow on them all sorts of honours and rewards, even those
which we must acknowledge to be the proper recompenses of other
qualities with which those virtues are not always accompanied. Our
detestation, on the contrary, for some vices is such, that we should
desire to heap upon them every sort of disgrace and disaster, those not
excepted which are the natural consequences of very different qualities.
Magnanimity, generosity, and justice command so high a degree of
admiration, that we desire to see them crowned with wealth, and power,
and honours of every kind, the natural consequences of prudence,
industry, and application; qualities with which those virtues are not
inseparably connected. Fraud, falsehood, brutality, and violence, on the
other hand, excite in every human breast such scorn and abhorrence, that
our indignation rouses to see them possess those advantages which they
may in some sense be said to have merited, by the diligence and industry
with which they are sometimes attended. The industrious knave cultivates
the soil; the indolent good man leaves it uncultivated. Who ought to
reap the harvest? Who starve, and who live in plenty? The natural course
of things decides it in favour of the knave: the natural sentiments of
mankind in favour of the man of virtue. Man judges, that the good
qualities of the one are greatly over-recompensed by those advantages
which they tend to procure him, and that the omissions of the other are
by far too severely punished by the distress which they naturally bring
upon him; and human laws, the consequences of human sentiments, forfeit
the life and the estate of the industrious and cautious traitor, and
reward, by extraordinary recompenses, the fidelity and public spirit of
the improvident and careless good citizen. Thus man is by Nature
directed to correct, in some measure, that distribution of things which
she herself would otherwise have made. The rules which for this purpose
she prompts him to follow, are different from those which she herself
observes. She bestows upon every virtue, and upon every vice, that
precise reward or punishment which is best fitted to encourage the one,
or to restrain the other. She is directed by this sole consideration,
and pays little regard to the different degrees of merit and demerit,
which they may seem to possess in the sentiments and passions of man.
Man, on the contrary, pays regard to this only, and would endeavour to
render the state of every virtue precisely proportioned to that degree
of love and esteem, and of every vice to that degree of contempt and
abhorrence, which he himself conceives for it. The rules which she
follows are fit for her, those which he follows for him: but both are
calculated to promote the same great end, the order of the world, and
the perfection and happiness of human nature.
But though man is thus employed to alter that distribution of things
which natural events would make, if left to themselves; though, like the
gods of the poets, he is perpetually interposing, by extraordinary
means, in favour of virtue, and in opposition to vice, and like them,
endeavours to turn away the arrow that is aimed at the head of the
righteous, but accelerates the sword of destruction that is lifted up
against the wicked; yet he is by no means able to render the fortune of
either quite suitable to his own sentiments and wishes. The natural
course of things cannot be entirely controuled by the impotent
endeavours of man: the current is too rapid and too strong for him to
stop it; and though the rules which direct it appear to have been
established for the wisest and best purposes, they sometimes produce
effects which shock all his natural sentiments. That a great combination
of men, should prevail over a small one; that those who engage in an
enterprise with fore-thought and all necessary preparation, should
prevail over such as oppose them without any; and that every end should
be acquired by those means only which Nature has established for
acquiring it, seems to be a rule not only necessary and unavoidable in
itself, but even useful and proper for rousing the industry and
attention of mankind. Yet, when, in consequence of this rule, violence
and artifice prevail over sincerity and justice, what indignation does
it not excite in the breast of every humane spectator? What sorrow and
compassion for the sufferings of the innocent, and what furious
resentment against the success of the oppressor? We are equally grieved
and enraged, at the wrong that is done, but often find it altogether out
of our power to redress it. When we thus despair of finding any force
upon earth which can check the triumph of injustice, we naturally appeal
to Heaven, and hope, that the great Author of our nature will himself
execute hereafter, what all the principles which he has given us for the
direction of our conduct, prompt us to attempt even here; that he will
complete the plan which he himself has thus taught us to begin; and
will, in a life to come, render to every one according to the works
which he has performed in this world. And thus we are led to the belief
of a future state, not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and fears of
human nature, but by the noblest and best principles which belong to it,
by the love of virtue, and by the abhorrence of vice and injustice.
“Does it suit the greatness of God,” says the eloquent and philosophical
bishop of Clermont, with that passionate and exaggerating force of
imagination, which seems sometimes to exceed the bounds of decorum;
“does it suit the greatness of God, to leave the world which he has
created in so universal a disorder? To see the wicked prevail almost
always over the just; the innocent dethroned by the usurper; the father
become the victim of the ambition of an unnatural son; the husband
expiring under the stroke of a barbarous and faithless wife? From the
height of his greatness ought God to behold those melancholy events as a
fantastical amusement, without taking any share in them? Because he is
great, should he be weak, or unjust, or barbarous? Because men are
little, ought they to be allowed either to be dissolute without
punishment, or virtuous without reward? O God! if this is the character
of your Supreme Being; if it is you whom we adore under such dreadful
ideas; I can no longer acknowledge you for my father, for my protector,
for the comforter of my sorrow, the support of my weakness, the rewarder
of my fidelity. You would then be no more than an indolent and
fantastical tyrant, who sacrifices mankind to his insolent vanity, and
who has brought them out of nothing, only to make them serve for the
sport of his leisure, and of his caprice.”
When the general rules which determine the merit and demerit of actions,
come thus to be regarded, as the laws of an All-powerful Being, who
watches over our conduct, and who, in a life to come, will reward the
observance, and punish the breach of them; they necessarily acquire a
new sacredness from this consideration. That our regard to the will of
the Deity, ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct, can be doubted
of by no body who believes his existence. The very thought of
disobedience appears to involve in it the most shocking impropriety. How
vain, how absurd would it be for man, either to oppose or to neglect the
commands that were laid upon him by Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power!
How unnatural, how impiously ungrateful not to reverence the precepts
that were prescribed to him by the infinite goodness of his Creator,
even though no punishment was to follow their violation. The sense of
propriety too is here well supported by the strongest motives of
self-interest. The idea that, however we may escape the observation of
man, or be placed above the reach of human punishment, yet we are always
acting under the eye, and exposed to the punishment of God, the great
avenger of injustice, is a motive capable of restraining the most
headstrong passions, with those at least who, by constant reflection,
have rendered it familiar to them.
It is in this manner that religion enforces the natural sense of duty:
and hence it is, that mankind are generally disposed to place great
confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with
religious sentiments. Such persons, they imagine, act under an
additional tye, besides those which regulate the conduct of other men.
The regard to the propriety of action as well as to reputation, the
regard to the applause of his own breast, as well as that of others, are
motives which they suppose have the same influence over the religious
man, as over the man of the world. But the former lies under another
restraint, and never acts deliberately but as in the presence of that
Great Superior who is finally to recompense him according to his deeds.
A greater trust is reposed, upon this account, in the regularity and
exactness of his conduct. And wherever the natural principles of
religion are not corrupted by the factious and party zeal of some
worthless cabal; wherever the first duty which it requires, is to fulfil
all the obligations of morality; wherever men are not taught to regard
frivolous observances, as more immediate duties of religion, than acts
of justice and beneficence; and to imagine, that by sacrifices, and
ceremonies, and vain supplications, they can bargain with the Deity for
fraud, and perfidy, and violence, the world undoubtedly judges right in
this respect, and justly places a double confidence in the rectitude of
the religious man’s behaviour.
CHAP. IV.
_In what cases the sense of duty ought to be the sole principle of our
conduct; and in what cases it ought to concur with other motives._
Religion affords such strong motives to the practice of virtue, and
guards us by such powerful restraints from the temptations of vice, that
many have been led to suppose, that religious principles were the sole
laudable motives of action. We ought neither, they said, to reward from
gratitude, nor punish from resentment; we ought neither to protect the
helplessness of our children, nor afford support to the infirmities of
our parents, from natural affection. All affections for particular
objects, ought to be extinguished in our breast, and one great affection
take the place of all others, the love of the Deity, the desire of
rendering ourselves agreeable to him, and of directing our conduct in
every respect according to his will. We ought not to be grateful from
gratitude, we ought not to be charitable from humanity, we ought not to
be public-spirited from the love of our country, nor generous and just
from the love of mankind. The sole principle and motive of our conduct
in the performance of all those different duties, ought to be a sense
that God has commanded us to perform them. I shall not at present take
time to examine this opinion particularly; I shall only observe, that we
should not have expected to have found it entertained by any sect, who
professed themselves of a religion in which, as it is the first precept
to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with
all our strength, so it is the second to love our neighbour as we love
ourselves; and we love ourselves surely for our own sakes, and not
merely because we are commanded to do so. That the sense of duty should
be the sole principle of our conduct, is no where the precept of
Christianity; but that it should be the ruling and governing one, as
philosophy, and as, indeed, common sense directs. It may be a question
however, in what cases our actions ought to arise chiefly or entirely
from a sense of duty, or from a regard to general rules; and in what
cases some other sentiment or affection ought to concur, and have a
principal influence.
The decision of this question, which cannot, perhaps, be given with any
very great accuracy, will depend upon two different circumstances;
first, upon the natural agreeableness or deformity of the sentiment or
affection which would prompt us to any action independent of all regard
to general rules; and secondly, upon the precision and exactness, or the
looseness and inaccuracy of the general rules themselves.
I. First, I say, it will depend upon the natural agreeableness or
deformity of the affection itself, how far our actions ought to arise
from it, or entirely proceed from a regard to the general rule.
All those graceful and admired actions, to which the benevolent
affections would prompt us, ought to proceed as much from the passions
themselves, as from any regard to the general rules of conduct. A
benefactor thinks himself but ill requited, if the person upon whom he
has bestowed his good offices, repays them merely from a cold sense of
duty, and without any affection to his person. A husband is dissatisfied
with the most obedient wife, when he imagines her conduct is animated by
no other principle besides her regard to what the relation she stands in
requires. Though a son should fail in none of the offices of filial
duty, yet if he wants that affectionate reverence which it so well
becomes him to feel, the parent may justly complain of his indifference.
Nor could a son be quite satisfied with a parent who, though he
performed all the duties of his situation, had nothing of that fatherly
fondness which might have been expected from him. With regard to all
such benevolent and social affections, it is agreeable to see the sense
of duty employed rather to restrain than to enliven them, rather to
hinder us from doing too much, than to prompt us to do what we ought. It
gives us pleasure to see a father obliged to check his own fondness, a
friend obliged to set bounds to his natural generosity, a person who has
received a benefit, obliged to restrain the too sanguine gratitude of
his own temper.
The contrary maxim takes place with regard to the malevolent and
unsocial passions. We ought to reward from the gratitude and generosity
of our own hearts, without any reluctance, and without being obliged to
reflect how great the propriety of rewarding: but we ought always to
punish with reluctance, and more from a sense of the propriety of
punishing than from any savage disposition to revenge. Nothing is more
graceful than the behaviour of the man who appears to resent the
greatest injuries, more from a sense that they deserve, and are the
proper objects of resentment, than from feeling himself the furies of
that disagreeable passion; who, like a judge, considers only the general
rule, which determines what vengeance is due for each particular
offence; who, in executing that rule, feels less for what himself has
suffered, than what the offender is about to suffer; who, though in
wrath remembers mercy, and is disposed to interpret the rule in the most
gentle and favourable manner, and to allow all the alleviations which
the most candid humanity could, consistently with good sense, admit of.
As the selfish passions, according to what has formerly been observed,
hold in other respects a sort of middle place, between the social and
unsocial affections, so do they likewise in this. The pursuit of the
objects of private interest, in all common, little, and ordinary cases,
ought to flow rather from a regard to the general rules which prescribe
such conduct, than from any passion for the objects themselves; but upon
more important and extraordinary occasions, we should be awkward,
insipid, and ungraceful, if the objects themselves did not appear to
animate us with a considerable degree of passion. To be anxious, or to
be laying a plot either to gain or to save a single shilling, would
degrade the most vulgar tradesman in the opinion of all his neighbours.
Let his circumstances be ever so mean, no attention to any such small
matters, for the sake of the things themselves, must appear in his
conduct. His situation may require the most severe œconomy, and the most
exact assiduity: but each particular exertion of that œconomy and
assiduity must proceed not so much from a regard for that particular
saving or gain, as for the general rule which to him prescribes, with
the utmost rigour, such a tenour of conduct. His parsimony to-day must
not arise from a desire of the particular three-pence which he will save
by it, nor his attendance in his shop from a passion for the particular
ten-pence which he will acquire by it: both the one and the other ought
to proceed solely from a regard to the general rule, which prescribes,
with the most unrelenting severity, this plan of conduct to all persons
in his way of life. In this consists the difference between the
character of a miser, and that of a person of exact œconomy and
assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake;
the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life
which he has laid down to himself.
It is quite otherwise with regard to the more extraordinary and
important objects of self-interest. A person appears mean-spirited, who
does not pursue these with some degree of earnestness for their own
sake. We should despise a prince who was not anxious about conquering or
defending a province. We should have little respect for a private
gentleman who did not exert himself to gain an estate, or even a
considerable office, when he could acquire them without either meanness
or injustice. A member of parliament who shews no keenness about his own
election, is abandoned by his friends, as altogether unworthy of their
attachment. Even a tradesman is thought a poor-spirited fellow among his
neighbours, who does not bestir himself to get what they call an
extraordinary job, or some uncommon advantage. This spirit and keenness
constitutes the difference between the man of enterprise and the man of
dull regularity. Those great objects of self-interest, of which the loss
or acquisition quite changes the rank of the person, are the objects of
the passion properly called ambition; a passion, which when it keeps
within the bounds of prudence and justice, is always admired in the
world, and has even sometimes a certain irregular greatness, which
dazzles the imagination, when it passes the limits of both these
virtues, and is not only unjust but extravagant. Hence the general
admiration for Heroes and Conquerors, and even for Statesmen, whose
projects have been very daring and extensive, though altogether devoid
of justice; such as those of the Cardinals of Richlieu and of Retz. The
objects of avarice and ambition differ only in their greatness. A miser
is as furious about a halfpenny, as a man of ambition about the conquest
of a kingdom.
II. Secondly, I say, it will depend partly upon the precision and
exactness, or the looseness and inaccuracy of the general rules
themselves, how far our conduct ought to proceed entirely from a regard
to them.
The general rules of almost all the virtues, the general rules which
determine what are the offices of prudence, of charity, of generosity,
of gratitude, of friendship, are in many respects loose and inaccurate,
admit of many exceptions, and require so many modifications, that it is
scarce possible to regulate our conduct entirely by a regard to them.
The common proverbial maxims of prudence, being founded in universal
experience, are perhaps the best general rules which can be given about
it. To affect, however, a very strict and literal adherence to them
would evidently be the most absurd and ridiculous pedantry. Of all the
virtues I have just now mentioned, gratitude is that, perhaps, of which
the rules are the most precise, and admit of the fewest exceptions. That
as soon as we can we should make a return of equal, and if possible of
superior value to the services we have received, would seem to be a
pretty plain rule, and one which admitted of scarce any exceptions. Upon
the most superficial examination, however, this rule will appear to be
in the highest degree loose and inaccurate, and to admit of ten thousand
exceptions. If your benefactor attended you in your sickness, ought you
to attend him in his? or can you fulfil the obligation of gratitude, by
making a return of a different kind? If you ought to attend him, how
long ought you to attend him? The same time which he attended you, or
longer, and how much longer? If your friend lent you money in your
distress, ought you to lend him money in his? How much ought you to lend
him? When ought you to lend him? Now, or to-morrow, or next month? And
for how long a time? It is evident, that no general rule can be laid
down, by which a precise answer can, in all cases, be given to any of
these questions. The difference between his character and yours, between
his circumstances and yours, may be such, that you may be perfectly
grateful, and justly refuse to lend him a halfpenny: and, on the
contrary, you may be willing to lend, or even to give him ten times the
sum which he lent you, and yet justly be accused of the blackest
ingratitude, and of not having fulfilled the hundredth part of the
obligation you lie under. As the duties of gratitude, however, are
perhaps the most sacred of all those which the beneficent virtues
prescribe to us, so the general rules which determine them are, as I
said before, the most accurate. Those which ascertain the actions
required by friendship, humanity, hospitality, generosity, are still
more vague and indeterminate.
There is, however, one virtue of which the general rules determine with
the greatest exactness every external action which it requires. This
virtue is justice. The rules of justice are accurate in the highest
degree, and admit of no exceptions or modifications, but such as may be
ascertained as accurately as the rules themselves, and which generally,
indeed, flow from the very same principles with them. If I owe a man ten
pounds, justice requires that I should precisely pay him ten pounds,
either at the time agreed upon, or when he demands it. What I ought to
perform, how much I ought to perform, when and where I ought to perform
it, the whole nature and circumstances of the action prescribed, are all
of them precisely fixt and determined. Though it may be awkward and
pedantic, therefore, to affect too strict an adherence to the common
rules of prudence or generosity, there is no pedantry in sticking fast
by the rules of justice. On the contrary, the most sacred regard is due
to them; and the actions which this virtue requires are never so
properly performed, as when the chief motive for performing them is a
reverential and religious regard to those general rules which require
them. In the practice of the other virtues, our conduct should rather be
directed by a certain idea of propriety, by a certain taste for a
particular tenour of conduct, than by any regard to a precise maxim or
rule; and we should consider the end and foundation of the rule, more
than the rule itself. But it is otherwise with regard to justice: the
man who in that refines the least, and adheres with the most obstinate
stedfastness, to the general rules themselves, is the most commendable,
and the most to be depended upon. Though the end of the rules of justice
be, to hinder us from hurting our neighbour, it may frequently be a
crime to violate them, though we could pretend, with some pretext of
reason, that this particular violation could do no hurt. A man often
becomes a villain the moment he begins even in his own heart, to chicane
in this manner. The moment he thinks of departing from the most staunch
and positive adherence to what those inviolable precepts prescribe to
him, he is no longer to be trusted, and no man can say what degree of
guilt he may not arrive at. The thief imagines he does no evil, when he
steals from the rich, what he supposes they may easily want, and what
possibly they may never even know has been stolen from them. The
adulterer imagines he does no evil, when he corrupts the wife of his
friend, provided he covers his intrigue from the suspicion of the
husband, and does not disturb the peace of the family. When once we
begin to give way to such refinements, there is no enormity so gross of
which we may not be capable.
The rules of justice may be compared to the rules of grammar; the rules
of the other virtues to the rules which critics lay down for the
attainment of what is sublime and elegant in composition. The one, are
precise, accurate, and indispensable. The other, are loose, vague, and
indeterminate, and present us rather with a general idea of the
perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and infallible
directions for acquiring it. A man may learn to write grammatically by
rule, with the most absolute infallibility; and so, perhaps, he may be
taught to act justly. But there are no rules whose observance will
infallibly lead us to the attainment of elegance or sublimity in
writing, though there are some which may help us, in some measure, to
correct and ascertain the vague ideas which we might otherwise have
entertained of those perfections: and there are no rules by the
knowledge of which we can infallibly be taught to act upon all occasions
with prudence, with just magnanimity, or proper beneficence. Though
there are some which may enable us to correct and ascertain in several
respects, the imperfect ideas which we might otherwise have entertained
of those virtues.
It may sometimes happen, that with the most serious and earnest desire
of acting so as to deserve approbation, we may mistake the proper rules
of conduct, and thus be misled by that very principle which ought to
direct us. It is in vain to expect, that in this case mankind should
entirely approve of our behaviour. They cannot enter into that absurd
idea of duty which influenced us, nor go along with any of the actions
which follow from it. There is still, however, something respectable in
the character and behaviour of one who is thus betrayed into vice, by a
wrong sense of duty, or by what is called an erroneous conscience. How
fatally soever he may be misled by it, he is still, with the generous
and humane, more the object of commiseration than of hatred or
resentment. They lament the weakness of human nature, which exposes us
to such unhappy delusions, even while we are most sincerely labouring
after perfection, and endeavouring to act according to the best
principle which can possibly direct us. False notions of religion are
almost the only causes which can occasion any very gross perversion of
our natural sentiments in this way; and that principle which gives the
greatest authority to the rules of duty, is alone capable of distorting
our ideas of them in any considerable degree. In all other cases common
sense is sufficient to direct us, if not to the most exquisite propriety
of conduct, yet to something which is not very far from it; and provided
we are in earnest desirous to do well, our behaviour will always, upon
the whole, be praise-worthy. That to obey the will of the Deity, is the
first rule of duty, all men are agreed. But concerning the particular
commandments which that will may impose upon us, they differ widely from
one another. In this, therefore, the greatest mutual forbearance and
toleration is due; and though the defence of society requires that
crimes should be punished, from whatever motives they proceed, yet a
good man will always punish them with reluctance, when they evidently
proceed from false notions of religious duty. He will never feel against
those who commit them that indignation which he feels against other
criminals, but will rather regret, and sometimes even admire their
unfortunate firmness and magnanimity, at the very time that he punishes
their crime. In the tragedy of Mahomet, one of the finest of Mr.
Voltaire’s, it is well represented, what ought to be our sentiments for
crimes which proceed from such motives. In that tragedy, two young
people of different sexes, of the most innocent and virtuous
dispositions, and without any other weakness except what endears them
the more to us, a mutual fondness for one another, are instigated by the
strongest motives of a false religion, to commit a horrid murder, that
shocks all the principles of human nature: a venerable old man, who had
expressed the most tender affection for them both, for whom,
notwithstanding he was the avowed enemy of their religion, they had both
conceived the highest reverence and esteem, and who was in reality their
father, though they did not know him to be such, is pointed out to them
as a sacrifice which God had expressly required at their hands, and they
are commanded to kill him. While they are about executing this crime,
they are tortured with all the agonies which can arise from the struggle
between the idea of the indispensableness of religious duty on the one
side, and compassion, gratitude, reverence for the age, and love for the
humanity and virtue of the person whom they are going to destroy, on the
other. The representation of this exhibits one of the most interesting,
and perhaps the most instructive spectacle that was ever introduced upon
any theatre. The sense of duty, however, at last prevails over all the
amiable weaknesses of human nature. They execute the crime imposed upon
them; but immediately discover their error, and the fraud which had
deceived them, and are distracted with horror, remorse, and resentment.
Such as are our sentiments for the unhappy Seid and Palmira, such ought
we to feel for every person who is in this manner misled by religion,
when we are sure that it is really religion which misleads him, and not
the pretence of it, which is made a cover to some of the worst of human
passions.
As a person may act wrong by following a wrong sense of duty, so nature
may sometimes prevail, and lead him to act right in opposition to it. We
cannot in this case be displeased to see that motive prevail, which we
think ought to prevail, though the person himself is so weak as to think
otherwise. As his conduct, however, is the effect of weakness, not
principle, we are far from bestowing upon it any thing that approaches
to complete approbation. A bigotted Roman Catholic, who, during the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, had been so overcome by compassion, as to
save some unhappy protestants, whom he thought it his duty to destroy,
would not seem to be entitled to that high applause which we should have
bestowed upon him, had he exerted the same generosity with complete
self-approbation. We might be pleased with the humanity of his temper,
but we should still regard him with a sort of pity which is altogether
inconsistent with the admiration that is due to perfect virtue. It is
the same case with all the other passions. We do not dislike to see them
exert themselves properly, even when a false notion of duty would direct
the person to restrain them. A very devout Quaker, who upon being struck
upon one cheek, instead of turning up the other, should so far forget
his literal interpretation of our Saviour’s precept, as to bestow some
good discipline upon the brute that insulted him, would not be
disagreeable to us. We should laugh and be diverted with his spirit, and
rather like him the better for it. But we should by no means regard him
with that respect and esteem which would seem due to one who, upon a
like occasion, had acted properly from a just sense of what was proper
to be done. No action can properly be called virtuous, which is not
accompanied with the sentiment of self-approbation.
[Illustration]
PART IV.
Of the EFFECT of UTILITY upon the sentiment of approbation.
CONSISTING OF ONE SECTION.
CHAP. I.
_Of the beauty which the appearance of_ UTILITY _bestows upon all the
productions of art, and of the extensive influence of this species of
beauty_.
That utility is one of the principal sources of beauty has been observed
by every body, who has considered with any attention what constitutes
the nature of beauty. The conveniency of a house gives pleasure to the
spectator as well as its regularity, and he is as much hurt when he
observes the contrary defect, as when he sees the correspondent windows
of different forms, or the door not placed exactly in the middle of the
building. That the fitness of any system or machine to produce the end
for which it was intended, bestows a certain propriety and beauty upon
the whole, and renders the very thought and contemplation of it
agreeable, is so very obvious that nobody has overlooked it.
The cause too, why utility pleases, has of late been assigned by an
ingenious and agreeable philosopher, who joins the greatest depth of
thought to the greatest elegance of expression, and possesses the
singular and happy talent of treating the abstrusest subjects not only
with the most perfect perspicuity, but with the most lively eloquence.
The utility of any object, according to him, pleases the master by
perpetually suggesting to him the pleasure or conveniency which it is
fitted to promote. Every time he looks at it, he is put in mind of this
pleasure; and the object in this manner becomes a source of perpetual
satisfaction and enjoyment. The spectator enters by sympathy into the
sentiments of the master, and necessarily views the object under the
same agreeable aspect. When we visit the palaces of the great, we cannot
help conceiving the satisfaction we should enjoy if we ourselves were
the masters, and were possessed of so much artful and ingeniously
contrived accommodation. A similar account is given why the appearance
of inconveniency should render any object disagreeable both to the owner
and to the spectator.
But that this fitness, this happy contrivance of any production of art,
should often be more valued, than the very end for which it was
intended; and that the exact adjustment of the means for attaining any
conveniency or pleasure, should frequently be more regarded, than that
very conveniency or pleasure, in the attainment of which their whole
merit would seem to consist, has not, so far as I know, been yet taken
notice of by any body. That this however is very frequently the case,
may be observed in a thousand instances, both in the most frivolous and
in the most important concerns of human life.
When a person comes into his chamber, and finds the chairs all standing
in the middle of the room, he is angry with his servant, and rather than
see them continue in that disorder, perhaps takes the trouble himself to
set them all in their places with their backs to the wall. The whole
propriety of this new situation arises from its superior conveniency in
leaving the floor free and disengaged. To attain this conveniency he
voluntarily puts himself to more trouble than all he could have suffered
from the want of it; since nothing was more easy, than to have set
himself down upon one of them, which is probably what he does when his
labour is over. What he wanted therefore, it seems, was not so much this
conveniency, as that arrangement of things which promotes it. Yet it is
this conveniency which ultimately recommends that arrangement, and
bestows upon it the whole of its propriety and beauty.
A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind above two minutes in a
day, is despised by one curious in watches. He sells it perhaps for a
couple of guineas, and purchases another at fifty, which will not lose
above a minute in a fortnight. The sole use of watches however, is to
tell us what o’clock it is, and to hinder us from breaking any
engagement, or suffering any other inconveniency by our ignorance in
that particular point. But the person so nice with regard to this
machine, will not always be found either more scrupulously punctual than
other men, or more anxiously concerned upon any other account, to know
precisely what time of day it is. What interests him is not so much the
attainment of this piece of knowledge, as the perfection of the machine
which serves to attain it.
How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of
frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the
utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it.
All their pockets are fluffed with little conveniencies. They contrive
new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to carry a
greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in
weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew’s-box,
some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which
might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility
is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.
Nor is it only with regard to such frivolous objects that our conduct is
influenced by this principle; it is often the secret motive of the most
serious and important pursuits of both private and public life.
The poor man’s son, whom Heaven in its anger has visited with ambition,
when he begins to look around him admires the condition of the rich. He
finds the cottage of his father too small for his accommodation, and
fancies he should be lodged more at his ease in a palace. He is
displeased with being obliged to walk a-foot, or to endure the fatigue
of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in machines,
and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less
inconveniency. He feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve
himself with his own hands as little as possible; and judges, that a
numerous retinue of servants would save him from a great deal of
trouble. He thinks if he had attained all these, he would sit still
contentedly, and be quiet, enjoying himself in the thought of the
happiness and tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the
distant idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy like the life of
some superior rank of beings, and in order to arrive at it, he devotes
himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To obtain the
conveniencies which these afford, he submits in the first year, nay in
the first month of his application, to more fatigue of body and more
uneasiness of mind than he could have suffered through the whole of his
life from the want of them. He studies to distinguish himself in some
laborious profession. With the most unrelenting industry he labours
night and day to acquire talents superior to all his competitors. He
endeavours next to bring those talents into public view, and with equal
assiduity solicits every opportunity of employment. For this purpose he
makes his court to all mankind, he serves those whom he hates, and is
obsequious to those whom he despises. Through the whole of his life he
pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may
never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquillity that is at
all times in his power, and which, if in the extremity of old age he
should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no respect preferable
to that humble security and contentment which he had abandoned for it.
It is then, in the last dregs of life, his body wailed with toil and
diseases, his mind galled and ruffled by the memory of a thousand
injuries and disappointments which he imagines he has met with from the
injustice of his enemies, or from the perfidy and ingratitude of his
friends, that he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are
mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease
of body or tranquillity of mind than the tweezer-cases of the lover of
toys; and like them too, more troublesome to the person who carries them
about with him than all the advantages they can afford him are
commodious. There is no other real difference between them, except that
the conveniencies of the one are somewhat more observable than those of
the other. The palaces, the gardens, the equipage, the retinue of the
great are objects of which the obvious conveniency strikes every body.
They do not require that their masters should point out to us wherein
consists their utility. Of our own accord we readily enter into it, and
by sympathy enjoy and thereby applaud the satisfaction which they are
fitted to afford him. But the curiosity of a tooth-pick, of an
ear-picker, of a machine for cutting the nails, or of any other trinket
of the same kind, is not so obvious. Their convenience may perhaps be
equally great, but it is not so striking, and we do not so readily enter
into the satisfaction of the man who possesses them. They are therefore
less reasonable subjects of vanity than the magnificence of wealth and
greatness; and in this consists the sole advantage of these last. They
more effectually gratify that love of distinction so natural to man. To
one who was to live alone in a desolate island it might be a matter of
doubt, perhaps, whether a palace, or a collection of such small
conveniencies as are commonly contained in a tweezer-case, would
contribute most to his happiness and enjoyment. If he is to live in
society, indeed, there can be no comparison, because in this, as in all
other cases, we constantly pay more regard to the sentiments of the
spectator, than to those of the person principally concerned, and
consider rather how his situation will appear to other people, than how
it will appear to himself. If we examine, however, why the spectator
distinguishes with such admiration the condition of the rich and the
great, we shall find that it is not so much upon account of the superior
ease or pleasure which they are supposed to enjoy, as of the numberless
artificial and elegant contrivances for promoting this ease or pleasure.
He does not even imagine that they are really happier than other people:
but he imagines that they possess more means of happiness. And it is the
ingenious and artful adjustment of those means to the end for which they
were intended, that is the principal source of his admiration. But in
the languor of disease, and the weariness of old age, the pleasures of
the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this
situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome
pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses
ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth,
pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed
for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction. In
this miserable aspect does greatness appear to every man when reduced
either by spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation,
and to consider what it is that is really wanting to his happiness.
Power and riches appear then to be what they are, enormous and operose
machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body,
consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in
order with the most anxious attention, and which in spite of all our
care are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their
ruins their unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics, which it
requires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten every moment to
overwhelm the person that dwells in them, and which while they stand,
though they may save him from some smaller inconveniencies, can protect
him from none of the severer inclemencies of the season. They keep off
the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much,
and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to
sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to death.
But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low
spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those great
objects of human desire, when in better health and in better humour, we
never fail to regard them under a more agreeable aspect. Our
imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up
within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself
to every thing around us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that
accommodation which reigns in the palaces and œconomy of the great; and
admire how every thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent
their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their
most frivolous desires. If we consider the real satisfaction which all
these things are capable of affording, by itself and separated from the
beauty of that arrangement which is fitted to promote it, it will always
appear in the highest degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely
view it in this abstract and philosophical light. We naturally confound
it in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious
movement of the system, the machine or œconomy by means of which it is
produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered in this
complex view, strike the imagination as something grand and beautiful
and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the toil and
anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it.
And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this
deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of
mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground,
to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and
improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human
life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have
turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and
made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the
great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth.
The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to redouble her
natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of inhabitants.
It is to no purpose, that the proud and unfeeling landlord views his
extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren,
in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest that grows upon them.
The homely and vulgar proverb, that the eye is larger than the belly,
never was more fully verified than with regard to him. The capacity of
his stomach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires, and
will receive no more than that of the meanest peasant. The rest he is
obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner,
that little which he himself makes use of, among those who sit up the
palace in which this little is to be consumed, among those who provide
and keep in order all the different baubles and trinkets, which are
employed in the œconomy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his
luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they
would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice. The
produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of
inhabitants, which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only select
from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little
more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and
rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole
end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they
employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires,
they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They
are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the
necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been
divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without
intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society,
and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When Providence
divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor
abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These
last too enjoy their share of all that it produces. In what constitutes
the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to
those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of
mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the
beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that
security which kings are fighting for.
The same principle, the same love of system, the same regard to the
beauty of order, of art and contrivance, frequently serves to recommend
those institutions, which tend to promote the public welfare. When a
patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any part of the public
police, his conduct does not always arise from pure sympathy with the
happiness of those who are to reap the benefit of it. It is not commonly
from a fellow-feeling with carriers and waggoners that a public-spirited
man encourages the mending of high roads. When the legislature
establishes premiums and other encouragements to advance the linen or
woollen manufactures, its conduct seldom proceeds from pure sympathy
with the wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much less from that with the
manufacturer, or merchant. The perfection of police, the extension of
trade and manufactures, are noble and magnificent objects. The
contemplation of them pleases us, and we are interested in whatever can
tend to advance them. They make part of the great system of government,
and the wheels of the political machine seem to move with more harmony
and ease by means of them. We take pleasure in beholding the perfection
of so beautiful and grand a system, and we are uneasy till we remove any
obstruction that can in the least disturb or encumber the regularity of
its motions. All constitutions of government, however, are valued only
in proportion, as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live
under them. This is their sole use and end. From a certain spirit of
system, however, from a certain love of art and contrivance, we
sometimes seem to value the means more than the end, and to be eager to
promote the happiness of our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to
perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from
any immediate sense or feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy.
There have been men of the greatest public spirit, who have shewn
themselves in other respects not very sensible to the feelings of
humanity. And on the contrary, there have been men of the greatest
humanity, who seem to have been entirely devoid of public spirit. Every
man may find in the circle of his acquaintance instances both of the one
kind and the other. Who had ever less humanity, or more public spirit,
than the celebrated legislator of Muscovy? The social and well natured
James the First of Great Britain seems, on the contrary, to have had
scarce any passion, either for the glory, or the interest of his
country. Would you awaken the industry of the man, who seems almost dead
to ambition, it will often be to no purpose to describe to him the
happiness of the rich and the great; to tell him that they are generally
sheltered from the sun and the rain, that they are seldom hungry, that
they are seldom cold, and that they are rarely exposed to weariness, or
to want of any kind. The most eloquent exhortation of this kind will
have little effect upon him. If you would hope to succeed, you must
describe to him the conveniency and arrangement of the different
apartments in their palaces, you must explain to him the propriety of
their equipages, and point out to him the number, the order, and the
different offices of all their attendants. If any thing is capable of
making impression upon him, this will. Yet all these things tend only to
keep off the sun and the rain, to save them from hunger and cold, from
want and weariness. In the same manner, if you would implant public
virtue in the breast of him, who seems heedless of the interest of his
country, it will often be to no purpose to tell him, what superior
advantages the subjects of a well-governed state enjoy; that they are
better lodged, that they are better clothed, that they are better fed.
These considerations will commonly make no great impression. You will be
more likely to persuade, if you describe the great system of public
police which procures these advantages, if you explain the connexions
and dependencies of its several parts, their mutual subordination to one
another, and their general subserviency to the happiness of the society;
if you show how this system might be introduced into his own country,
what it is that hinders it from taking place there at present, how those
obstructions might be removed, and all the several wheels of the machine
of government be made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without
grating upon one another, or mutually retarding one another’s motions.
It is scarce possible that a man should listen to a discourse of this
kind, and not feel himself animated to some degree of public spirit. He
will, at least for the moment, feel some desire to remove those
obstructions, and to put into motion so beautiful and so orderly a
machine. Nothing tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of
politics, of the several systems of civil government, their advantages
and disadvantages, of the constitution of our own country, its
situation, and interest with regard to foreign nations, its commerce,
its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the dangers to which it
may be exposed, how to remove the one, and how to guard against the
other. Upon this account political disquisitions, if just and
reasonable, and practicable, are of all the works of speculation the
most useful. Even the weakest and the worst of them are not altogether
without their utility. They serve at least to animate the public
passions of men, and rouse them to seek out the means of promoting the
happiness of the society.
CHAP. II.
_Of the beauty which the appearance of utility bestows upon the
characters and actions of men; and how far the perception of this beauty
may be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation._
The characters of men, as well as the contrivances of art, or the
institutions of civil government, may be fitted either to promote or to
disturb the happiness both of the individual and of the society. The
prudent, the equitable, the active, resolute, and sober character
promises prosperity and satisfaction, both to the person himself and to
every one connected with him. The rash, the insolent, the slothful,
effeminate, and voluptuous, on the contrary, forebodes ruin to the
individual, and misfortune to all who have any thing to do with him. The
first turn of mind has at least all the beauty which can belong to the
most perfect machine that was ever invented for promoting the most
agreeable purpose: and the second all the deformity of the most awkward
and clumsy contrivance. What institution of government could tend so
much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of
wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for the
deficiency of these. Whatever beauty, therefore, can belong to civil
government upon account of its utility, must in a far superior degree
belong to these. On the contrary, what civil policy can be so ruinous
and destructive as the vices of men? The fatal effects of bad government
arise from nothing, but that it does not sufficiently guard against the
mischiefs which human wickedness gives occasion to.
This beauty and deformity which characters appear to derive from their
usefulness or inconveniency, are apt to strike, in a peculiar manner,
those who consider, in an abstract and philosophical light, the actions
and conduct of mankind. When a philosopher goes to examine why humanity
is approved of, or cruelty condemned, he does not always form to
himself, in a very clear and distinct manner, the conception of any one
particular action either of cruelty or of humanity, but is commonly
contented with the vague and indeterminate idea which the general names
of those qualities suggest to him. But it is in particular instances
only that the propriety or impropriety, the merit or demerit of actions
is very obvious and discernible. It is only when particular examples are
given that we perceive distinctly either the concord or disagreement
between our own affections and those of the agent, or feel a social
gratitude arise towards him in the one case, or a sympathetic resentment
in the other. When we consider virtue and vice in an abstract and
general manner, the qualities by which they excite these several
sentiments seem in a great measure to disappear, and the sentiments
themselves become less obvious and discernible. On the contrary, the
happy effects of the one and the fatal consequences of the other seem
then to rise up to the view, and as it were to stand out and distinguish
themselves from all the other qualities of either.
The same ingenious and agreeable author who first explained why utility
pleases, has been so struck with this view of things, as to resolve our
whole approbation of virtue into a perception of this species of beauty
which results from the appearance of utility. No qualities of the mind,
he observes, are approved of as virtuous, but such as are useful or
agreeable either to the person himself or to others; and no qualities
are disapproved of as vicious but such as have a contrary tendency. And
Nature, indeed, seems to have so happily adjusted our sentiments of
approbation and disapprobation, to the conveniency both of the
individual and of the society, that after the strictest examination it
will be found, I believe, that this is universally the case. But still I
affirm, that it is not the view of this utility or hurtfulness which is
either the first or principal source of our approbation and
disapprobation. These sentiments are no doubt enhanced and enlivened by
the perception of the beauty or deformity which results from this
utility or hurtfulness. But still, I say, they are originally and
essentially different from this perception.
For first of all, it seems impossible that the approbation of virtue
should be a sentiment of the same kind with that by which we approve of
a convenient and well contrived building, or that we should have no
other reason for praising a man than that for which we commend a chest
of drawers.
And secondly, it will be found, upon examination, that the usefulness of
any disposition of mind is seldom the first ground of our approbation;
and that the sentiment of approbation always involves in it a sense of
propriety quite distinct from the perception of utility. We may observe
this with regard to all the qualities which are approved of as virtuous,
both those which, according to this system, are originally valued as
useful to ourselves, as well as those which are esteemed on account of
their usefulness to others.
The qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of all, superior
reason and understanding, by which we are capable of discerning the
remote consequences of all our actions, and of foreseeing the advantage
or detriment which is likely to result from them: and secondly,
self-command, by which we are enabled to abstain from present pleasure
or to endure present pain, in order to obtain a greater pleasure or to
avoid a greater pain in some future time. In the union of those two
qualities consists the virtue of prudence, of all the virtues that which
is most useful to the individual.
With regard to the first of those qualities, it has been observed on a
former occasion, that superior reason and understanding are originally
approved of as just and right and accurate, and not merely as useful or
advantageous. It is in the abstruser sciences, particularly in the
higher parts of mathematics, that the greatest and most admired
exertions of human reason have been displayed. But the utility of those
sciences, either to the individual or to the public, is not very
obvious, and to prove it requires a discussion which is not always very
easily comprehended. It was not, therefore, their utility which first
recommended them to the public admiration. This quality was but little
insisted upon, till it became necessary to make some reply to the
reproaches of those, who, having themselves no taste for such sublime
discoveries, endeavoured to depreciate them as useless.
That self-command, in the same manner, by which we restrain our present
appetites, in order to gratify them more fully upon another occasion, is
approved of, as much under the aspect of propriety, as under that of
utility. When we act in this manner, the sentiments which influence our
conduct seem exactly to coincide with those of the spectator. The
spectator does not feel the felicitations of our present appetites. To
him the pleasure which we are to enjoy a week hence, or a year hence, is
just as interesting as that which we are to enjoy this moment. When for
the sake of the present, therefore, we sacrifice the future, our conduct
appears to him absurd and extravagant in the highest degree, and he
cannot enter into the principles which influence it. On the contrary,
when we abstain from present pleasure, in order to secure greater
pleasure to come, when we act as if the remote object interests us as
much as that which immediately presses upon the senses, as our
affections exactly correspond with his own, he cannot fail to approve of
our behaviour: and as he knows from experience, how few are capable of
this self-command, he looks upon our conduct with a considerable degree
of wonder and admiration. Hence arises that eminent esteem with which
all men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the practice of
frugality, industry, and application, though directed to no other
purpose than the acquisition of fortune. The resolute firmness of the
person who acts in this manner, and in order to obtain a great though
remote advantage, not only gives up all present pleasures, but endures
the greatest labour both of mind and body, necessarily commands our
approbation. That view of his interest and happiness which appears to
regulate his conduct, exactly tallies with the idea which we naturally
form of it. There is the most perfect correspondence between his
sentiments and our own, and at the same time, from our experience of the
common weakness of human nature, it is a correspondence which we could
not reasonably have expected. We not only approve, therefore, but in
some measure admire his conduct, and think it worthy of a considerable
degree of applause. It is the consciousness of this merited approbation
and esteem which is alone capable of supporting the agent in this tenour
of conduct. The pleasure which we are to enjoy ten years hence interests
us so little in comparison with that which we may enjoy to-day, the
passion which the first excites, is naturally so weak in comparison with
that violent emotion which the second is apt to give occasion to, that
one could never be any balance to the other, unless it was supported by
the sense of propriety, by the consciousness that we merited the esteem
and approbation of every body, by acting in the one way, and that we
became the proper objects of their contempt and derision by behaving in
the other.
Humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities most
useful to others. Wherein consists the propriety of humanity and justice
has been explained upon a former occasion, where it was shewn how much
our esteem and approbation of those qualities depended upon the concord
between the affections of the agent and those of the spectators.
The propriety of generosity and public spirit is founded upon the same
principle with that of justice. Generosity is different from humanity.
Those two qualities, which at first sight seem so nearly allied, do not
always belong to the same person. Humanity is the virtue of a woman,
generosity of a man. The fair sex, who have commonly much more
tenderness than ours, have seldom so much generosity. That women rarely
make considerable donations is an observation of the civil law[7].
Humanity consists merely in the exquisite fellow-feeling which the
spectator entertains with the sentiments of the persons principally
concerned, so as to grieve for their sufferings, to resent their
injuries, and to rejoice at their good fortune. The most humane actions
require no self-denial, no self-command, no great exertion of the sense
of propriety. They consist only in doing what this exquisite sympathy
would of its own accord prompt us to do. But it is otherwise with
generosity. We never are generous except when in some respect we prefer
some other person to ourselves, and sacrifice some great and important
interest of our own to an equal interest of a friend or of a superior.
The man who gives up his pretensions to an office that was the great
object of his ambition, because he imagines that the services of another
are better entitled to it, the man who exposes his life to defend that
of his friend, which he judges to be of more importance, neither of them
act from humanity, or because they feel more exquisitely what concerns
that other person than what concerns themselves. They both consider
those opposite interests not in the light in which they naturally appear
to themselves, but in that in which they appear to others. To every
by-stander, the success or preservation of this other person may justly
be more interesting than their own; but it cannot be so to themselves.
When to the interest of this other person, therefore, they sacrifice
their own, they accommodate themselves to the sentiments of the
spectator, and by an effort of magnanimity act according to those views
of things which they feel, must naturally occur to any third person. The
soldier who throws away his life in order to defend that of his officer,
would perhaps be but little affected by the death of that officer, if it
should happen without any fault of his own; and a very small disaster
which had befallen himself might excite a much more lively sorrow. But
when he endeavours to act so as to deserve applause, and to make the
impartial spectator enter into the principles of his conduct, he feels,
that to every body but himself, his own life is a trifle compared with
that of his officer, and that when he sacrifices the one to the other,
he acts quite properly and agreeably to what would be the natural
apprehensions of every impartial by-stander.
Footnote 7:
Raro mulieres donare solent.
It is the same case with the greater exertions of public spirit. When a
young officer exposes his life to acquire some inconsiderable addition
to the dominions of his sovereign, it is not, because the acquisition of
the new territory is, to himself, an object more desireable than the
preservation of his own life. To him his own life is of infinitely more
value than the conquest of a whole kingdom for the state which he
serves. But when he compares those two objects with one another, he does
not view them in the light in which they naturally appear to himself,
but in that in which they appear to the nation he fights for. To them
the success of the war is of the highest importance; the life of a
private person of scarce any consequence. When he puts himself in their
situation, he immediately feels that he cannot be too prodigal of his
blood, if by shedding it, he can promote so valuable a purpose. In thus
thwarting, from a sense of duty and propriety, the strongest of all
natural propensities, consists the heroism of his conduct. There is many
an honest Englishman, who, in his private station, would be more
seriously disturbed by the loss of a guinea, than by the national loss
of Minorca, who yet, had it been in his power to defend that fortress,
would have sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than, through his
fault, have let it fall into the hands of the enemy. When the first
Brutus led forth his own sons to a capital punishment, because they had
conspired against the rising liberty of Rome, he sacrificed what, if he
had consulted his own breast only, would appear to be the stronger to
the weaker affection. Brutus ought naturally to have felt much more for
the death of his own sons, than for all that probably Rome could have
suffered from the want of so great an example. But he viewed them, not
with the eyes of a father, but with those of a Roman citizen. He entered
so thoroughly into the sentiments of this last character, that he paid
no regard to that tye, by which he himself was connected with them; and
to a Roman citizen, the sons even of Brutus seemed contemptible, when
put into the balance with the smallest interest of Rome. In these and in
all other cases of this kind, our admiration is not so much founded upon
the utility, as upon the unexpected, and on that account the great, the
noble, and exalted propriety of such actions. This utility, when we come
to view it, bestows upon them, undoubtedly, a new beauty, and upon that
account still further recommends them, to our approbation. This beauty,
however, is chiefly perceived by men of reflection and speculation, and
is by no means the quality which first recommends such actions to the
natural sentiments of the bulk of mankind.
It is to be observed, that so far as the sentiment of approbation arises
from the perception of this beauty of utility, it has no reference of
any kind to the sentiments of others. If it was possible, therefore,
that a person should grow up to manhood without any communication with
society, his own actions might, notwithstanding, be agreeable or
disagreeable to him on account of their tendency to his happiness or
disadvantage. He might perceive a beauty of this kind in prudence,
temperance, and good conduct, and a deformity in the opposite behaviour:
He might view his own temper and character with that sort of
satisfaction with which we consider a well contrived machine, in the one
case; or with that sort of distaste and dissatisfaction with which we
regard a very awkward and clumsy contrivance, in the other. As these
perceptions, however, are merely a matter of taste, and have all the
feebleness and delicacy of that species of perceptions, upon the
justness of which what is properly called taste is founded, they
probably would not be much attended to by one in his solitary and
miserable condition. Even though they should occur to him, they would by
no means have the same effect upon him, antecedent to his connexion with
society, which they would have in consequence of that connexion. He
would not be cast down with inward shame at the thought of this
deformity; nor would he be elevated with secret triumph of mind from the
consciousness of the contrary beauty. He would not exult from the notion
of deserving reward in the one case, nor tremble from the suspicion of
meriting punishment in the other. All such sentiments suppose the idea
of some other being, who is the natural judge of the person that feels
them; and it is only by sympathy with the decisions of this arbiter of
his conduct, that he can conceive, either the triumph of self-applause,
or the shame of self-condemnation.
PART V.
Of the INFLUENCE of CUSTOM and FASHION upon the sentiments of moral
approbation and disapprobation.
CONSISTING OF ONE SECTION.
CHAP. I.
_Of the influence of custom and fashion upon our notions of beauty and
deformity._
There are other principles besides those already enumerated, which have
a considerable influence upon the moral sentiments of mankind, and are
the chief causes of the many irregular and discordant opinions which
prevail in different ages and nations concerning what is blameable or
praise-worthy. These principles are custom and faction, principles which
extend their dominion over our judgments concerning beauty of every
kind.
When two objects have frequently been seen together, the imagination
acquires a habit of passing easily from the one to the other. If the
first appear, we lay our account that the second is to follow. Of their
own accord they put us in mind of one another, and the attention glides
easily along them. Though, independent of custom, there should be no
real beauty in their union, yet when custom has thus connected them
together, we feel an impropriety in their reparation. The one we think
is awkward when it appears without its usual companion. We miss
something which we expected to find, and the habitual arrangement of our
ideas is disturbed by the disappointment. A suit of clothes, for
example, seems to want something if they are without the most
insignificant ornament which usually accompanies them, and we find a
meanness or awkwardness in the absence even of a haunch button. When
there is any natural propriety in the union, custom increases our sense
of it, and makes a different arrangement appear still more disagreeable
than it would otherwise seem to be. Those who have been accustomed to
see things in a good taste, are more disgusted by whatever is clumsy or
awkward. Where the conjunction is improper, custom either diminishes, or
takes away altogether, our sense of the impropriety. Those who have been
accustomed to slovenly disorder lose all sense of neatness or elegance.
The modes of furniture or dress which seem ridiculous to strangers, give
no offence to the people who are used to them.
Fashion is different from custom, or rather is a particular species of
it. That is not the fashion which every body wears, but which those wear
who are of a high rank, or character. The graceful, the easy, and
commanding manners of the great, joined to the usual richness and
magnificence of their dress, give a grace to the very form which they
happen to bestow upon it. As long as they continue to use this form, it
is connected in our imaginations with the idea of something that is
genteel and magnificent, and though in itself it should be indifferent,
it seems, on account of this relation, to have something about it that
is genteel and magnificent too. As soon as they drop it, it loses all
the grace, which it had appeared to possess before, and being now used
only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to have something of their
meanness and awkwardness.
Dress and furniture are allowed by all the world to be entirely under
the dominion of custom and fashion. The influence of those principles,
however, is by no means confined to so narrow a sphere, but extends
itself to whatever is in any respect the object of taste, to music, to
poetry, to architecture. The modes of dress and furniture are
continually changing, and that fashion appearing ridiculous to-day which
was admired five years ago, we are experimentally convinced that it owed
its vogue chiefly or entirely to custom and fashion. Clothes and
furniture are not made of very durable materials. A well fancied coat is
done in a twelve-month, and cannot continue longer to propagate, as the
fashion, that form according to which it was made. The modes of
furniture change less rapidly than those of dress; because furniture is
commonly more durable. In five or six years, however, it generally
undergoes an entire revolution, and every man in his own time sees the
fashion in this respect change many different ways. The productions of
the other arts are much more lasting, and, when happily imagined, may
continue to propagate the fashion of their make for a much longer time.
A well contrived building may endure many centuries: a beautiful air may
be delivered down by a sort of tradition, through many successive
generations: a well written poem may last as long as the world; and all
of them continue for ages together, to give the vogue to that particular
style, to that particular taste or manner, according to which each of
them was composed. Few men have an opportunity of seeing in their own
times the fashion in any of these arts change very considerably. Few men
have so much experience and acquaintance with the different modes which
have obtained in remote ages and nations, as to be thoroughly reconciled
to them, or to judge with impartiality between them, and what takes
place in their own age and country. Few men therefore are willing to
allow that custom or fashion have much influence upon their judgments
concerning what is beautiful, or otherwise, in the productions of any of
those arts; but imagine, that all the rules, which they think ought to
be observed in each of them, are founded upon reason and nature, not
upon habit or prejudice. A very little attention, however, may convince
them of the contrary, and satisfy them, that the influence of custom and
fashion over dress and furniture, is not more absolute than over
architecture, poetry, and music.
Can any reason, for example, be assigned why the Doric capital should be
appropriated to a pillar, whose height is equal to eight diameters; the
Ionic volute to one of nine; and the Corinthian foliage to one of ten?
The propriety of each of those appropriations can be founded upon
nothing but habit and custom. The eye having been used to see a
particular proportion connected with a particular ornament, would be
offended if they were not joined together. Each of the five orders has
its peculiar ornaments, which cannot be changed for any other, without
giving offence to all those who know any thing of the rules of
architecture. According to some architects, indeed, such is the
exquisite judgment with which the ancients have assigned to each order
its proper ornaments, that no others can be found which are equally
suitable. It seems, however, a little difficult to be conceived that
these forms, though, no doubt, extremely agreeable, should be the only
forms which can suit those proportions, or that there should not be five
hundred others which, antecedent to established custom, would have
fitted them equally well. When custom, however, has established
particular rules of building, provided they are not absolutely
unreasonable, it is absurd to think of altering them for others which
are only equally good, or even for others which, in point of elegance
and beauty, have naturally some little advantage over them. A man would
be ridiculous who should appear in public with a suit of clothes quite
different from those which are commonly worn, though the new dress
should in itself be ever so graceful or convenient. And there seems to
be an absurdity of the same kind in ornamenting a house after a quite
different manner from that which custom and fashion have prescribed;
though the new ornaments should in themselves be somewhat superior to
the common ones.
According to the ancient rhetoricians, a certain measure or verse was by
nature appropriated to each particular species of writing, as being
naturally expressive of that character, sentiment, or passion, which
ought to predominate in it. One verse, they said, was fit for grave and
another for gay works, which could not, they thought, be interchanged
without the greatest impropriety. The experience of modern times,
however, seems to contradict this principle, though in itself it would
appear to be extremely probable. What is the burlesque verse in English
is the heroic verse in French. The tragedies of Racine and the Henriad
of Voltaire, are in the same verse with,
_Thus said to my lady the knight full of care._
The burlesque verse in French, on the contrary, is pretty much the same
with the heroic verse of ten syllables in English. Custom has made the
one nation associate the ideas of gravity, sublimity, and seriousness,
to that measure which the other has connected with whatever is gay,
flippant, and ludicrous. Nothing would appear more absurd in English
than a tragedy written in the Alexandrine verses of the French, or in
French, than a work of the same kind in verses of ten syllables.
An eminent artist will bring about a considerable change in the
established modes of each of those arts, and introduce a new fashion of
writing, music, or architecture. As the dress of an agreeable man of
high rank recommends itself, and how peculiar and fantastical soever,
comes soon to be admired and imitated; so the excellencies of an eminent
matter recommend his peculiarities, and his manner becomes the
fashionable style in the art which he practises. The taste of the
Italians in music and architecture, has, within these fifty years,
undergone a considerable change, from imitating the peculiarities of
some eminent masters in each of those arts. Seneca is accused by
Quintilian of having corrupted the taste of the Romans, and of having
introduced a frivolous prettiness in the room of majestic reason and
masculine eloquence. Sallust and Tacitus have by others been charged
with the same accusation, tho’ in a different manner. They gave
reputation, it is pretended, to a style, which though in the highest
degree concise, elegant, expressive, and even poetical, wanted, however,
ease, simplicity, and nature, and was evidently the production of the
most laboured and studied affectation. How many great qualities must
that writer possess who can thus render his very faults agreeable? After
the praise of refining the taste of a nation, the highest eulogy,
perhaps, which can be bestowed upon any author is to say, that he
corrupted it. In our own language, Mr. Pope and Dr. Swift have each of
them introduced a manner different from what was practised before, into
all works that are written in rhyme, the one in long verses, the other
in short. The quaintness of Butler has given place to the plainness of
Swift. The rambling freedom of Dryden, and the correct but often tedious
and prosaic languor of Addison, are no longer the objects of imitation,
but all long verses are now written after the manner of the nervous
precision of Mr. Pope.
Neither is it only over the productions of the arts, that custom and
fashion exert their dominion. They influence our judgments, in the same
manner, with regard to the beauty of natural objects. What various and
opposite forms are deemed beautiful in different species of things? The
proportions which are admired in one animal, are altogether different
from those which are esteemed in another. Every class of things has its
own peculiar conformation, which is approved of, and has a beauty of its
own, distinct from that of every other species. It is upon this account
that a learned Jesuit, father Buffier, has determined that the beauty of
every object consists in that form and colour, which is most usual among
things of that particular sort to which it belongs. Thus, in the human
form, the beauty of each feature lies in a certain middle equally
removed from a variety of other forms that are ugly. A beautiful nose,
for example, is one that is neither very long, nor very short, neither
very straight, nor very crooked, but a sort of middle among all these
extremes, and less different from any one of them, than all of them are
from one another. It is the form which Nature seems to have aimed at in
them all, which, however, she deviates from in a great variety of ways,
and very seldom hits exactly; but to which all those deviations still
bear a very strong resemblance. When a number of drawings are made after
one pattern, though they may all miss it in some respects, yet they will
all resemble it more than they resemble one another; the general
character of the pattern will run through them all; the most singular
and odd will be those which are most wide of it; and though very few
will copy it exactly, yet the most accurate delineations will bear a
greater resemblance to the most careless, than the careless ones will
bear to one another. In the same manner, in each species of creatures,
what is most beautiful bears the strongest characters of the general
fabric of the species, and has the strongest resemblance to the greater
part of the individuals with which it is classed. Monsters, on the
contrary, or what is perfectly deformed, are always most singular and
odd, and have the least resemblance to the generality of that species to
which they belong. And thus the beauty of each species, though in one
sense the rarest of all things, because few individuals hit this middle
form exactly, yet in another, is the most common, because all the
deviations from it resemble it more than they resemble one another. The
most customary form, therefore, is in each species of things, according
to him, the most beautiful. And hence it is that a certain practice and
experience in contemplating each species of objects is requisite, before
we can judge of its beauty, or know wherein the middle and most usual
form consists. The nicest judgment concerning the beauty of the human
species, will not help us to judge of that of flowers, or horses, or any
other species of things. It is for the same reason that in different
climates and where different customs and ways of living take place, as
the generality of any species receives a different conformation from
those circumstances, so different ideas of its beauty prevail. The
beauty of a Moorish is not exactly the same with that of an English
horse. What different ideas are formed in different nations concerning
the beauty of the human shape and countenance? A fair complexion is a
shocking deformity upon the coast of Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose
are a beauty. In some nations long ears that hang down upon the
shoulders are the objects of universal admiration. In China if a lady’s
foot is so large as to be fit to walk upon, she is regarded as a monster
of ugliness. Some of the savage nations in North America tie four boards
round the heads of their children, and thus squeeze them, while the
bones are tender and gristly, into a form that is almost perfectly
square. Europeans are astonished at the absurd barbarity of this
practice, to which some missionaries have imputed the singular stupidity
of those nations among whom it prevails. But, when they condemn those
savages, they do not reflect that the ladies in Europe had, till within
these very few years, been endeavouring, for near a century past, to
squeeze the beautiful roundness of their natural shape into a square
form of the same kind. And that notwithstanding the many distortions and
diseases which this practice was known to occasion, custom had rendered
it agreeable among some of the most civilized nations, which, perhaps,
the world ever beheld.
Such is the system of this learned and ingenious father, concerning the
nature of beauty; of which the whole charm, according to him, would thus
seem to arise from its falling in with the habits which custom had
impressed upon the imagination, with regard to things of each particular
kind. I cannot, however, be induced to believe that our sense even of
external beauty is founded altogether on custom. The utility of any
form, its fitness for the useful purposes for which it was intended,
evidently recommends it, and renders it agreeable to us independent of
custom. Certain colours are more agreeable than others, and give more
delight to the eye the first time it ever beholds them. A smooth surface
is more agreeable than a rough one. Variety is more pleasing than a
tedious undiversified uniformity. Connected variety, in which each new
appearance seems to be introduced by what went before it, and in which
all the adjoining parts seem to have some natural relation to one
another, is more agreeable than a disjointed and disorderly assemblage
of unconnected objects. But though I cannot admit that custom is the
sole principle of beauty, yet I can so far allow the truth of this
ingenious system as to grant, that there is scarce any one external form
so beautiful as to please, if quite contrary to custom and unlike
whatever we have been used to in that particular species of things: or
so deformed as not to be agreeable, if custom uniformly supports it, and
habituates us to see it in every single individual of the kind.
CHAP. II.
_Of the influence of custom and fashion upon moral sentiments._
Since our sentiments concerning beauty of every kind are so much
influenced by custom and fashion, it cannot be expected, that those,
concerning the beauty, of conduct, should be entirely exempted from the
dominion of those principles. Their influence here, however, seems to be
much less than it is every where else. There is, perhaps, no form of
external objects, how absurd and fantastical soever, to which custom
will not reconcile us, or which fashion will not render even agreeable.
But the characters and conduct of a Nero, or a Claudius, are what no
custom will ever reconcile us to, what no fashion will ever render
agreeable; but the one will always be the object of dread and hatred;
the other of scorn and derision. The principles of the imagination, upon
which our sense of beauty depends, are of a very nice and delicate
nature, and may easily be altered by habit and education: but the
sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation, are founded on the
strongest and most vigorous passions of human nature; and though they
may be somewhat warpt, cannot be entirely perverted.
But though the influence of custom and fashion, upon moral sentiments,
is not altogether so great, it is however perfectly similar to what it
is every where else. When custom and fashion coincide with the natural
principles of right and wrong, they heighten the delicacy of our
sentiments, and increase our abhorrence for every thing which approaches
to evil. Those who have been educated in what is really good company,
not in what is commonly called such, who have been accustomed to see
nothing in the persons whom they esteemed and lived with, but justice,
modesty, humanity, and good order, are more shocked with whatever seems
to be inconsistent with the rules which those virtues prescribe. Those,
on the contrary, who have had the misfortune to be brought up amidst
violence, licentiousness, falsehood, and injustice, lose, though not all
sense of the impropriety of such conduct, yet all sense of its dreadful
enormity, or of the vengeance and punishment due to it. They have been
familiarized with it from their infancy, custom has rendered it habitual
to them, and they are very apt to regard it as, what is called the way
of the world, something which either may, or must be practised, to
hinder us from being the dupes of our own integrity.
Fashion too will sometimes give reputation to a certain degree of
disorder, and on the contrary discountenance qualities which deserve
esteem. In the reign of Charles II. a degree of licentiousness was
deemed the characteristic of a liberal education. It was connected,
according to the notions of those times, with generosity, sincerity,
magnanimity, loyalty, and proved that the person who acted in this
manner, was a gentleman, and not a puritan; severity of manners, and
regularity of conduct, on the other hand, were altogether unfashionable,
and were connected, in the imagination of that age, with cant, cunning,
hypocrisy, and low manners. To superficial minds, the vices of the great
seem at all times agreeable. They connect them, not only with the
splendour of fortune, but with many superiour virtues, which they
ascribe to their superiors; with the spirit of freedom and independency,
with frankness, generosity, humanity, and politeness. The virtues of the
inferior ranks of people, on the contrary, their parsimonious frugality,
their painful industry, and rigid adherence to rules, seem to them mean
and disagreeable. They connect them, both with the meanness of the
station to which those qualities commonly belong, and with many great
vices, which, they suppose, usually accompany them; such as an abject,
cowardly, ill-natured, lying, pilfering disposition.
The objects with which men in the different professions and states of
life are conversant, being very different, and habituating them to very
different passions, naturally form in them very different characters and
manners. We expect in each rank and procession, a degree of those
manners, which, experience has taught us, belong to it. But as in each
species of things, we are particularly pleased with the middle
conformation, which in every part and feature agrees most exactly with
the general standard which nature seems to have established for things
of that kind; so in each rank, or, if I may say so, in each species of
men, we are particularly pleased, if they have neither too much, nor too
little of the character which usually accompanies their particular
condition and situation. A man, we say, should look like his trade and
profession; yet the pedantry of every profession is disagreeable. The
different periods of life have, for the same reason, different manners
assigned to them. We expect in old age, that gravity and sedateness
which its infirmities, its long experience, and its worn-out sensibility
seem to render both natural and respectable; and we lay our account to
find in youth that sensibility, that gaiety and sprightly vivacity which
experience teaches us to expect from the lively impressions that all
interesting objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpractised
senses of that early period of life. Each of those two ages, however,
may easily have too much of these peculiarities which belong to it. The
flirting levity of youth, and the immoveable insensibility of old age,
are equally disagreeable. The young, according to the common saying, are
most agreeable when in their behaviour there is something of the manners
of the old, and the old, when they retain something of the gaiety of the
young. Either of them, however, may easily have too much of the manners
of the other. The extreme coldness, and dull formality, which are
pardoned in old age, make youth ridiculous. The levity, the
carelessness, and the vanity, which are indulged in youth, render old
age contemptible.
The peculiar character and manners which we are led by custom to
appropriate to each rank and profession, have sometimes perhaps a
propriety independent of custom; and are what we should approve of for
their own sakes, if we took into consideration all the different
circumstances which naturally affect those in each different state of
life. The propriety of a person’s behaviour, depends not upon its
suitableness to any one circumstance of his situation, but to all the
circumstances, which, when we bring his case home to ourselves we feel,
should naturally call upon his attention. If he appears to be so much
occupied by any one of them, as entirely to neglect the rest, we
disapprove of his conduct, as something which we cannot entirely go
along with, because not properly adjusted to all the circumstances of
his situation: yet, perhaps, the emotion he expresses for the object
which principally interests him, does not exceed what we should entirely
sympathize with, and approve of, in one whose attention was not required
by any other thing. A parent in private life might, upon the loss of an
only son, express without blame, a degree of grief and tenderness, which
would be unpardonable in a general at the head of an army, when glory,
and the public safety demanded so great a part of his attention. As
different objects ought, upon common occasions, to occupy the attention
of men of different professions, so different passions ought, naturally
to become habitual to them; and when we bring home to ourselves their
situation in this particular respect, we must be sensible, that every
occurrence should naturally affect them more or less, according as the
emotion which it excites, coincides or disagrees with the fixt habit and
temper of their minds. We cannot expect the same sensibility to the gay
pleasures and amusements of life in a clergyman which we lay our account
with in an officer. The man whose peculiar occupation it is to keep the
world in mind of that awful futurity which awaits them, who is to
announce what may be the fatal consequences of every deviation from the
rules of duty, and who is himself to set the example of the most exact
conformity, seems to be the messenger of tidings, which cannot, in
propriety, be delivered either with levity or indifference. His mind is
supposed to be continually occupied with what is too grand and solemn,
to leave any room for the impressions of those frivolous objects, which
fill up the attention of the dissipated and the gay. We readily feel
therefore, that, independent of custom, there is a propriety in the
manners which custom has allotted to this profession; and that nothing
can be more suitable to the character of a clergyman, than that grave,
that austere and abstracted severity, which we are habituated to expect
in his behaviour. These reflections are so very obvious, that there is
scarce any man so inconsiderate, as not, at some time, to have made
them, and to have accounted to himself in this manner for his
approbation of the usual character of this order.
The foundation of the customary character of some other professions is
not so obvious, and our approbation of it is founded entirely in habit,
without being either confirmed, or enlivened by any reflections of this
kind. We are led by custom, for example, to annex the character of
gaiety, levity, and sprightly freedom, as well as of some degree of
dissipation, to the military profession: yet, if we were to consider
what mood or tone of temper would be most suitable to this situation, we
should be apt to determine, perhaps, that the most serious and
thoughtful turn of mind, would best become those whose lives are
continually exposed to uncommon danger; and who should therefore be more
constantly occupied with the thoughts of death and its consequences than
other men. It is this very circumstance, however, which is not
improbably the occasion why the contrary turn of mind prevails so much
among men of this profession. It requires so great an effort to conquer
the fear of death, when we survey it with steadiness and attention, that
those who are constantly exposed to it, find it easier to turn away
their thoughts from it altogether, to wrap themselves up in careless
security and indifference, and to plunge themselves, for this purpose,
into every sort of amusement and dissipation. A camp is not the element
of a thoughtful or a melancholy man: persons of that cast, indeed, are
often abundantly determined, and are capable, by a great effort, of
going on with inflexible resolution to the most unavoidable death. But
to be exposed to continual, though less imminent danger, to be obliged
to exert, for a long time, a degree of this effort, exhausts and
depresses the mind, and renders it incapable of all happiness and
enjoyment. The gay and careless, who have occasion to make no effort at
all, who fairly resolve never to look before them, but to lose in
continual pleasures and amusements, all anxiety about their situation,
more easily support such circumstances. Whenever, by any peculiar
circumstances, an officer has no reason to lay his account with being
exposed to any uncommon danger, he is very apt to lose the gaiety and
dissipated thoughtlessness of his character. The captain of a city guard
is commonly as sober, careful, and penurious an animal as the rest of
his fellow-citizens. A long peace is, for the same reason, very apt to
diminish the difference between the civil and the military character.
The ordinary situation, however, of men of this profession, renders
gaiety, and a degree of dissipation, so much their usual character; and
custom has, in our imagination, so strongly connected this character
with this state of life, that we are very apt to despise any man, whose
peculiar humour or situation, renders him incapable of acquiring it. We
laugh at the grave and careful faces of a city guard, which, so little
resemble those of their profession. They themselves seem often to be
ashamed of the regularity of their own manners, and, not to be out of
the fashion of their trade, are fond of affecting that levity, which is
by no means natural to them. Whatever is the deportment which we have
been accustomed to see in a respectable order of men, it comes to be so
associated in our imagination with that order, that whenever we see the
one, we lay our account that we are to meet with the other, and when
disappointed, miss something which we expected to find. We are
embarrassed, and put to a stand, and know not how to address ourselves
to a character, which plainly affects to be of a different species from
those with which we should have been disposed to class it.
The different situations of different ages and countries, are apt, in
the same manner, to give different characters to the generality of those
who live in them, and their sentiments concerning the particular degree
of each quality, that is either blameable, or praise-worthy, vary
according to that degree, which is usual in their own country, and in
their own times. That degree of politeness, which would be highly
esteemed, perhaps, would be thought effeminate adulation, in Russia,
would be regarded as rudeness and barbarism at the court of France. That
degree of order and frugality, which, in a Polish nobleman, would be
considered as excessive parsimony, would be regarded as extravagance in
a citizen of Amsterdam. Every age and country look upon that degree of
each quality, which is commonly to be met with in those who are esteemed
among themselves, as the golden mean of that particular talent or
virtue. And as this varies, according as their different circumstances
render different qualities more or less habitual to them, their
sentiments concerning the exact propriety of character and behaviour
vary accordingly.
Among civilized nations, the virtues which are founded upon humanity,
are more cultivated than those which are founded upon self-denial and
the command of the passions. Among rude and barbarous nations, it is
quite otherwise, the virtues of self-denial are more cultivated than
those of humanity. The general security and happiness which prevail in
ages of civility and politeness afford little exercise to the contempt
of danger, to patience in enduring labour, hunger, and pain. Poverty may
easily be avoided, and the contempt of it therefore, almost ceases to be
a virtue. The abstinence from pleasure, becomes less necessary, and the
mind is more at liberty to unbend itself, and to indulge its natural
inclinations in all those particular respects.
Among savages and barbarians it is quite otherwise. Every savage
undergoes a sort of Spartan discipline, and by the necessity of his
situation is inured to every sort of hardship. He is in continual
danger: He is often exposed to the greatest extremities of hunger, and
frequently dies of pure want. His circumstances not only habituate him
to every sort of distress, but teach him to give way to none of the
passions which that distress is apt to excite. He can expect from his
countrymen no sympathy or indulgence for such weakness. Before we can
feel much for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If
our own misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend to
that of our neighbour: And all savages are too much occupied with their
own wants and necessities, to give much attention to those of another
person. A savage, therefore, whatever be the nature of his distress,
expects no sympathy from those about him, and disdains, upon that
account, to expose himself, by allowing the least weakness to escape
him. His passions, how furious and violent soever, are never permitted
to disturb the serenity of his countenance or the composure of his
conduct and behaviour. The savages in North America, we are told, assume
upon all occasions the greatest indifference, and would think themselves
degraded if they should ever appear in any respect to be overcome,
either by love, or grief, or resentment. Their magnanimity and
self-command, in this respect, are almost beyond the conception of
Europeans. In a country in which all men are upon a level, with regard
to rank and fortune, it might be expected that the mutual inclinations
of the two parties should be the only thing considered in marriages, and
should be indulged without any sort of controul. This, however, is the
country in which all marriages, without exception, are made up by the
parents, and in which a young man would think himself disgraced for
ever, if he shewed the least preference of one woman above another, or
did not express the most complete indifference, both about the time
when, and the person to whom he was to be married. The weakness of love,
which is so much indulged in ages of humanity and politeness, is
regarded among savages as the most unpardonable effeminacy. Even after
the marriage the two parties seem to be ashamed of a connexion which is
founded upon so sordid a necessity. They do not live together. They see
one another by stealth only. They both continue to dwell in the houses
of their respective fathers, and the open cohabitation of the two sexes,
which is permitted without blame in all other countries, is here
considered as the most indecent and unmanly sensuality. Nor is it only
over this agreeable passion that they exert this absolute self-command.
They often bear in the sight of all their countrymen with injuries,
reproach, and the grossest insults with the appearance of the greatest
insensibility, and without expressing the smallest resentment. When a
savage is made prisoner of war, and receives, as is usual, the sentence
of death from his conquerors, he hears it without expressing any
emotion, and afterwards submits to the most dreadful torments, without
ever bemoaning himself, or discovering any other passion but contempt of
his enemies. While he is hung by the shoulders over a slow fire, he
derides his tormentors, and tells them with how much more ingenuity, he
himself had tormented such of their countrymen as had fallen into his
hands. After he has been scorched and burnt, and lacerated in all the
most tender and sensible parts of his body for several hours together,
he is often allowed, in order to prolong his misery, a short respite,
and is taken down from the stake: he employs this interval in talking
upon all indifferent subjects, inquires after the news of the country,
and seems indifferent about nothing but his own situation. The
spectators express the same insensibility; the sight of so horrible an
object seems to make no impression upon them; they scarce look at the
prisoner, except when they lend a hand to torment him. At other times
they smoke tobacco, and amuse themselves with any common object, as if
no such matter was going on. Every savage is said to prepare himself
from his earliest youth for this dreadful end. He composes, for this
purpose, what they call the song of death, a song which he is to sing
when he has fallen into the hands of his enemies, and is expiring under
the tortures which they inflict upon him. It consists of insults upon
his tormentors, and expresses the highest contempt of death and pain. He
sings this song upon all extraordinary occasions, when he goes out to
war, when he meets his enemies in the field, or whenever he has a mind
to show that he has familiarised his imagination to the most dreadful
misfortunes, and that no human event can daunt his resolution, or alter
his purpose. The same contempt of death and torture prevails among all
other savage nations. There is not a negro from the coast of Africa who
does not, in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which the
soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving.
Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind, than when
she subjected those nations of heroes to the refuse of the jails of
Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries
which they come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity,
brutality, and baseness, so justly expose them to the contempt of the
vanquished.
This heroic and unconquerable firmness, which the custom and education
of his country demand of every savage, is not required of those who are
brought up to live in civilized societies. If these last complain when
they are in pain, if they grieve when they are in distress, if they
allow themselves either to be overcome by love, or to be discomposed by
anger, they are easily pardoned. Such weaknesses are not apprehended to
affect the essential parts of their character. As long as they do not
allow themselves to be transported to do any thing contrary to justice
or humanity, they lose but little reputation, though the serenity of
their countenance or the composure of their discourse and behaviour
should be somewhat ruffled and disturbed. A humane and polished people,
who have more sensibility to the passions of others, can more readily
enter into an animated and passionate behaviour, and can more easily
pardon some little excess. The person principally concerned is sensible
of this; and being assured of the equity of his judges, indulges himself
in stronger expressions of passion, and is less afraid of exposing
himself to their contempt by the violence of his emotions. We can
venture to express more emotion in the presence of a friend than in that
of a stranger, because we expect more indulgence from the one than from
the other. And in the same manner the rules of decorum among civilized
nations, admit of a more animated behaviour, than is approved of among
barbarians. The first converse together with the openness of friends;
the second with the reserve of strangers. The emotion and vivacity with
which the French and the Italians, the two most polished nations upon
the continent, express themselves on occasions that are at all
interesting, surprise at first those strangers who happen to be
travelling among them, and who, having been educated among a people of
duller sensibility, cannot enter into this passionate behaviour, of
which they have never seen any example in their own country. A young
French nobleman will weep in the presence of the whole court upon being
refused a regiment. An Italian, says the abbot Dû Bos, expresses more
emotion on being condemned in a fine of twenty shillings, than an
Englishman on receiving the sentence of death. Cicero, in the times of
the highest Roman politeness, could, without degrading himself, weep
with all the bitterness of sorrow in the sight of the whole senate and
the whole people; as it is evident he must have done in the end of
almost every oration. The orators of the earlier and ruder ages of Rome
could not probably, consistent with the manners of the times, have
expressed themselves with so much emotion. It would have been regarded,
I suppose, as a violation of nature and propriety in the Scipios, in the
Leliuses, and in the elder Cato, to have exposed so much tenderness to
the view of the public. Those ancient warriors could express themselves,
with order, gravity, and good judgment; but are said to have been
strangers to that sublime and passionate eloquence which was first
introduced into Rome, not many years before the birth of Cicero, by the
two Gracchi, by Crassus, and by Sulpitius. This animated eloquence,
which has been long practiced, with or without success, both in France
and Italy, is but just beginning to be introduced into England. So wide
is the difference between the degrees of self-command which are required
in civilized and in barbarous nations, and by such different standards
do they judge of the propriety of behaviour.
This difference gives occasion to many others that are not less
essential. A polished people being accustomed to give way, in some
measure, to the movements of nature, become frank, open, and sincere.
Barbarians, on the contrary, being obliged to smother and conceal the
appearance of every passion, necessarily acquire the habits of falsehood
and dissimulation. It is observed by all those who have been conversant
with savage nations, whether in Asia, Africa, or America, that they are
all equally impenetrable, and that, when they have a mind to conceal the
truth, no examination is capable of drawing it from them. They cannot be
trepanned by the most artful questions. The torture itself is incapable
of making them confess any thing which they have no mind to tell. The
passions of a savage too, though they never express themselves by any
outward emotion, but lie concealed in the breast of the sufferer, are,
notwithstanding, all mounted to the highest pitch of fury. Though he
seldom shows any symptoms of anger, yet his vengeance, when he comes to
give way to it, is always sanguinary and dreadful. The least affront
drives him to despair. His countenance and discourse indeed are still
sober and composed, and express nothing but the most perfect
tranquillity of mind: But his actions are often the most furious and
violent. Among the North-Americans it is not uncommon for persons of the
tenderest age and more fearful sex to drown themselves upon receiving
only a slight reprimand from their mothers, and this too without
expressing any passions or saying any thing, except, _you shall no
longer have a daughter_. In civilized nations the passions of men are
not commonly so furious or so desperate. They are often clamorous and
noisy, but are seldom very hurtful; and seem frequently to aim at no
other satisfaction, but that of convincing the spectator, that they are
in the right to be so much moved, and of procuring his sympathy and
approbation.
All these effects of custom and fashion, however, upon the moral
sentiments of mankind, are inconsiderable in comparison of those which
they give occasion to in some other cases; and it is not concerning the
general style of character and behaviour, that those principles produce
the greatest perversion of judgment, but concerning the propriety or
impropriety of particular usages.
The different manners which custom teaches us to approve of in the
different professions and states of life, do not concern things of the
greatest importance. We expect truth and justice from an old man as well
as from a young, from a clergyman as well as from an officer; and it is
in matters of small moment only that we look for the distinguishing
marks of their respective characters. With regard to these too, there is
often some unobserved circumstance which, if it was attended to, would
show us, that, independent of custom, there was a propriety in the
character which custom had taught us to allot to each profession. We
cannot complain, therefore, in this case, that the perversion of natural
sentiment is very great. Though the manners of different nations require
different degrees of the same quality, in the character which they think
worthy of esteem, yet the worst that can be said to happen even here, is
that the duties of one virtue are sometimes extended so as to encroach a
little upon the precincts of some other. The rustic hospitality that is
in fashion among the Poles encroaches, perhaps, a little upon œconomy
and good order; and the frugality that is esteemed in Holland, upon
generosity and good-fellowship. The hardiness demanded of savages
diminishes their humanity; and, perhaps, the delicate sensibility
required in civilized nations sometimes destroys the masculine firmness
of the character. In general, the style of manners which takes place in
any nation, may commonly upon the whole be said to be that which is most
suitable to its situation. Hardiness is the character most suitable to
the circumstances of a savage; sensibility to those of one who lives in
a very civilized society. Even here, therefore, we cannot complain that
the moral sentiments of men are very grossly perverted.
It is not therefore in the general style of conduct or behaviour that
custom authorizes the widest departure from what is the natural
propriety of action. With regard to particular usages its influence is
often much more destructive of good morals, and it is capable of
establishing, as lawful and blameless, particular actions, which shock
the plainest principles of right and wrong.
Can there be greater barbarity, for example, than to hurt an infant? Its
helplessness, its innocence, its amiableness, call forth the compassion
even of an enemy, and not to spare that tender age is regarded as the
most furious effort of an enraged and cruel conqueror. What then should
we imagine must be the heart of a parent who could injure that weakness
which even a furious enemy is afraid to violate? Yet the exposition,
that is, the murder of newborn infants, was a practice allowed of in
almost all the states of Greece, even among the polite and civilized
Athenians; and whenever the circumstances of the parent rendered it
inconvenient to bring up the child, to abandon it to hunger, or to wild
beasts, was regarded without blame or censure. This practice had
probably begun in times of the most savage barbarity. The imaginations
of men had been first made familiar with it in that earliest period of
society, and the uniform continuance of the custom had hindered them
afterwards from perceiving its enormity. We find, at this day, that this
practice prevails among all savage nations; and in that rudest and
lowest state of society it is undoubtedly more pardonable than in any
other. The extreme indigence of a savage is often such that he himself
is frequently exposed to the greatest extremity of hunger, he often dies
of pure want, and it is frequently impossible for him to support both
himself and his child. We cannot wonder, therefore, that in this case he
should abandon it. One who in flying from an enemy, whom it was
impossible to resist, should throw down his infant, because it retarded
his flight, would surely be excusable; since, by attempting to save it,
he could only hope for the consolation of dying with it. That in this
state of society, therefore, a parent should be allowed to judge whether
he can bring up his child, ought not to surprise us so greatly. In the
latter ages of Greece, however, the same thing was permitted from views
of remote interest or conveniency, which could by no means excuse it.
Uninterrupted custom had by this time so thoroughly authorized the
practice, that not only the loose maxims of the world tolerated this
barbarous prerogative, but even the doctrine of philosophers, which
ought to have been more just and accurate, was led away by the
established custom, and upon this, as upon many other occasions, instead
of censuring, supported the horrible abuse, by far-fetched
considerations of public utility. Aristotle talks of it as of what the
magistrate ought upon many occasions to encourage. The humane Plato is
of the same opinion, and, with all that love of mankind which seems to
animate all his writings, no where marks this practice with
disapprobation. When custom can give sanction to so dreadful a violation
of humanity, we may well imagine that there is scarce any particular
practice so gross which it cannot authorize. Such a thing, we hear men
every day saying, is commonly done, and they seem to think this a
sufficient apology for what, in itself, is the most unjust and
unreasonable conduct.
There is an obvious reason why custom should never pervert our
sentiments with regard to the general style and character of conduct and
behaviour, in the same degree as with regard to the propriety or
unlawfulness of particular usages. There never can be any such custom.
No society could subsist a moment, in which the usual strain of mens
conduct and behaviour was of a piece with the horrible practice I just
now mentioned.
[Illustration]
PART VI.
Of Systems of MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
CONSISTING OF FOUR SECTIONS.
SECTION I.
Of the questions which ought to be examined in a theory of moral
sentiments.
If we examine the most celebrated and remarkable of the different
theories which have been given concerning the nature and origin of our
moral sentiments, we shall find that almost all of them coincide with
some part or other of that which I have been endeavouring to give an
account of; and that if every thing which has already been said be fully
considered, we shall be at no loss to explain what was the view or
aspect of nature which led each particular author to form his particular
system. From some one or other of those principles which I have been
endeavouring to unfold, every system of morality that ever had any
reputation in the world has, perhaps, ultimately been derived. As they
are all of them, in this respect, founded upon natural principles, they
are all of them in some measure in the right. But as many of them are
derived from a partial and imperfect view of nature, there are many of
them too in some respects in the wrong.
In treating of the principles of morals there are two questions to be
considered. First, wherein does virtue consist? Or what is the tone of
temper, and tenour of conduct, which constitutes the excellent and
praise-worthy character, the character which is the natural object of
esteem, honour, and approbation? and secondly, by what power or faculty
in the mind is it, that this character, whatever it be, is recommended
to us? Or in other words, how and by what means does it come to pass,
that the mind prefers one tenour of conduct to another, denominates the
one right and the other wrong; considers the one as the object of
approbation, honour, and reward, and the other of blame, censure, and
punishment?
We examine the first question when we consider whether virtue consists
in benevolence, as Dr. Hutcheson imagines; or in acting suitably to the
different relations we stand in, as Dr. Clarke supposes; or in the wise
and prudent pursuit of our own real and solid happiness, as has been the
opinion of others.
We examine the second question, when we consider, whether the virtuous
character, whatever it consists in, be recommended to us by self-love,
which makes us perceive that this character, both in ourselves and
others, tends most to promote our own private interest or by reason,
which points out to us the difference between one character and another,
in the same manner as it does that between truth and falsehood; or by a
peculiar power of perception, called a moral sense, which this virtuous
character gratifies and pleases, as the contrary disgusts and displeases
it; or last of all, by some other principle in human nature, such as a
modification of sympathy, or the like.
I shall begin with considering the systems which have been formed
concerning the first of these questions, and shall proceed afterwards to
examine those concerning the second.
[Illustration]
SECTION II.
Of the different accounts which have been given of the nature of virtue.
INTRODUCTION.
The different accounts which have been given of the nature of virtue, or
of the temper of mind which constitutes the excellent and praise-worthy
character, may be reduced to three different classes. According to some,
the virtuous temper of mind does not consist in any one species of
affections, but in the proper government and direction of all our
affections, which may be either virtuous or vicious according to the
objects which they pursue, and the degree of vehemence with which they
pursue them. According to these authors, therefore, virtue consists in
propriety.
According to others, virtue consists in the judicious pursuit of our own
private interest and happiness, or in the proper government and
direction of those selfish affections which aim solely at this end. In
the opinion of these authors, therefore, virtue consists in prudence.
Another set of authors make virtue consist in those affections only
which aim at the happiness of others, not in those which aim at our own.
According to them, therefore, disinterested benevolence is the only
motive which can stamp upon any action the character of virtue.
The character of virtue, it is evident, must either be ascribed
indifferently to all our affections, when under proper government and
direction; or it must be confined to some one class or division of them.
The great division of our affections is into the selfish and the
benevolent. If the character of virtue, therefore, cannot be ascribed
indifferently to all our affections, when under proper government and
direction, it must be confined either to those which aim directly at our
own private happiness, or to those which aim directly at that of others.
If virtue, therefore, does not consist in propriety, it must consist
either in prudence or in benevolence. Besides these three, it is scarce
possible to imagine that any other account can be given of the nature of
virtue. I shall endeavour to shew hereafter how all the other accounts,
which are seemingly different from any of these, coincide at bottom with
some one or other of them.
CHAP. I.
_Of those systems which make virtue consist in propriety._
According to Plato, to Aristotle, and to Zeno, virtue consists in the
propriety of conduct, or in the suitableness of the affection from which
we act to the object which excites it.
I. In the system of Plato[8] the soul is considered as something like a
little state or republic, composed of three different faculties or
orders.
Footnote 8:
See Plato de Rep. lib. iv.
The first is the judging faculty, the faculty which determines not only
what are the proper means for attaining any end, but also what ends are
fit to be pursued, and what degree of relative value we ought to put
upon each. This faculty Plato called, as it is very properly called
reason, and considered it as what had a right to be the governing
principle of the whole. Under this appellation, it is evident, he
comprehended not only that faculty by which we judge of truth and
falsehood, but that by which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of
desires and affections.
The different passions and appetites, the natural subject of this ruling
principle, but which are so apt to rebel against their master, he
reduced to two different classes or orders. The first consisted of those
passions, which are founded in pride and resentment, or in what the
schoolmen called the irascible part of the soul; ambition, animosity,
the love of honour, and the dread of shame, the desire of victory,
superiority, and revenge; all those passions, in short, which are
supposed either to rise from, or to denote what, by a metaphor in our
language, we commonly call spirit or natural fire. The second consisted
of those passions which are founded in the love of pleasure, or in what
the schoolmen called the concupiscible part of the soul. It comprehended
all the appetites of the body, the love of ease and security, and of all
sensual gratifications.
It rarely happens that we break in upon that plan of conduct, which the
governing principle prescribes, and which in all our cool hours we had
laid down to ourselves as what was most proper for us to pursue, but
when prompted by one or other of those two different sets of passions;
either by ungovernable ambition and resentment, or by the importunate
solicitations of present ease and pleasure. But though these two orders
of passions are so apt to mislead us, they are still considered as
necessary parts of human nature: the first having been given to defend
us against injuries, to assert our rank and dignity in the world, to
make us aim at what is noble and honourable, and to make us distinguish
those who act in the same manner; the second to provide for the support
and necessities of the body.
In the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the governing principle
was placed the essential virtue of prudence, which, according to Plato,
consisted in a just and clear discernment, founded upon general and
scientific ideas, of the ends which were proper to be pursued, and of
the means which were proper for attaining them.
When the first set of passions, those of the irascible part of the soul,
had that degree of strength and firmness, which enabled them, under the
direction of reason, to despise all dangers in the pursuit of what was
honourable and noble; it constituted the virtue of fortitude and
magnanimity. This order of passions, according to this system, was of a
more generous and noble nature than the other. They were considered upon
many occasions as the auxiliaries of reason, to check and restrain the
inferior and brutal appetites. We are often angry at ourselves, it was
observed, we often become the objects of our own resentment and
indignation, when the love of pleasure prompts to do what we disapprove
of; and the irascible part of our nature is in this manner called in to
assist the rational against the concupiscible.
When all those three different parts of our nature were in perfect
concord with one another, when neither the irascible nor concupiscible
passions ever aimed at any gratification which reason did not approve
of, and when reason never commanded any thing, but what these of their
own accord were willing to perform; this happy composure, this perfect
and complete harmony of soul, constituted that virtue which in their
language is expressed by a word which we commonly translate temperance,
but which might more properly be translated good temper, or sobriety and
moderation of mind.
Justice, the last and greatest of the four cardinal virtues, took place,
according to this system, when each of those three faculties of the mind
confined itself to its proper office, without attempting to encroach
upon that of any other; when reason directed and passion obeyed, and
when each passion performed its proper duty, and exerted itself towards
its proper object easily and without reluctance, and with that degree of
force and energy, which was suitable to the value of what it pursued. In
this consisted that complete virtue, that perfect propriety of conduct,
which Plato, after some of the ancient Pythagoreans, denominated
Justice.
The word, it is to be observed, which expresses justice in the Greek
language, has several different meanings; and as the correspondent word
in all other languages, so far as I know, has the same, there must be
some natural affinity among those various significations. In one sense
we are said to do justice to our neighbour when we abstain from doing
him any positive harm, and do not directly hurt him, either in his
person, or in his estate, or in his reputation. This is that justice
which I have treated of above, the observance of which may be extorted
by force, and the violation of which exposes to punishment. In another
sense we are said not to do justice to our neighbour unless we conceive
for him all that love, respect and esteem, which his character, his
situation, and his connexion with ourselves, render suitable and proper
for us to feel, and unless we act accordingly. It is in this sense that
we are said to do injustice to a man of merit who is connected with us,
tho’ we abstain from hurting him in every respect, if we do not exert
ourselves to serve him and to place him in that situation in which the
impartial spectator would be pleased to see him. The first sense of the
word coincides with what Aristotle and the Schoolmen call commutative
justice, and with what Grotius calls the _justitia expletrix_, which
consists in abstaining from what is another’s, and in doing voluntarily
whatever we can with propriety be forced to do. The second sense of the
word coincides with what some have called distributive justice[9], and
with the _justitia attributrix_ of Grotius, which consists in proper
beneficence, in the becoming use of what is our own, and in the applying
it to those purposes either of charity or generosity, to which it is
most suitable, in our situation, that it should be applied. In this
sense justice comprehends all the social virtues. There is yet another
sense in which the word justice is sometimes taken, still more extensive
than either of the former, though very much akin to the last; and which
runs too, so far as I know, through all languages. It is in this last
sense that we are said to be unjust, when we do not seem to value any
particular object with that degree of esteem, or to pursue it with that
degree of ardour which to the impartial spectator it may appear to
deserve or to be naturally fitted for exciting. Thus we are said to do
injustice to a poem or a picture, when we do not admire them enough, and
we are said to do them more than justice when we admire them too much.
In the same manner we are said to do injustice to ourselves when we
appear not to give sufficient attention to any particular object of
self-interest. In this last sense, what is called justice means the same
thing with exact and perfect propriety of conduct and behaviour, and
comprehends in it, not only the offices of both commutative and
distributive justice, but of every other virtue, of prudence, of
fortitude, of temperance. It is in this last sense that Plato evidently
understands what he calls justice, and which, therefore, according to
him, comprehends in it the perfection of every sort of virtue.
Footnote 9:
The distributive justice of Aristotle is somewhat different. It
consists in the proper distribution of rewards from the public stock
of a community. See Aristotle Ethic. Nic. l. 5. c. 2.
Such is the account given by Plato of the nature of virtue, or of that
temper of mind which is the proper object of praise and approbation. It
consists, according to him, in that state of mind in which every faculty
confines itself within its proper sphere without encroaching upon that
of any other, and performs its proper office with that precise degree of
strength and vigour which belongs to it. His account, it is evident,
coincides in every respect with what we have said above concerning the
propriety of conduct.
II. Virtue, according to Aristotle[10], consists in the habit of
mediocrity according to right reason. Every particular virtue, according
to him, lies in a kind of middle between two opposite vices, of which
the one offends from being too much, the other from being too little
affected by a particular species of objects. Thus the virtue of
fortitude or courage lies in the middle between the opposite vices of
cowardice and of presumptuous rashness, of which the one offends from
being too much, and the other from being too little affected by the
objects of fear. Thus too the virtue of frugality lies in a middle
between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an excess,
the other in a defect of the proper attention to the objects of self
interest. Magnanimity, in the same manner, lies in a middle between the
excess of arrogance and the defect of pusillanimity, of which the one
consists in too extravagant, the other in too weak a sentiment of our
own worth and dignity. It is unnecessary to observe that this account of
virtue corresponds too pretty exactly with what has been said above
concerning the propriety and impropriety of conduct.
Footnote 10:
See Aristotle Ethic. Nic. l. 2. c. 5. et seq. et l. 3. c. 5. et seq.
According to Aristotle[11], indeed, virtue did not so much consist in
those moderate and right affections, as in the habit of this moderation.
In order to understand this, it is to be observed, that virtue may be
considered either as the quality of an action, or as the quality of a
person. Considered as the quality of an action, it consists, even
according to Aristotle, in the reasonable moderation of the affection
from which the action proceeds, whether this disposition be habitual to
the person or not. Considered as the quality of a person, it consists in
the habit of this reasonable moderation, in its having become the
customary and usual disposition of the mind. Thus the action which
proceeds from an occasional fit of generosity is undoubtedly a generous
action, but the man who performs it, is not necessarily a generous
person, because it may be the single action of the kind which he ever
performed. The motive and disposition of heart, from which this action
was performed, may have been quite just and proper: but as this happy
mood seems to have been the effect rather of accidental humour than of
any thing steady or permanent in the character, it can reflect no great
honour on the performer. When we denominate a character generous or
charitable, or virtuous in any respect, we mean to signify that the
disposition expressed by each of those appellations is the usual and
customary disposition of the person. But single actions of any kind, how
proper and suitable soever, are of little consequence to show that this
is the case. If a single action was sufficient to stamp the character of
any virtue upon the person who performed it, the most worthless of
mankind might lay claim to all the virtues; since there is no man who
has not, upon some occasions, acted with prudence, justice, temperance,
and fortitude. But though single actions, how laudable soever, reflect
very little praise upon the person who performs them, a single vicious
action performed by one whose conduct is usually very regular, greatly
diminishes and sometimes destroys altogether our opinion of his virtue.
A single action of this kind sufficiently shows that his habits are not
perfect, and that he is less to be depended upon, than, from the usual
train of his behaviour, we might have been apt to imagine.
Footnote 11:
See Aristotle Ethic. Nic. lib. ii. ch. 1., 2., 3. and 4.
Aristotle too[12], when he made virtue to consist in practical habits,
had it probably in his view to oppose the doctrine of Plato, who seems
to have been of opinion that just sentiments and reasonable judgments
concerning what was fit to be done or to be avoided, were alone
sufficient to constitute the most perfect virtue. Virtue, according to
Plato, might be considered as a species of science, and no man, he
thought, could see clearly and demonstratively what was right and what
was wrong, and not act accordingly. Passion might make us act contrary
to doubtful and uncertain opinions, not to plain and evident judgments.
Aristotle, on the contrary, was of opinion, that no conviction of the
understanding was capable of getting the better of inveterate habits,
and that good morals arose not from knowledge but from action.
Footnote 12:
See Aristotle Mag. Mor. lib. i. ch. 1.
III. According to Zeno[13], the founder of the stoical doctrine, every
animal was by nature recommended to its own care, and was endowed with
the principle of self-love, that it might endeavour to preserve, not
only its existence, but all the different parts of its nature, in the
best and most perfect state of which they were capable.
Footnote 13:
See Cicero de finibus, lib. iii. also Diogenes Laertius in Zenone,
lib. vii. segment 84.
The self-love of man embraced, if I may say so, his body and all its
different members, his mind and all its different faculties and powers,
and desired the preservation and maintenance of them all in their best
and most perfect condition. Whatever tended to support this state of
existence was, therefore, by nature pointed out to him as fit to be
chosen; and whatever tended to destroy it, as fit to be rejected. Thus
health, strength, agility, and ease of body, as well as the external
conveniencies which could promote these, wealth, power, honours, the
respect and esteem of those we live with, were naturally pointed out to
us as things eligible, and of which the possession was preferable to the
contrary. On the other hand, sickness, infirmity, unwieldiness, pain of
body, as well as all the external inconveniencies which tended to
occasion or bring on any of them, poverty, the want of authority, the
contempt or hatred of those we live with; were, in the same manner,
pointed out to us as things to be shunned and avoided. In each of those
two different classes of objects there were some which appeared to be
more the objects either of choice or rejection than others in the same
class. Thus, in the first class, health appeared evidently preferable to
strength, and strength to agility; reputation to power, and power to
riches. And thus too, in the second class, sickness was more to be
avoided than unwieldiness of body, ignominy than poverty, and poverty
than the want of authority. Virtue and the propriety of conduct
consisted in choosing and rejecting all different objects and
circumstances according as they were by nature rendered more or less the
objects of choice or rejection; in selecting always from among the
several objects of choice presented to us, that which was most to be
chosen, when we could not obtain them all: and in selecting too out of
the several objects of rejection offered to us, that which was least to
be avoided, when it was not in our power to avoid them all. By choosing
and rejecting with this just and accurate discernment, by thus bestowing
upon every object the precise degree of attention it deserved, according
to the place which it held in this natural scale of things, we
maintained, according to the Stoics, that perfect rectitude of conduct
which constituted the essence of virtue. This was what they called to
live consistently, to live according to nature, and to obey those laws
and directions which nature, or the Author of nature, had prescribed for
our conduct.
So far the Stoical idea of propriety and virtue is not very different
from that of Aristotle and the ancient peripatetics. What chiefly
distinguished those two systems from one another was the different
degrees of self-command which they required. The peripatetics allowed of
some degree of perturbation as suitable to the weakness of human nature,
and as useful to so imperfect a creature as man. If his own misfortunes
excited no passionate grief, if his own injuries called forth no lively
resentment, reason, or a regard to the general rules which determined
what was right and fit to be done, would commonly, they thought, be too
weak to prompt him to avoid the one or to beat off the other. The
Stoics, on the contrary, demanded the most perfect apathy, and regarded
every emotion which could in the smallest degree disturb the
tranquillity of the mind, as the effect of levity and folly. The
Peripatetics seem to have thought that no passion exceeded the bounds of
propriety as long as the spectator, by the utmost effort of humanity,
could sympathize with it. The Stoics, on the contrary, appear to have
regarded every passion as improper, which made any demand upon the
sympathy of the spectator, or required him to alter in any respect the
natural and ordinary state of his mind, in order to keep time with the
vehemence of its emotions. A man of virtue, they seem to have thought,
ought not to depend upon the generosity of those he lives with for
pardon or approbation.
According to the Stoics, every event should, to a wise man, appear
indifferent, and what for its own sake could be the object neither of
desire, nor aversion, neither of joy, nor sorrow. If he preferred some
events to others, if some situations were the objects of his choice, and
others of his rejection,[14] it was not, because he regarded the one as,
in themselves, in any respect better than the other, or thought that his
own happiness would be more complete in, what is called, the fortunate,
than in what is commonly regarded as the distressful situation; but
because the propriety of action, the rule which the gods had given him
for the direction of his conduct, required him to choose and reject in
this manner. Among the primary objects of natural inclination, or among
those things which nature had originally recommended to us as eligible,
was the prosperity, of our family, of our relations, of our friends, of
our country, of mankind, and of the universe in general. Nature too had
taught us that as the prosperity of two was preferable to that of one,
that of many or of all must be infinitely more so. That we ourselves
were but one, and that consequently wherever our prosperity was
inconsistent with that, either of the whole, or of any considerable part
of the whole, it ought, even in our own choice, to yield to what was so
vastly preferable. As all the events in this world were conducted by the
providence of a wise, powerful and good God, we might be assured that
whatever happened, tended to the prosperity and perfection of the whole,
if we ourselves, therefore, were in poverty, in sickness, or in any
other calamity, we ought, first of all, to use our utmost endeavours, so
far as justice and our duty to others would allow, to rescue ourselves
from this disagreeable circumstance. But if after all we could do, we
found this impossible, we ought to rest satisfied that the order and
perfection of the universe required that we should in the mean time
continue in this situation. And as the prosperity of the whole should,
even to us, appear preferable to so insignificant a part as ourselves,
our situation, whatever it was, ought from that moment to become the
object of our choice, and even of our desire, if we would maintain that
complete propriety and rectitude of sentiment and conduct in which the
perfection of our nature consists. If, indeed, any opportunity of
extricating ourselves should offer, it became our duty to embrace it.
The order of the universe, it was evident, no longer required our
continuance in this situation, and the great director of the world
plainly called upon us to leave it, by so clearly pointing out the road
which we were to follow. It was the same case with the adversity of our
relations, our friends, our country. If without violating any more
sacred obligation, it was in our power to prevent or to put an end to
their calamity, it undoubtedly was our duty to do so. The propriety of
action, the rule which Jupiter had given us for the direction of our
conduct, evidently required this of us. But if it was altogether out of
our power to do either, we ought then to consider this event as the most
fortunate which could possibly have happened: Because we might be
assured that it tended most to the prosperity and order of the whole:
which was what we ourselves, if we were wise and equitable, ought most
of all to desire. “In what sense, says Epictetus, are some things said
to be according to our nature, and others contrary to it? It is in that
sense in which we consider ourselves as separated and detached from all
other things. For thus it may be said to be according to the nature of
the foot to be always clean. But if you consider it as a foot, and not
as something detached from the rest of the body, it must behove it
sometimes to trample in the dirt, and sometimes to tread upon thorns,
and sometimes too to be cut off for the sake of the whole body; and if
it refuses this, it is no longer a foot. Thus too ought we to conceive
with regard to ourselves. What are you? A man. If you consider yourself
as something separated and detached, it is agreeable to your nature to
live to old age, to be rich, to be in health. But if you consider
yourself as a man, and as a part of a whole, upon account of that whole
it will behoove you sometimes to be in sickness, sometimes to be exposed
to the inconveniency of a sea voyage, sometimes to be in want; and at
last, perhaps, to die before your time. Why then do you complain? Don’t
you know that by doing so, as the foot ceases to be a foot, so you cease
to be a man?”[15]
Footnote 14:
Some of these expressions sound a little awkward in the English
language: they are literal translations of the technical terms of the
Stoics.
Footnote 15:
Arrian. lib. II. c. 5.
This submission to the order of the universe, this entire indifference
with regard to whatever concerns ourselves, when put into the balance
with the interest of the whole, could derive its propriety, it is
evident, from no other principle besides that, upon which I have
endeavoured to show, the propriety of justice was founded. As long as we
view our own interests with our own eyes, it is scarce possible that we
should willingly acquiesce in their being thus sacrificed to the
interests of the whole. It is only when we view those opposite interests
with the eyes of others, that what concerns ourselves can appear to be
so contemptible in the comparison, as to be resigned without any
reluctance. To every body but the person principally concerned, nothing
can appear more agreeable to reason and propriety than that the part
should give place to the whole. But what is agreeable to the reason of
all other men, ought not to appear contrary to his. He himself therefore
ought to approve of this sacrifice, and acknowledge its conformity to
reason. But all the affections of a wise man, according to the stoics,
are perfectly agreeable to reason and propriety, and of their own accord
coincide with whatever these ruling principles prescribe. A wise man,
therefore, could never feel any reluctance to comply with this
disposition of things.
IV. Besides these ancient, there are some modern systems, according to
which virtue consists in propriety; or in the suitableness of the
affection from which we act, to the cause or object which excites it.
The system of Dr. Clarke, which places virtue in acting according to the
relations of things, in regulating our conduct according to the fitness
or incongruity which there may be in the application of certain actions
to certain things, or to certain relations: That of Mr. Woolaston, which
places it in acting according to the truth of things, according to their
proper nature and essence, or in treating them as what they really are,
and not as what they are not: that of my lord Shaftesbury, which places
it in maintaining a proper balance of the affections, and in allowing no
passion to go beyond its proper sphere; are all of them more or less
inaccurate descriptions of the same fundamental idea.
The description of virtue which is either given, or at least meant and
intended to be given in each of those systems, for some of the modern
authors are not very fortunate in their manner of expressing themselves,
is no doubt quite just, so far as it goes. There is no virtue without
propriety, and wherever there is propriety, some degree of approbation
is due. But still this description is imperfect. For though propriety is
an essential ingredient in every virtuous action, it is not always the
sole ingredient. Beneficent actions have in them another quality by
which they appear not only to deserve approbation but recompense. None
of those systems account either easily or sufficiently for that superior
degree of esteem which seems due to such actions, or for that diversity
of sentiment which they naturally excite. Neither is the description of
vice more complete. For in the same manner, though impropriety is a
necessary ingredient in every vicious action, it is not always the sole
ingredient, and there is often the highest degree of absurdity and
impropriety in very harmless and insignificant actions. Deliberate
actions, of a pernicious tendency to those we live with, have, besides
their impropriety, a peculiar quality of their own by which they appear
to deserve, not only disapprobation, but punishment; and to be the
objects, not of dislike merely, but of resentment and revenge: and none
of those systems easily and sufficiently account for that superior
degree of detestation which we feel for such actions.
CHAP. II.
_Of those systems which make virtue consist in prudence._
The most ancient of those systems which make virtue consist in prudence,
and of which any considerable remains have come down to us, is that of
Epicurus, who is said, however, to have borrowed all the leading
principles of his philosophy, from some of those who had gone before
him, particularly From Aristippus; though it is very probable,
notwithstanding this allegation of his enemies, that at least his manner
of applying those principles was altogether his own.
According to Epicurus,[16] bodily pleasure and pain were the sole
ultimate objects of natural desire and aversion. That they were always
the natural objects of those passions, he thought required no proof.
Pleasure might, indeed, appear sometimes to be avoided; not, however,
because it was pleasure, but because, by the enjoyment of it, we should
either forfeit some greater pleasure, or expose ourselves to some pain
that was more to be avoided than this pleasure was to be desired. Pain,
in the same manner, might appear sometimes to be eligible; not, however,
because it was pain, but because by enduring it we might either avoid a
still greater pain, or acquire some pleasure of much more importance.
That bodily pain and pleasure, therefore, were always the natural
objects of desire and aversion, was, he thought, abundantly evident. Nor
was it less so, he imagined, that they were the sole ultimate objects of
those passions. Whatever else was either desired or avoided was so,
according to him, upon account of its tendency to produce one or other
of those sensations. The tendency to procure pleasure rendered power and
riches desirable, as the contrary tendency to produce pain made poverty
and insignificancy the objects of aversion. Honour and reputation were
valued, because the esteem and love of those we live with were of the
greatest consequence both to procure pleasure and to defend us from
pain. Ignominy and bad fame, on the contrary, were to be avoided,
because the hatred, contempt, and resentment of those we lived with
destroyed all security, and necessarily exposed us to the greatest
bodily evils.
Footnote 16:
See Cicero de finibus, lib. i. Diogenes Laert. 1. x.
All the pleasures and pains of the mind were, according to Epicurus,
ultimately derived from those of the body. The mind was happy when it
thought of the past pleasures of the body, and hoped for others to come:
and it was miserable when it thought of the pains which the body had
formerly endured, and dreaded the same or greater thereafter.
But the pleasures and pains of the mind, though ultimately derived from
those of the body, were vastly greater than their originals. The body
felt only the sensation of the present instant, whereas the mind felt
also the past and the future, the one by remembrance, the other by
anticipation, and consequently both suffered and enjoyed much more. When
we are under the greatest bodily pain, he observed, we shall always
find, if we attend to it, that it is not the suffering of the present
instant which chiefly torments us, but either the agonizing remembrance
of the past, or the yet more horrible dread of the future. The pain of
each instant, considered by itself, and cut off from all that goes
before and all that comes after it, is a trifle not worth the regarding.
Yet this is all which the body can ever be said to suffer. In the same
manner, when we enjoy the greatest pleasure, we shall always find that
the bodily sensation, the sensation of the present instant makes but a
small part of our happiness, that our enjoyment chiefly arises either
from the chearful recollection of the past, or the still more joyous
anticipation of the future, and that the mind always contributes by much
the largest share of the entertainment.
Since our happiness and misery, therefore, depended chiefly on the mind,
if this part of our nature was well disposed, if our thoughts and
opinions were as they should be, it was of little importance in what
manner our body was affected. Though under great bodily pain, we might
still enjoy a considerable share of happiness, if our reason and
judgment maintained their superiority. We might entertain ourselves with
the remembrance of past, and with the hopes of future pleasure; we might
soften the rigour of our pains, by recollecting what it was which, even
in this situation, we were under any necessity of suffering. That this
was merely the bodily sensation, the pain of the present instant, which
by itself could never be very great. That whatever agony we suffered
from the dread of its continuance was the effect of an opinion of the
mind, which might be corrected by juster sentiments; by considering
that, if our pains were violent, they would probably be of short
duration; and that if they were of long continuance, they would probably
be moderate, and admit of many intervals of ease; and that, at any rate,
death was always at hand and within call to deliver us, which as,
according to him, it put an end to all sensation, either of pain or
pleasure, could not be regarded as an evil. When we are, said he, death
is not; and when death is, we are not; death therefore can be nothing to
us.
If the actual sensation of positive pain was in itself so little to be
feared, that of pleasure was still less to be desired. Naturally the
sensation of pleasure was much less pungent than that of pain. If,
therefore, this last could take so very little from the happiness of a
well-disposed mind, the other could add scarce any thing to it. When the
body was free from pain and the mind from fear and anxiety, the
superadded sensation of bodily pleasure could be of very little
importance; and though it might diversify, could not be properly be said
to increase the happiness of this situation.
In ease of body, therefore, and in security or tranquillity of mind,
consisted, according to Epicurus, the most perfect state of human
nature, the most complete happiness which man was capable of enjoying.
To obtain this great end of natural desire was the sole object of all
the virtues, which, according to him, were not desirable upon their own
account, but upon account of their tendency to bring about this
situation.
Prudence, for example, though according to this philosophy, the source
and principle of all the virtues, was not desirable upon its own
account. That careful and laborious and circumspect state of mind, ever
watchful and ever attentive to the most distant consequences of every
action, could not be a thing pleasant or agreeable for its own sake, but
upon account of its tendency to procure the greatest goods and to keep
off the greatest evils.
To abstain from pleasure too, to curb and restrain our natural passions
for enjoyment, which was the office of temperance, could never be
desirable for its own sake. The whole value of this virtue arose from
its utility, from its enabling us to postpone the present enjoyment for
the sake of a greater to come, or to avoid a greater pain that might
ensue from it. Temperance, in short, was nothing but prudence with
regard to pleasure.
To support labour, to endure pain, to be exposed to danger or to death,
the situations which fortitude would often lead us into, were surely
still less the objects of natural desire. They were chosen only to avoid
greater evils. We submitted to labour, in order to avoid the greater
shame and pain of poverty, and we exposed ourselves to danger and to
death in defence of our liberty and property, the means and instruments
of pleasure and happiness; or in defence of our country, in the safety
of which our own was necessarily comprehended. Fortitude enabled us to
do all this chearfully, as the best which, in our present situation,
could possibly be done, and was in reality no more than prudence, good
judgment, and presence of mind in properly appreciating pain, labour,
and danger, always choosing the less in order to avoid the greater.
It is the same case with justice. To abstain from what is anothers was
not desirable on its own account, and it could not surely be better for
you, that I should possess what is my own, than that you should possess
it. You ought however, to abstain from whatever belongs to me, because
by doing otherwise you will provoke the resentment and indignation of
mankind. The security and tranquillity of your mind will be entirely
destroyed. You will be filled with fear and consternation at the thought
of that punishment which you will imagine that men are at all times
ready to inflict upon you, and from which no power, no art, no
concealment, will ever, in your own fancy, be sufficient to protect you.
That other species of justice which consists in doing proper good
offices to different persons, according to the various relations of
neighbours, kinsmen, friends, benefactors, superiors, or equals, which
they may stand in to us, is recommended by the same reasons. To act
properly in all these different relations procures us the esteem and
love of those we live with; as to do otherwise excites their contempt
and hatred. By the one we naturally secure, by the other we necessarily
endanger our own ease and tranquillity, the great and ultimate objects
of all our desires. The whole virtue of justice, therefore, the most
important of all the virtues, is no more than discreet and prudent
conduct with regard to our neighbours.
Such is the doctrine of Epicurus concerning the nature of virtue. It may
seem extraordinary that this philosopher, who is described as a person
of the most amiable manners, should never have observed, that, whatever
may be the tendency of those virtues, or of the contrary vices, with
regard to our bodily ease and security, the sentiments which they
naturally excite in others are the objects of a much more passionate
desire or aversion than all their other consequences; That to be
amiable, to be respectable, to be the proper object of esteem, is by
every well-disposed mind more valued than all the ease and security
which love, respect, and esteem can procure us; That, on the contrary,
to be odious, to be contemptible, to be the proper object of
indignation, is more dreadful than all that we can suffer in our body
from hatred, contempt, or indignation; and that consequently our desire
of the one character, and our aversion to the other, cannot arise from
any regard to the effects which either of them is likely to produce upon
the body.
This system is, no doubt, altogether inconsistent with that which I have
been endeavouring to establish. It is not difficult, however, to
discover from what phasis, if I may say so, from what particular view or
aspect of nature, this account of things derives its probability. By the
wise contrivance of the Author of nature, virtue is upon all ordinary
occasions, even with regard to this life, real wisdom, and the surest
and readiest means of obtaining both safety and advantage. Our success
or disappointment in our undertakings must very much depend upon the
good or bad opinion which is commonly entertained of us, and upon the
general disposition of those we live with, either to assist or to oppose
us. But the best, the surest, the easiest, and the readiest way of
obtaining the advantageous and of avoiding the unfavourable judgments of
others, is undoubtedly to render ourselves the proper objects of the
former and not of the latter. “Do you desire, said Socrates, the
reputation of a good musician? The only sure way of obtaining it, is to
become a good musician. Would you desire in the same manner to be
thought capable of serving your country either as a general or as a
statesman? The best way in this case too is really to acquire the art
and experience of war and government, and to become really fit to be a
general or a statesman. And in the same manner if you would be reckoned
sober, temperate, just, and equitable, the best way of acquiring this
reputation is to become sober, temperate, just, and equitable. If you
can really render yourself amiable, respectable, and the proper object
of esteem, there is no fear of your not soon acquiring the love, the
respect, and esteem of those you live with.” Since the practice of
virtue, therefore, is in general so advantageous, and that of vice so
contrary to our interest, the consideration of those opposite tendencies
undoubtedly stamps an additional beauty and propriety upon the one, and
a new deformity and impropriety upon the other. Temperance, magnanimity,
justice, and beneficence, come thus to be approved of, not only under
their proper characters, but under the additional character of the
highest wisdom and most real prudence. And in the same manner the
contrary vices of intemperance, pusillanimity, injustice, and either
malevolence or sordid selfishness, come to be disapproved of, not only
under their proper characters, but under the additional character of the
most short-sighted folly and weakness. Epicurus appears in every virtue
to have attended to this species of propriety only. It is that which is
most apt to occur to those who are endeavouring to persuade others to
regularity of conduct. When men by their practice, and perhaps too by
their maxims, manifestly show that the natural beauty of virtue is not
like to have much effect upon them, how is it possible to move them but
by representing the folly of their conduct, and how much they themselves
are in the end likely to suffer by it?
By running up all the different virtues too to this one species of
propriety, Epicurus indulged a propensity, which is natural to all men,
but which philosophers in particular are apt to cultivate with a
peculiar fondness, as the great means of displaying their ingenuity, the
propensity to account for all appearances from as few principles as
possible. And he, no doubt, indulged this propensity still further, when
he referred all the primary objects of natural desire and aversion to
the pleasures and pains of the body. The great patron of the atomical
philosophy, who took so much pleasure in deducing all the powers and
qualities of bodies from the most obvious and familiar, the figure,
motion, and arrangement of the small parts of matter, felt no doubt a
similar satisfaction, when he accounted, in the same manner, for all the
sentiments and passions of the mind from those which are most obvious
and familiar.
The system of Epicurus agreed with those of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno,
in making virtue consist in acting in the most suitable manner to obtain
the [17]primary objects of natural desire. It differed from all of them
in two other respects; first, in the account which it gave of those
primary objects of natural desire; and secondly, in the account which it
gave of the excellence of virtue, or of the reason why that quality
ought to be esteemed.
Footnote 17:
Prima naturæ.
The primary objects of natural desire consisted, according to Epicurus,
in bodily pleasure and pain, and in nothing else whereas, according to
the other three philosophers, there were many other objects, such as
knowledge, such as the happiness of our relations, of our friends, of
our country, which were ultimately desirable for their own sakes.
Virtue too, according to Epicurus, did not deserve to be pursued for its
own sake, nor was itself one of the ultimate objects of natural
appetite, but was eligible only upon account of its tendency to prevent
pain and to procure ease and pleasure. In the opinion of the other
three, on the contrary, it was desirable, not merely as the means of
procuring the other primary objects of natural desire, but as something
which was in itself more valuable than them all. Man, they thought,
being born for action, his happiness must consist, not merely in the
agreeableness of his passive sensations, but also in the propriety of
his active exertions.
CHAP. III.
_Of those systems which make virtue consist in benevolence._
The system which makes virtue consist in benevolence, though I think not
so ancient as all of those which I have already given an account of, is,
however, of very great antiquity. It seems to have been the doctrine of
the greater part of those philosophers who, about and after the age of
Augustus, called themselves Eclectics, who pretended to follow chiefly
the opinions of Plato and Pythagoras, and who upon that account are
commonly known by the name of the later Platonists.
In the divine nature, according to these authors, benevolence or love
was the sole principle of action, and directed the exertion of all the
other attributes. The wisdom of the Deity was employed in finding out
the means for bringing about those ends which his goodness suggested, as
his infinite power was exerted to execute them. Benevolence, however,
was still the supreme and governing attribute, to which the others were
subservient, and from which the whole excellency, or the whole morality,
if I may be allowed such an expression, of the divine operations, was
ultimately derived. The whole perfection and virtue of the human mind
consisted in some resemblance or participation of the divine
perfections, and, consequently, in being filled with the same principle
of benevolence and love which influenced all the actions of the deity.
The actions of men which flowed from this motive were alone truly
praise-worthy, or could claim any merit in the sight of the deity. It
was by actions of charity and love only that we could imitate, as became
us, the conduct of God, that we could express our humble and devout
admiration of his infinite perfections, that by fostering in our own
minds the same divine principle, we could bring our own affections to a
greater resemblance with his holy attributes, and thereby become more
proper objects of his love and esteem; till at last we arrived at that
immediate converse and communication with the deity to which it was the
great object of this philosophy to raise us.
This system, as it was much esteemed by many ancient fathers of the
christian church, so after the reformation it was adopted by several
divines of the most eminent piety and learning, and of the most amiable
manners; particularly, by Dr. Ralph Cudworth, by Dr. Henry More, and by
Mr. John Smith of Cambridge. But of all the patrons of this system,
ancient or modern, the late Dr. Hutcheson, was undoubtedly beyond all
comparison, the most acute, the most distinct, the most philosophical,
and what is of the greatest consequence of all, the soberest and most
judicious.
That virtue consists in benevolence is a notion supported by many
appearances in human nature. It has been observed already that proper
benevolence is the most graceful and agreeable of all the affections,
that it is recommended to us by a double sympathy, that as its tendency
is necessarily beneficent, it is the proper object of gratitude and
reward, and that upon all these accounts it appears to our natural
sentiments to possess a merit superior to any other. It has been
observed too that even the weakness of benevolence are not very
disagreeable to us, whereas those of every other passion are always
extremely disgusting. Who does not abhor excessive malice, excessive
selfishness, or excessive resentment? But the most excessive indulgence
even of partial friendship is not so offensive. It is the benevolent
passions only which can exert themselves without any regard or attention
to propriety, and yet retain something about them which is engaging.
There is something pleasing even in mere instinctive good-will which
goes on to do good offices without once reflecting whether by this
conduct it is the proper object either of blame or approbation. It is
not so with the other passions. The moment they are deserted, the moment
they are unaccompanied by the sense of propriety, they cease to be
agreeable.
As benevolence bestows upon those actions which proceed from it, a
beauty superior to all others, so the want of it, and much more the
contrary inclination, communicates a peculiar deformity to whatever
evidences such a disposition. Pernicious actions are often punishable
for no other reason than because they show a want of sufficient
attention to the happiness of our neighbour.
Besides all this, Dr. Hutcheson[18] observed, that whenever in any
action, supposed to proceed from benevolent affections, some other
motive had been discovered, our sense of the merit of this action was
just so far diminished as this motive was believed to have influenced
it. If an action, supposed to proceed, from gratitude, should be
discovered to have arisen from an expectation of some new favour, or if
what was apprehended to proceed from public spirit, should be found out
to have taken its origin from the hope of a pecuniary reward, such a
discovery would entirely destroy all notion of merit or
praise-worthiness in either of these actions. Since, therefore, the
mixture of any selfish motive, like that of a base alloy, diminished or
took away altogether the merit which would otherwise have belonged to
any action, it was evident, he imagined, that virtue must consist in
pure and disinterested benevolence alone.
Footnote 18:
See Inquiry concerning virtue, sect. 1. and 2.
When those actions, on the contrary, which are commonly supposed to
proceed from a selfish motive, are discovered to have arisen from a
benevolent one, it greatly enhances our sense of their merit. If we
believed of any person that he endeavoured to advance his fortune from
no other view but that of doing friendly offices, and of making proper
returns to his benefactors, we should only love and esteem him the more.
And this observation seemed still more to confirm the conclusion, that
it was benevolence only which could stamp upon any action the character
of virtue.
Last of all, what, he imagined, was an evident proof of the justness of
this account of virtue, in all the disputes of casuists concerning the
rectitude of conduct, the public good, he observed, was the standard to
which they constantly referred; thereby universally acknowledging that
whatever tended to promote the happiness of mankind was right and
laudable and virtuous, and the contrary, wrong, blameable, and vicious.
In the late debates about passive obedience and the right of resistance,
the sole point in controversy among men of sense was, whether universal
submission would probably be attended with greater evils than temporary
insurrections when privileges were invaded. Whether what, upon the
whole, tended most to the happiness of mankind, was not also morally
good, was never once, he said, made a question.
Since benevolence, therefore, was the only motive which could bestow
upon any action the character of virtue, the greater the benevolence
which was evidenced by any action, the greater the praise which must
belong to it.
Those actions which aimed at the happiness of a great community, as they
demonstrated a more enlarged benevolence than those which aimed only at
that of a smaller system, so were they, likewise, proportionally the
more virtuous. The most virtuous of all affections, therefore, was that
which embraced as its object the happiness of all intelligent beings.
The lead virtuous, on the contrary, of those to which the character of
virtue could in any respect belong, was that which aimed no further than
at the happiness of an individual, such as a son, a brother, a friend.
In directing all our actions to promote the greatest possible good, in
submitting all inferior affections to the desire of the general
happiness of mankind, in regarding ones self but as one of the many,
whose prosperity was to be pursued no further than it was consistent
with, or conducive to that of the whole, consisted the perfection of
virtue.
Self-love was a principle which could never be virtuous in any degree or
in any direction. It was vicious whenever it obstructed the general
good. When it had no other effect than to make the individual take care
of his own happiness, it was merely innocent, and tho’ it deserved no
praise, neither ought it to incur any blame. Those benevolent actions
which were performed, notwithstanding some strong motive from
self-interest, were the more virtuous upon that account. They
demonstrated the strength and vigour of the benevolent principle.
Dr. Hutcheson[19] was so far from allowing self-love to be in any case a
motive of virtuous actions, that even a regard to the pleasure of
self-approbation, to the comfortable applause of our own consciences,
according to him, diminished the merit of a benevolent action. This was
a selfish motive, he thought, which, so far as it contributed to any
action, demonstrated the weakness of that pure and disinterested
benevolence which could alone stamp upon the conduct of man the
character of virtue. In the common judgments of mankind, however, this
regard to the approbation of our own minds is so far from being
considered as what can in any respect diminish the virtue of any action,
that it is rather looked upon as the sole motive which deserves the
appellation of virtuous.
Footnote 19:
Inquiry concerning virtue, sect 2. art. 4. also illustrations on the
moral sense, sect. 5. last paragraph.
Such is the account given of the nature of virtue in this amiable
system, a system which has a peculiar tendency to nourish and support in
the human heart the noblest and the most agreeable of all affections,
and not only to check the injustice of self-love, but in some measure to
discourage that principle altogether, by representing it as what could
never reflect any honour upon those who were influenced by it.
As some of the other systems which I have already given an account of,
do not sufficiently explain from whence arises the peculiar excellency
of the supreme virtue of beneficence, so this system seems to have the
contrary defect, of not sufficiently explaining from whence arises our
approbation of the inferior virtues of prudence, vigilance,
circumspection, temperance, constancy, firmness. The view and aim of our
affections, the beneficent and hurtful effects which they tend to
produce, are the only qualities at all attended to in this system. Their
propriety and impropriety, their suitableness and unsuitableness, to the
cause which excites them, are disregarded altogether.
Regard to our own private happiness and interest too, appear upon many
occasions very laudable principles of action. The habits of œconomy,
industry, discretion, attention, and application of thought, are
generally supposed to be cultivated from self-interested motives, and at
the same time are apprehended to be very praise-worthy qualities, which
deserve the esteem and approbation of every body. The mixture of a
selfish motive, it is true, seems often to sully the beauty of those
actions which ought to arise from a benevolent affection. The cause of
this, however, is not that self-love can never be the motive of a
virtuous action, but that the benevolent principle appears in this
particular case to want its due degree of strength, and to be altogether
unsuitable to its object. The character, therefore, seems evidently
imperfect, and upon the whole to deserve blame rather than praise. The
mixture of a benevolent motive in an action to which self-love alone
ought to be sufficient to prompt us, is not so apt indeed to diminish
our sense of its propriety, or of the virtue of the person who performs
it. We are not ready to suspect any person of being defective in
selfishness. This is by no means the weak side of human nature, or the
failing of which we are apt to be suspicious. If we could really
believe, however, of any man, that, was it not from a regard to his
family and friends, he would not take that proper care of his health,
his life, or his fortune, to which self-preservation alone ought to be
sufficient to prompt him, it would undoubtedly be a failing, tho’ one of
those amiable failings, which render a person rather the object of pity
than of contempt or hatred. It would still, however, somewhat diminish
the dignity and respectableness of his character. Carelessness and want
of œconomy are universally disapproved of, not, however as proceeding
from a want of benevolence, but from a want of the proper attention to
the objects of self-interest.
Though the standard by which casuists frequently determine what is right
or wrong in human conduct, be its tendency to the welfare or disorder of
society, it does not follow that a regard to the welfare of society
should be the sole virtuous motive of action, but only that, in any
competition, it ought to cast the balance against all other motives.
Benevolence may, perhaps, be the sole principle of action in the Deity,
and there are several, not improbable, arguments which tend to persuade
us that it is so. It is not easy to conceive what other motive an
independent and all perfect being, who stands in need of nothing
external, and whose happiness is complete in himself, can act from. But
whatever may be the case with the Deity, so imperfect a creature as man,
the support of whose existence requires so many things external to him,
must often act from many other motives. The condition of human nature
were peculiarly hard, if those affections, which, by the very nature of
our being, ought frequently to influence our conduct, could upon no
occasion appear virtuous, or deserve esteem and commendation from any
body.
Those three systems, that which places virtue in propriety, that which
places it in prudence, and that which makes it consist in benevolence,
are the principal accounts which have been given of the nature of
virtue. To one or other of them, all the other descriptions of virtue,
how different soever they may appear, are easily reducible.
That system which places virtue in obedience to the will of the Deity,
may be counted either among those which make it consist in prudence, or
among those which make it consist in propriety. When it is asked, why we
ought to obey the will of the Deity, this question, which would be
impious and absurd in the highest degree, if asked from any doubt that
we ought to obey him, can admit but of two different answers. It must
either be said that we ought to obey the will of the Deity because he is
a being of infinite power, who will reward us eternally if we do so, and
punish us eternally if we do otherwise: Or it must be said, that
independent of any regard to our own happiness, or to rewards and
punishments of any kind, there is a congruity and fitness that a
creature should obey its creator, that a limited and imperfect being
should submit to one of infinite and incomprehensible perfections.
Besides one or other of these two it is impossible to conceive that any
other answer can be given to this question. If the first answer be the
proper one, virtue consists in prudence, or in the proper pursuit of our
own final interest and happiness; since it is upon this account that we
are obliged to obey the will of the Deity. If the second answer be the
proper one, virtue must consist in propriety, since the ground of our
obligation to obedience is the suitableness or congruity of the
sentiments of humility and submission to the superiority of the object
which excites them.
That system which places virtue in utility coincides too with that which
makes it consist in propriety. According to this system all those
qualities of the mind which are agreeable or advantageous, either to the
person himself or to others, are approved of as virtuous, and the
contrary disapproved of as vicious. But the agreeableness or utility of
any affection depends upon the degree which it is allowed to subsist in.
Every affection is useful when it is confined to a certain degree of
moderation, and every affection is disadvantageous when it exceeds the
proper bounds. According to this system therefore, virtue consists, not
in any one affection, but in the proper degree of all the affections,
The only difference between it and that which I have been endeavouring
to establish, is, that it makes utility, and not sympathy, or the
correspondent affection of the spectator, the natural and original
measure of this proper degree.
CHAP. IV.
_Of licentious systems._
All those systems, which I have hitherto given an account of, suppose
that there is a real and essential distinction between vice and virtue,
whatever these qualities may consist in. There is a real and essential
difference between the propriety and impropriety of any affection,
between benevolence and any other principle of action, between real
prudence and short-sighted folly or precipitate rashness. In the main
too all of them contribute to encourage the praise-worthy, and to
discourage the blameable disposition.
It may be true perhaps, of some of them, that they tend, in some
measure, to break the balance of the affections, and to give the mind a
particular bias to some principles of action, beyond the proportion that
is due to them. The ancient systems which place virtue in propriety,
seem chiefly to recommend the great, the awful, and the respectable
virtues, the virtues of self-government and self-command; fortitude,
magnanimity, independency upon fortune, the contempt of all outward
accidents, of pain, poverty, exile, and death. It is in these great
exertions that the noblest propriety of conduct is displayed. The soft,
the amiable, the gentle virtues, all the virtues of indulgent humanity
are, in comparison, but little insisted upon, and seem, on the contrary,
by the Stoics in particular, to have been often regarded as mere
weaknesses which it behoved a wise man not to harbour in his breast.
The benevolent system, on the other hand, while it fosters and
encourages all those milder virtues in the highest degree, seems
entirely to neglect the more awful and respectable qualities of the
mind. It even denies them the appellation of virtues. It calls them
moral abilities, and treats them as qualities which do not deserve the
same sort of esteem and approbation, that is due to what is properly
denominated virtue. All those principles of action which aim only at our
own interest, it treats, if that be possible, still worse. So far from
having any merit of their own, they diminish, it pretends, the merit of
benevolence, when they co-operate with it: and prudence, it is asserted,
when employed only in promoting private interest, can never even be
imagined a virtue.
That system, again, which makes virtue consist in prudence only, while
it gives the highest encouragement to the habits of caution, vigilance,
sobriety, and judicious moderation, seems to degrade equally both the
amiable and respectable virtues, and to strip the former of all their
beauty, and the latter of all their grandeur.
But notwithstanding these defects, the general tendency of each of those
three systems is to encourage the best and most laudable habits of the
human mind: and it were well for society, if, either mankind in general,
or even those few who pretend to live according to any philosophical
rule, were to regulate their conduct by the precepts of any one of them.
We may learn from each of them something that is both valuable and
peculiar. If it was possible, by precept and exhortation, to inspire the
mind with fortitude and magnanimity, the ancient systems of propriety
would seem sufficient to do this. Or if it was possible, by the same
means, to soften it into humanity, and to awaken the affections of
kindness and general love towards those we live with, some of the
pictures with which the benevolent system presents us, might seem
capable of producing this effect. We may learn from the system of
Epicurus, though undoubtedly the worst of all the three, how much the
practice of both the amiable and respectable virtues is conducive to our
own interest, to our own ease and safety and quiet even in this life. As
Epicurus placed happiness in the attainment of ease and security, he
exerted himself in a particular manner to show that virtue was, not
merely the best and the surest, but the only means of acquiring those
invaluable possessions. The good effects of virtue, upon our inward
tranquility and peace of mind, are what other philosophers have chiefly
celebrated. Epicurus, without neglecting this topic, has chiefly
insisted upon the influence of that amiable quality on our outward
prosperity and safety. It was upon this account that his writings were
so much studied in the ancient world by men of all different
philosophical parties. It is from him that Cicero, the great enemy of
the Epicurean system, borrows his most agreeable proofs that virtue
alone is sufficient to secure happiness. Seneca, though a Stoic, the
sect most opposite to that of Epicurus, yet quotes this philosopher more
frequently than any other.
There are, however, some other systems which seem to take away
altogether the distinction between vice and virtue, and of which the
tendency is, upon that account, wholly pernicious: I mean the systems of
the duke of Rochefoucault and Dr. Mandeville. Though the notions of both
these authors are in almost every respect erroneous, there are, however,
some appearances in human nature which, when viewed in a certain manner,
seem at first sight to favour them. These, first slightly sketched out
with the elegance and delicate precision of the duke of Rochefoucault,
and afterwards more fully represented with the lively and humorous,
though coarse and rustic eloquence of Dr. Mandeville, have thrown upon
their doctrines an air of truth and probability which is very apt to
impose upon the unskilful.
Dr. Mandeville, the most methodical of those two authors, considers
whatever is done from a sense of propriety, from a regard to what is
commendable and praise-worthy, as being done from a love of praise and
commendation, or as he calls it from vanity. Man, he observes, is
naturally much more interested in his own happiness than in that of
others, and it is impossible that in his heart he can ever really prefer
their prosperity to his own. Whenever he appears to do so, we may be
assured that he imposes upon us, and that he is then acting from the
same selfish motives as at all other times. Among his other selfish
passions, vanity is one of the strongest, and he is always easily
flattered and greatly delighted with the applauses of those about him.
When he appears to sacrifice his own interest to that of his companions,
he knows that this conduct will be highly agreeable to their self-love,
and that they will not fail to express their satisfaction by bellowing
upon him the most extravagant praises. The pleasure which he expects
from this, over-balances, in his opinion, the interest which he abandons
in order to procure it. His conduct, therefore, upon this occasion, is
in reality just as selfish, and arises from just as mean a motive as
upon any other. He is flattered, however, and he flatters himself with
the belief that it is entirely disinterested; since, unless this was
supposed, it would not seem to merit any commendation either in his own
eyes or in those of others. All public spirit, therefore, all preference
of public to private interest, is, according to him a mere cheat and
imposition upon mankind; and that human virtue which is so much boasted
of, and which is the occasion of so much emulation among men, is the
mere offspring of flattery begot upon pride.
Whether the most generous and public-spirited actions may not, in some
sense, be regarded as proceeding from self-love, I shall not at present
examine. The decision of this question is not, I apprehend, of any
importance towards establishing the reality of virtue, since self-love
may frequently be a virtuous motive of action. I shall only endeavour to
show that the desire of doing what is honourable and noble, of rendering
ourselves the proper objects of esteem and approbation, cannot with any
propriety be called vanity. Even the love of well-grounded fame and
reputation, the desire of acquiring esteem by what is really estimable,
does not deserve that name. The first is the love of virtue, the noblest
and the best passion of human nature. The second is the love of true
glory, a passion inferior no doubt to the former, but which in dignity
appears to come immediately after it. He is guilty of vanity who desires
praise for qualities which are either not praise-worthy in any degree,
or not in that degree which he expects to be praised for them; who sets
his character upon the frivolous ornaments of dress and equipage, or the
equally frivolous accomplishments of ordinary behaviour. He is guilty of
vanity who desires praise for what indeed very well deserves it, but
what he perfectly knows does not belong to him. The empty coxcomb who
gives himself airs of importance which he has no title to, the silly
liar who assumes the merit of adventures which never happened, the
foolish plagiary who gives himself out for the author of what he has no
pretensions to, are properly accused of this passion. He too is said to
be guilty of vanity who is not contented with the silent sentiments of
esteem and approbation, who seems to be fonder of their noisy
expressions and acclamations than of the sentiments themselves, who is
never satisfied but when his own praises are ringing in his ears, and
who solicits with the most anxious importunity all external marks of
respect, is fond of titles, of compliments, of being visited, of being
attended, of being taken notice of in public places with the appearance
of deference and attention. This frivolous passion is altogether
different from either of the two former, and is the passion of the
lowest, and the least of mankind, as they are of the noblest and the
greatest.
But though these three passions, the desire of rendering ourselves the
proper objects of honour and esteem; or of becoming what is honourable
and estimable; the desire of acquiring honour and esteem by really
deserving those sentiments; and the frivolous desire of praise at any
rate, are widely different; though the two former are always approved
of, while the latter never fails to be despised; there is, however, a
certain remote affinity among them, which, exaggerated by the humorous
and diverting eloquence of this lively author, has enabled him to impose
upon his readers. There is an affinity between vanity and the love of
true glory, as both these passions aim at acquiring esteem and
approbation. But they are different in this, that the one is a just,
reasonable, and equitable passion, while the other is unjust, absurd,
and ridiculous. The man who desires esteem for what is really estimable,
desires nothing but what he is justly entitled to, and what cannot be
refused him without some sort of injury. He, on the contrary, who
desires it upon any other terms, demands what he has no just claim to.
The first is easily satisfied, is not apt to be jealous or suspicious
that we do not esteem him enough, and is seldom solicitous about
receiving many external marks of our regard. The other, on the contrary,
is never to be satisfied, is full of jealousy and suspicion that we do
not esteem him so much as he desires, because he has some secret
consciousness that he desires more than he deserves. The least neglect
of ceremony, he considers as a mortal affront, and as an expression of
the most determined contempt. He is restless and impatient, and
perpetually afraid that we have lost all respect for him, and is upon
this account always anxious to obtain new expressions of esteem, and
cannot be kept in temper but by continual attendance and adulation.
There is an affinity too between the desire of becoming what is
honourable and estimable, and the desire of honour and esteem, between
the love of virtue and the love of true glory. They resemble one another
not only in this respect, that both aim at really being what is
honourable and noble, but even in that respect in which the love of true
glory resembles what is properly called vanity, some reference to the
sentiments of others. The man of the greatest magnanimity, who desires
virtue for its own sake, and is most indifferent about what actually are
the opinions of mankind with regard to him, is still, however, delighted
with the thoughts of what they should be, with the consciousness that
though he may neither be honoured nor applauded, he is still the proper
object of honour and applause, and that if mankind were cool and candid
and consistent with themselves, and properly informed of the motives and
circumstances of his conduct, they would not fail to honour and applaud
him. Though he despises the opinions which are actually entertained of
him, he has the highest value for those which ought to be entertained of
him. That he might think himself worthy of those honourable sentiments,
and, whatever was the idea which other men might conceive of his
character, that when he should put himself in their situation, and
consider, not what was, but what ought to be their opinion, he should
always have the highest idea of it himself, was the great and exalted
motive of his conduct. As even in the love of virtue, therefore, there
is still some reference, though not to what is, yet to what in reason
and propriety ought to be, the opinion of others, there is even in this
respect some affinity between it, and the love of true glory. There is,
however, at the same time, a very great difference between them. The man
who acts solely from a regard to what is right and fit to be done, from
a regard to what is the proper object of esteem and approbation, though
these sentiments should never be bestowed upon him, acts from the most
sublime and godlike motive which human nature is even capable of
conceiving. The man, on the other hand, who while he desires to merit
approbation is at the same time anxious to obtain it, though he too is
laudably in the main, yet his motives have a greater mixture of human
infirmity. He is in danger of being mortified by the ignorance and
injustice of mankind, and his happiness is exposed to the envy of his
rivals, and the folly of the public. The happiness of the other, on the
contrary, is altogether secure and independent of fortune, and of the
caprice of those he lives with. The contempt and hatred which may be
thrown upon him by the ignorance of mankind, he considers as not
belonging to him, and is not at all mortified by it. Mankind despise and
hate him from a false notion of his character and conduct. If they knew
him better, they would esteem and love him. It is not him whom, properly
speaking, they hate and despise, but another person whom they mistake
him to be. Our friend, whom we should meet at a masquerade in the garb
of our enemy, would be more diverted than mortified, if under that
disguise we should vent our indignation against him. Such are the
sentiments of a man of real magnanimity, when exposed to unjust censure.
It seldom happens, however, that human nature arrives at this degree of
firmness. Though none but the weakest and most worthless of mankind are
much delighted with false glory, yet, by a strange inconsistency, false
ignominy is often capable of mortifying those who appear the most
resolute and determined.
Dr. Mandeville is not satisfied with representing the frivolous motive
of vanity, as the source of all those actions which are commonly
accounted virtuous. He endeavours to point out the imperfection of human
virtue in many other respects. In every case, he pretends, it falls
short of that complete self-denial which it pretends to, and, instead of
a conquest, is commonly no more than a concealed indulgence of our
passions. Wherever our reserve with regard to pleasure falls short of
the most ascetic abstinence, he treats it as gross luxury and
sensuality. Every thing, according to him, is luxury which exceeds what
is absolutely necessary for the support of human nature, so that there
is a vice even in the use of a clean shirt, or of a convenient
habitation. The indulgence of the inclination to sex, in the most lawful
union, he considers as the same sensuality with the most hurtful
gratification of that passion, and derides that temperance and that
chastity which can be practiced at so cheap a rate. The ingenious
sophistry of his reasoning, is here, as upon many other occasions,
covered by the ambiguity of language. There are some of our passions
which have no other names except those which mark the disagreeable and
offensive degree. The spectator is more apt to take notice of them in
this degree than in any other. When they shock his own sentiments, when
they give him some sort of antipathy and uneasiness, he is necessarily
obliged to attend to them, and is from thence naturally led to give them
a name. When they fall in with the natural state of his own mind, he is
very apt to overlook them altogether, and either gives them no name at
all, or, if he gives them any, it is one which marks rather the
subjection and restraint of the passion than the degree which it still
is allowed to subsist in, after it is so subjected and restrained. Thus
the common names of the [20]love of pleasure, and of the love of sex,
denote a vicious and offensive degree of those passions. The words
temperance and chastity, on the other hand, seem to mark rather the
restraint and subjection which they are kept under, than the degree
which they are still allowed to subsist in. When he can show, therefore,
that they still subsist in some degree, he imagines, he has entirely
demolished the reality of the virtues of temperance and chastity, and
shown them to be mere impositions upon the inattention and simplicity of
mankind. Those virtues, however, do not require an entire insensibility
to the objects of the passions which they mean to govern. They only aim
at restraining the violence of those passions so far as not to hurt the
individual, and neither disturb nor offend the society.
Footnote 20:
Luxury and lust.
It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville’s book[21] to represent every
passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and in any
direction. It is thus that he treats every thing as vanity which has any
reference, either to what are, or to what ought to be the sentiments of
others: and it is by means of this sophistry, that he establishes his
favourite conclusion, that private vices are public benefits. If the
love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of
human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage,
for architecture, statuary, painting, and music, is to be regarded as
luxury, sensuality and ostentation, even in those whose situation
allows, without any inconveniency, the indulgence of those passions, it
is certain that luxury, sensuality, and ostentation are public benefits:
since, without the qualities upon which he thinks proper to bestow such
opprobrious names, the arts of refinement could never find
encouragement, and must languish for want of employment. Some popular
ascetic doctrines which had been current before his time, and which
placed virtue in the entire extirpation and annihilation of all our
passions, were the real foundation of this licentious system. It was
easy for Dr. Mandeville to prove, first, that this entire conquest never
actually took place among men; and secondly, that, if it was to take
place universally, it would be pernicious to society, by putting an end
to all industry and commerce, and in a manner to the whole business of
human life. By the first of these propositions he seemed to prove that
there was no real virtue, and that what pretended to be such, was a mere
cheat and imposition upon mankind; and by the second, that private vices
were public benefits, since without them no society could prosper or
flourish.
Footnote 21:
Fable of the Bees.
Such is the system of Dr. Mandeville, which once made so much noise in
the world, and which, though perhaps, it never gave occasion to more
vice than what would have been without it, at least taught that vice,
which arose from other causes, to appear with more effrontery, and to
avow the corruption of its motives with a profligate audaciousness which
had never been heard of before.
But how destructive soever this system may appear, it could never have
imposed upon so great a number of persons, nor have occasioned so
general an alarm among those who are the friends of better principles,
had it not in some respects bordered upon the truth. A system of natural
philosophy may appear very plausible, and be for a long time very
generally received in the world, and yet have no foundation in nature,
nor any sort of resemblance to the truth. The vortices of Des Cartes
were regarded by a very ingenious nation, for near a century together,
as a most satisfactory account of the revolutions of the heavenly
bodies. Yet it has been demonstrated, to the conviction of all mankind,
that these pretended causes of those wonderful effects, not only do not
actually exist, but are utterly impossible, and if they did exist, could
produce no such effects as are ascribed to them. But it is otherwise
with systems of moral philosophy, and an author who pretends to account
for the origin of our moral sentiments, cannot deceive us so grossly,
nor depart so very far from all resemblance to the truth. When a
traveller gives an account of some distant country, he may impose upon
our credulity the most groundless and absurd fictions as the most
certain matters of fact. But when a person pretends to inform us of what
passes in our neighbourhood, and of the affairs of the very parish which
we live in, though here too, if we are so careless as not to examine
things with our own eyes, he may deceive us in many respects, yet the
greatest falsehoods which he imposes upon us must bear some resemblance
to the truth, and must even have a considerable mixture of truth in
them. An author who treats of natural philosophy, and pretends to assign
the causes of the great phenomena of the universe, pretends to give an
account of the affairs of a very distant country, concerning which he
may tell us what he pleases, and as long as his narration keeps within
the bounds of seeming possibility, he need not despair of gaining our
belief. But when he proposes to explain the origin of our desires and
affections, of our sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, he
pretends to give an account, not only of the affairs of the very parish
that we live in, but of our own domestic concerns. Though here too, like
indolent masters who put their trust in a steward who deceives them, we
are very liable to be imposed upon, yet we are incapable of passing any
account which does not preserve some little regard to the truth. Some of
the articles, at least, must be just, and even those which are most
overcharged must have had some foundation, otherwise the fraud would be
detected even by that careless inspection which we are disposed to give.
The author who should assign, as the cause of any natural sentiment,
some principle which neither had any connexion with it, nor resembled
any other principle which had some such connexion, would appear absurd
and ridiculous to the most injudicious and unexperienced reader.
SECTION III.
Of the different systems which have been formed concerning the principle
of approbation.
INTRODUCTION.
After the inquiry concerning the nature of virtue, the next question of
importance in Moral Philosophy, is concerning the principle of
approbation, concerning the power or faculty of the mind which renders
certain characters agreeable or disagreeable to us, makes us prefer one
tenour of conduct to another, denominate the one right and the other
wrong, and consider the one as the object of approbation, honour, and
reward; the other as that of blame, censure, and punishment.
Three different accounts have been given of this principle of
approbation. According to some, we approve and disapprove both of our
own actions and of those of others, from self-love only, or from some
view of their tendency to our own happiness or disadvantage; according
to others, reason, the same faculty by which we distinguish between
truth and falsehood, enables us to distinguish between what is fit and
unfit both in actions and affections: according to others this
distinction is altogether the effect of immediate sentiment and feeling,
and arises from the satisfaction or disgust with which the view of
certain actions or affections inspires us. Self-love, reason, and
sentiment, therefore, are the three different sources which have been
assigned for the principle of approbation.
Before I proceed to give an account of those different systems, I must
observe, that the determination of this second question, though of the
greatest importance in speculation, is of none in practice. The question
concerning the nature of virtue necessarily has some influence upon our
notions of right and wrong in many particular cases. That concerning the
principle of approbation can possibly have no such effect. To examine
from what contrivance or mechanism within, those different notions or
sentiments arise, is a mere matter of philosophical curiosity.
CHAP. I.
_Of those systems which deduce the principle of approbation from
self-love._
Those who account for the principle of approbation from self-love, do
not all account for it in the same manner, and there is a good deal of
confusion and inaccuracy in all their different systems. According to
Mr. Hobbes, and many of his followers,[22] man is driven to take refuge
in society, not by any natural love which he bears to his own kind, but
because without the assistance of others he is incapable of subsisting
with ease or safety. Society, upon this account, becomes necessary to
him, and whatever tends to its support and welfare, he considers as
having a remote tendency to his own interest, and, on the contrary,
whatever is likely to disturb or destroy it, he regards as in some
measure hurtful or pernicious to himself. Virtue is the great support,
and vice the great disturber of human society. The former, therefore, is
agreeable, and the latter offensive to every man; as from the one he
foresees the prosperity, and from the other the ruin and disorder of
what is so necessary for the comfort and security of his existence.
Footnote 22:
Puffendorff. Mandeville.
That the tendency of virtue to promote, and of vice to disturb the order
of society, when we consider it coolly and philosophically, reflects a
very great beauty upon the one, and a very great deformity upon the
other, cannot, as I have observed upon a former occasion, be called in
question. Human society, when we contemplate it in a certain abstract
and philosophical light, appears like a great, an immense machine, whose
regular and harmonious movements produce a thousand agreeable effects.
As in any other beautiful and noble machine that was the production of
human art, whatever tended to render its movements more smooth and easy,
would derive a beauty from this effect, and, on the contrary, whatever
tended to obstruct them would displease upon that account: so virtue,
which is, as it were, the fine polish to the wheels of society,
necessarily pleases; while vice, like the vile rust, which makes them
jar and grate upon one another, is as necessarily offensive. This
account, therefore, of the origin of approbation and disapprobation, so
far as it derives them from a regard to the order of society, runs into
that principle which gives beauty to utility, and which I have explained
upon a former occasion; and it is from thence that this system derives
all that appearance of probability which it possesses. When those
authors describe the innumerable advantages of a cultivated and social,
above a savage and solitary life; when they expatiate upon the necessity
of virtue and good order for the maintenance of the one, and demonstrate
how infallibly the prevalence of vice and disobedience to the laws tend
to bring back the other, the reader is charmed with the novelty and
grandeur of those views which they open to him: he sees plainly a new
beauty in virtue, and a new deformity in vice, which he had never taken
notice of before, and is commonly so delighted with the discovery, that
he seldom takes time to reflect, that this political view, having never
occurred to him in his life before, cannot possibly be the ground of
that approbation and disapprobation with which he has always been
accustomed to consider those different qualities.
When those authors, on the other hand, deduce from self-love the
interest which we take in the welfare of society, and the esteem which
upon that account we bestow upon virtue, they do not mean, that when we
in this age applaud the virtue of Cato, and detest the villainy of
Catiline, our sentiments are influenced by the notion of any benefit we
receive from the one, or of any detriment we suffer from the other. It
was not because the prosperity or subversion of society, in those remote
ages and nations, was apprehended to have any influence upon our
happiness or misery in the present times; that according to those
philosophers, we esteemed the virtuous, and blamed the disorderly
character. They never imagined that our sentiments were influenced by
any benefit or damage which we supposed actually to redound to us, from
either; but by that which might have redounded to us, had we lived in
those distant ages and countries; or by that which might still redound
to us, if in our own times we should meet with characters of the same
kind. The idea, in short, which those authors were groping about, but
which they were never able to unfold distinctly, was that indirect
sympathy which we feel with the gratitude or resentment of those who
received the benefit or suffered the damage resulting from such opposite
characters: and it was this which they were indistinctly pointing at,
when they said, that it was not the thought of what we had gained or
suffered which prompted our applause or indignation, but the conception
or imagination of what we might gain or suffer if we were to act in
society with such associates.
Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish
principle. When I sympathize with your sorrow or your indignation, it
may be pretended, indeed, that my emotion is founded in self-love,
because it arises from bringing your case home to myself, from putting
myself in your situation, and thence conceiving what I should feel in
the like circumstances. But though sympathy is very properly said to
arise from an imaginary change of situations with the person principally
concerned, yet this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in
my own person and character, but in that of the person with whom I
sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your only son, in
order to enter into your grief, I do not consider what I, a person of
such a character and profession, should suffer, if I had a son, and if
that son was unfortunately to die: but I consider what I should suffer
if I was really you, and I not only change circumstances with you, but I
change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is entirely upon
your account, and not in the least upon my own. It is not, therefore, in
the least selfish. How can that be regarded as a selfish passion, which
does not arise even from the imagination of any thing that has befallen,
or that relates to myself, in my own proper person and character, but
which is entirely occupied about what relates to you? A man may
sympathize with a woman in child-bed; though it is impossible that he
should conceive himself as suffering her pains in his own proper person
and character. That whole account of human nature, however, which
deduces all sentiments and affections from self-love, which has made so
much noise in the world, but which, so far as I know, has never yet been
fully and distinctly explained, seems to me to have arisen from some
confused misapprehension of the system of sympathy.
CHAP. II.
_Of those systems which make reason the principle of approbation._
It is well known to have been the doctrine of Mr. Hobbes, that a state
of nature, is a state of war; and that antecedent to the institution of
civil government, there could be no safe or peaceable society among men.
To preserve society, therefore, according to him, was to support civil
government, and to destroy civil government was the same thing as to put
an end to society. But the existence of civil government depends upon
the obedience that is paid to the supreme magistrate. The moment he
loses his authority, all government is at an end. As self-preservation,
therefore, teaches men to applaud whatever tends to promote the welfare
of society, and to blame whatever is likely to hurt it; so the same
principle, if they would think and speak consistently, ought to teach
them to applaud upon all occasions obedience to the civil magistrate,
and to blame all disobedience and rebellion. The very ideas of laudable
and blameable, ought to be the same with those of obedience and
disobedience. The laws of the civil magistrate, therefore, ought to be
regarded as the sole ultimate standards of what was just and unjust, of
what was right and wrong.
It was the avowed intention of Mr. Hobbes, by propagating these notions,
to subject the consciences of men immediately to the civil, and not to
the ecclesiastical powers, whose turbulence and ambition, he had been
taught, by the example of his own times, to regard as the principal
source of the disorders of society. His doctrine, upon this account, was
peculiarly offensive to Theologians, who accordingly did not fail to
vent their indignation against him with great asperity and bitterness.
It was likewise offensive to all sound moralists, as it supposed that
there was no natural distinction between right and wrong, that these
were mutable and changeable, and depended upon the mere arbitrary will
of the civil magistrate. This account of things, therefore, was attacked
from all quarters, and by all sorts of weapons, by sober reason as well
as by furious declamation.
In order to confute so odious a doctrine, it was necessary to prove,
that antecedent to all law or positive institution, the mind was
naturally endowed with a faculty, by which it distinguished in certain
actions and affections, the qualities of right, laudable, and virtuous,
and in others those of wrong, blameable, and vicious.
Law, it was justly observed by Dr. Cudworth,[23] could not be the
original source of those distinctions; since upon the supposition of
such a law, it must either be right to obey it, and wrong to disobey it,
or indifferent whether we obeyed it, or disobeyed it. That law which it
was indifferent whether we obeyed or disobeyed, could not, it was
evident, be the source of those distinctions; neither could that which
it was right to obey and wrong to disobey, since even this still
supposed the antecedent notions or ideas of right and wrong, and that
obedience to the law was conformable to the idea of right, and
disobedience to that of wrong.
Footnote 23:
Immutable Morality, l. 1.
Since the mind, therefore, had a notion of those distinctions antecedent
to all law, it seemed necessarily to follow, that it derived this notion
from reason, which pointed out the difference between right and wrong,
in the same manner in which it did that between truth and falsehood: and
this conclusion, which though true in some respects, is rather hasty in
others, was more easily received at a time when the abstract science of
human nature was but in its infancy, and before the distinct offices and
powers of the different faculties of the human mind had been carefully
examined and distinguished from one another. When this controversy with
Mr. Hobbes was carried on with the greatest warmth and keenness, no
other faculty had been thought of from which any such ideas could
possibly be supposed to arise. It became at this time, therefore, the
popular doctrine, that the essence of virtue and vice did not consist in
the conformity or disagreement of human actions with the law of a
superior, but in their conformity or disagreement with reason, which was
thus considered as the original source and principle of approbation and
disapprobation.
That virtue consists in conformity to reason, is true in some respects,
and this faculty may very justly be considered, as in some sense, the
source and principle of approbation and disapprobation, and of all solid
judgments concerning right and wrong. It is by reason that we discover
those general rules of justice by which we ought to regulate our
actions: and it is by the same faculty that we form those more vague and
indeterminate ideas of what is prudent, of what is decent, of what is
generous or noble, which we carry constantly about with us, and
according to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the tenour
of our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like all
other general maxims, from experience and induction. We observe in a
great variety of particular cases what pleases or displeases our moral
faculties, what these approve or disapprove of, and, by induction from
this experience, we establish those general rules. But induction is
always regarded as one of the operations of reason. From reason,
therefore, we are very properly said to derive all those general maxims
and ideas. It is by these, however, that we regulate the greater part of
our moral judgments, which would be extremely uncertain and precarious
if they depended altogether upon what is liable to so many variations as
immediate sentiment and feeling, which the different states of health
and humour are capable of altering so essentially. As our most solid
judgments, therefore, with regard to right and wrong, are regulated by
maxims and ideas derived from an induction of reason, virtue may very
properly be said to consist in a conformity to reason, and so far this
faculty may be considered as the source and principle of approbation and
disapprobation.
But though reason is undoubtedly the source of the general rules of
morality, and of all the moral judgments which we form by means of them;
it is altogether absurd and unintelligible to suppose that the first
perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason, even in those
particular cases upon the experience of which the general rules are
formed. These first perceptions, as well all other experiments upon
which any general rules are founded, cannot be the object of reason, but
of immediate sense and feeling. It is by finding in a vast variety of
instances that one tenour of conduct constantly pleases in a certain
manner, and that another as constantly displeases the mind, that we form
the general rules of morality. But reason cannot render any particular
object either agreeable or disagreeable to the mind for its own sake.
Reason may show that this object is the means of obtaining some other
which is naturally either pleasing or displeasing, and in this manner
may render it either agreeable or disagreeable for the sake of something
else. But nothing can be agreeable or disagreeable for its own sake,
which is not rendered such by immediate sense and feeling. If virtue,
therefore, in every particular instance, necessarily pleases for its own
sake, and if vice as certainly displeases the mind, it cannot be reason,
but immediate sense and feeling, which, in this manner, reconciles us to
the one, and alienates us from the other.
Pleasure and pain are the great objects of desire and aversion: but
these are distinguished not by reason, but by immediate sense and
feeling. If virtue, therefore, is desirable for its own sake, and if
vice is, in the same manner, the object of aversion, it cannot be reason
which originally distinguishes those different qualities, but immediate
sense and feeling.
As reason, however, in a certain sense, may justly be considered as the
principle of approbation and disapprobation, these sentiments were,
through inattention, long regarded as originally flowing from the
operations of this faculty. Dr. Hutcheson had the merit of being the
first who distinguished with any degree of precision in what respect all
moral distinctions may be said to arise from reason, and in what respect
they are founded upon immediate sense and feeling. In his illustrations
upon the moral sense he has explained this so fully, and, in my opinion,
so unanswerably, that, if any controversy is still kept up about this
subject, I can impute it to nothing, but either to inattention to what
that gentleman has written, or to a superstitious attachment to certain
forms of expression, a weakness not very uncommon among the learned,
especially in subjects so deeply interesting as the present, in which a
man of virtue is often loth to abandon, even the propriety of a single
phrase which he has been accustomed to.
CHAP. III.
_Of those systems which make sentiment the principle of approbation._
Those systems which make sentiment the principle of approbation may be
divided into two different classes.
I. According to some the principle of approbation is founded upon a
sentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of perception
exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or affections; some
of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable and others in a
disagreeable manner, the former are stampt with the characters of right,
laudable, and virtuous; the latter with those of wrong, blameable and
vicious. This sentiment being of a peculiar nature distinct from every
other, and the effect of a particular power of perception, they give it
a particular name, and call it a moral sense.
II. According to others, in order to account for the principle of
approbation, there is no occasion for supposing any new power of
perception which had never been heard of before: Nature, they imagine,
acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest œconomy, and
produces a multitude of effects from one and the same cause; and
sympathy, a power which has always been taken notice of, and with which
the mind is manifestly endowed, is, they think, sufficient to account
for all the effects ascribed to this peculiar faculty.
I. Dr. Hutcheson[24] had been at great pains to prove that the principle
of approbation was not founded on self-love. He had demonstrated too
that it could not arise from any operation of reason. Nothing remained,
he thought, but to suppose it a faculty of a peculiar kind, with which
Nature had endowed the human mind, in order to produce this one
particular and important effect. When self-love and reason were both
excluded, it did not occur to him that there was any other known faculty
of the mind which could in any respect answer this purpose.
Footnote 24:
Inquiry concerning Virtue.
This new power of perception he called a moral sense, and supposed it to
be somewhat analogous to the external senses. As the bodies around us,
by affecting these in a certain manner, appear to possess the different
qualities of sound, taste, odour, colour; so the various affections of
the human mind, by touching this particular faculty in a certain manner,
appear to possess the different qualities of amiable and odious, of
virtuous and vicious, of right and wrong.
The various senses or powers of perception,[25] from which the human
mind derives all its simple ideas, were, according to this system, of
two different kinds, of which the one were called the direct or
antecedent, the other, the reflex or consequent senses. The direct
senses were those faculties from which the mind derived the perception
of such species of things as did not presuppose the antecedent
perception of any other. Thus sounds and colours were objects of the
direct senses. To hear a sound or to see a colour does not presuppose
the antecedent perception of any other quality or object. The reflex or
consequent senses, on the other hand, were those faculties from which
the mind derived the perception of such species of things as presupposed
the antecedent perception of some other. Thus harmony and beauty were
objects of the reflex senses. In order to perceive the harmony of a
sound, or the beauty of a colour, we must first perceive the sound or
the colour. The moral sense was considered as a faculty of this kind.
That faculty, which Mr. Locke calls reflection, and from which he
derived the simple ideas of the different passions and emotions of the
human mind, was, according to Dr. Hutcheson, a direct internal sense.
That faculty again by which we perceived the beauty or deformity, the
virtue or vice of those different passions and emotions, was a reflex,
internal sense.
Footnote 25:
Treatise of the passions.
Dr. Hutcheson endeavoured still further to support this doctrine, by
shewing that it was agreeable to the analogy of nature, and that the
mind was endowed with a variety of other reflex senses exactly similar
to the moral sense; such as a sense of beauty and deformity in external
objects; a public sense, by which we sympathize with the happiness or
misery of our fellow-creatures; a sense of shame and honour, and a sense
of ridicule.
But notwithstanding all the pains which this ingenious philosopher has
taken to prove that the principle of approbation is founded in a
peculiar power of perception, somewhat analogous to the external senses,
there are some consequences, which he acknowledges to follow from this
doctrine, that will, perhaps, be regarded by many as a sufficient
confutation of it. The qualities, he allows,[26] which belong to the
objects of any sense, cannot, without the greatest absurdity, be
ascribed to the sense itself. Who ever thought of calling the sense of
seeing black or white, the sense of hearing loud or low, or the sense of
tasting sweet or bitter? And, according to him, it is equally absurd to
call our moral faculties virtuous or vicious, morally good or evil.
These qualities belong to the objects of those faculties, not to the
faculties themselves. If any man, therefore, was so absurdly constituted
as to approve of cruelty and injustice as the highest virtues, and to
disapprove of equity and humanity as the most pitiful vices, such a
constitution of mind might indeed be regarded as inconvenient both to
the individual and to the society, and likewise as strange, surprising,
and unnatural in itself; but it could not, without the greatest
absurdity, be denominated vicious or morally evil.
Footnote 26:
Illustrations upon the Moral Sense. Sect. 1. p. 237, et seq. Third
Edition.
Yet surely if we saw any man shouting with admiration and applause at a
barbarous and unmerited execution, which some insolent tyrant had
ordered, we should not think we were guilty of any great absurdity in
denominating this behaviour vicious and morally evil in the highest
degree, though it expressed nothing but depraved moral faculties, or an
absurd approbation of this horrid action, as of what was noble,
magnanimous, and great. Our heart, I imagine, at the sight of such a
spectator, would forget for a while its sympathy with the sufferer, and
feel nothing but horror and detestation, at the thought of so execrable
a wretch. We should abominate him even more than the tyrant who might be
goaded on by the strong passions of jealousy, fear, and resentment, and
upon that account be more excusable. But the sentiments of the spectator
would appear altogether without cause or motive, and therefore most
perfectly and completely detestable. There is no perversion of sentiment
or affection which our heart would be more averse to enter into, or
which it would reject with greater hatred and indignation than one of
this kind; and so far from regarding such a constitution of mind as
being merely something strange or inconvenient, and not in any respect
vicious or morally evil, we should rather consider it as the very last
and most dreadful stage of moral depravity.
Correct moral sentiments, on the contrary, naturally appear in some
degree laudable and morally good. The man, whose censure and applause
are upon all occasions suited with the greatest accuracy to the value or
unworthiness of the object, seems to deserve a degree even of moral
approbation. We admire the delicate precision of his moral sentiments:
they lead our own judgments, and, upon account of their uncommon and
surprising justness, they even excite our wonder and applause. We cannot
indeed be always sure that the conduct of such a person would be in any
respect correspondent to the precision and accuracy of his judgments
concerning the conduct of others. Virtue requires habit and resolution
of mind, as well as delicacy of sentiment; and unfortunately the former
qualities are sometimes wanting, where the latter is in the greatest
perfection. This disposition of mind, however, though it may sometimes
be attended with imperfections, is incompatible with any thing that is
grossly criminal, and is the happiest foundation upon which the
superstructure of perfect virtue can be built. There are many men who
mean very well, and seriously purpose to do what they think their duty,
who notwithstanding are disagreeable on account of the coarseness of
their moral sentiments.
It may be said, perhaps, that though the principle of approbation is not
founded upon any power of perception that is in any respect analogous to
the external senses, it may still be founded upon a peculiar sentiment
which answers this one particular purpose and no other. Approbation and
disapprobation, it may be pretended, are certain feelings or emotions
which arise in the mind upon the view of different characters and
actions; and as resentment might be called a sense of injuries, or
gratitude a sense of benefits, so these may very properly receive the
name of a sense of right and wrong, or of a moral sense.
But this account of things, though it may not be liable to the same
objections with the foregoing, is exposed to others which are equally
unanswerable.
First of all, whatever variations any particular emotion may undergo, it
still preserves the general features which distinguish it to be an
emotion of such a kind, and these general features are always more
striking and remarkable than any variation which it may undergo in
particular cases. Thus anger is an emotion of a particular kind: and
accordingly its general features are always more distinguishable than
all the variations it undergoes in particular cases. Anger against a
man, is, no doubt, somewhat different from anger against a woman, and
that again from anger against a child. In each of those three cases, the
general passion of anger receives a different modification from the
particular character of its object, as may easily be observed by the
attentive. But still the general features of the passion predominate in
all these cases. To distinguish these, requires no nice observation: a
very delicate attention, on the contrary, is necessary to discover their
variations: every body takes notice of the former: scarce any body
observes the latter. If approbation and disapprobation, therefore, were,
like gratitude and resentment, emotions of a particular kind, distinct
from every other, we should expect that in all the variations which
either of them might undergo, it would still retain the general features
which mark it to be an emotion of such a particular kind, clear, plain,
and easily distinguishable. But in fact it happens quite otherwise. If
we attend to what we really feel when upon different occasions we either
approve or disapprove, we shall find that our emotion in one case is
often totally different from that in another, and that no common
features can possibly be discovered between them. Thus the approbation
with which we view a tender, delicate, and humane sentiment, is quite
different from that with which we are struck by one that appears great,
daring, and magnanimous. Our approbation of both may, upon different
occasions, be perfect and entire; but we are softened by the one, and we
are elevated by the other, and there is no sort of resemblance between
the emotions which they excite in us. But, according to that system
which I have been endeavouring to establish, this must necessarily be
the case. As the emotions of the person whom we approve of, are, in
those two cases, quite opposite to one another, and as our approbation
arises from sympathy with those opposite emotions, what we feel upon the
one occasion, can have no sort of resemblance to what we feel upon the
other. But this could not happen if approbation consisted in a peculiar
emotion which had nothing in common with the sentiments we approved of,
but which arose at the view of those sentiments, like any other passion
at the view of its proper object. The same thing holds true with regard
to disapprobation. Our horror for cruelty has no sort of resemblance to
our contempt for mean-spiritedness. It is quite a different species of
discord which we feel at the view of those two different vices, between
our minds and those of the person whose sentiments and behaviour we
consider.
Secondly, I have already observed, that not only the different passions
or affections of the human mind which are approved or disapproved of
appear morally good or evil, but that proper and improper approbation
appear, to our natural sentiments, to be stampt with the same
characters. I would ask, therefore, how it is, that, according to this
system, we approve or disapprove of proper or improper approbation. To
this question, there is, I imagine, but one reasonable answer, which can
possibly be given. It must be said, that when the approbation with which
our neighbour regards the conduct of a third person coincides with our
own, we approve of his approbation, and consider it as, in some measure,
morally good; and that on the contrary, when it does not coincide with
our own sentiments, we disapprove of it, and consider it as, in some
measure, morally evil. It must be allowed, therefore, that, at least in
this one case, the coincidence or opposition of sentiments, between the
observer and the person observed, constitutes moral approbation or
disapprobation. And if it does so in this one case, I would ask, why not
in every other? to what purpose imagine a new power of perception in
order to account for those sentiments?
Against every account of the principle of approbation, which makes it
depend upon a peculiar sentiment, distinct from every other, I would
object; that it is strange that this sentiment, which Providence
undoubtedly intended to be the governing principle of human nature,
should hitherto have been so little taken notice of, as not to have got
a name in any language. The word moral sense is of very late formation,
and cannot yet be considered as making part of the English tongue. The
word approbation has but within these few years been appropriated to
denote peculiarly any thing of this kind. In propriety of language we
approve of whatever is entirely to our satisfaction, of the form of a
building, of the contrivance of a machine, of the flavour of a dish of
meat. The word conscience does not immediately denote any moral faculty
by which we approve or disapprove. Conscience supposes, indeed, the
existence of some such faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness
of having acted agreeably or contrary to its directions. When love,
hatred, joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, with so many other passions
which are all supposed to be the subjects of this principle, have made
themselves considerable enough to get titles to know them by, is it not
surprising that the sovereign of them all should hitherto have been so
little heeded, that, a few philosophers excepted, no body has yet
thought it worth while to bestow a name upon it?
When we approve of any character or action, the sentiments which we
feel, are, according to the foregoing system, derived from four sources,
which are in some respects different from one another. First, we
sympathize with the motives of the agent; secondly, we enter into the
gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions; thirdly, we
observe that his conduct has been agreeable to the general rules by
which those two sympathies generally act; and, last of all, when we
consider such actions as making part of a system of behaviour which
tends to promote the happiness either of the individual or of the
society, they appear to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike
that which we ascribe to any well contrived machine. After deducting, in
any one particular case, all that must be acknowledged to proceed from
some one or other of these four principles, I should be glad to know
what remains, and I shall freely allow this overplus to be ascribed to a
moral sense, or to any other peculiar faculty, provided any body will
ascertain precisely what this overplus is. It might be expected,
perhaps, that if there was any such peculiar principle, such as this
moral sense is supposed to be, we should feel it, in some particular
cases, separated and detached from every other, as we often feel joy,
sorrow, hope, and fear, pure and unmixed with any other emotion. This
however, I imagine, cannot even be pretended. I have never heard any
instance alleged in which this principle could be said to exert itself
alone and unmixed with sympathy or antipathy, with gratitude or
resentment, with the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any
action to an established rule, or last of all with that general taste
for beauty and order which is excited by inanimated as well as by
animated objects.
II. There is another system which attempts to account for the origin of
our moral sentiments from sympathy distinct from that which I have been
endeavouring to establish. It is that which places virtue in utility,
and accounts for the pleasure with which the spectator surveys the
utility of any quality from sympathy with the happiness of those who are
affected by it. This sympathy is different both from that by which we
enter into the motives of the agent, and from that by which we go along
with the gratitude of the persons who are benefited by his actions. It
is the same principle with that by which we approve of a well contrived
machine. But no machine can be the object of either of those two last
mentioned sympathies. I have already, in the fourth part of this
discourse, given some account of this system.
SECTION IV.
Of the manner in which different authors have treated of the practical
rules of morality.
It was observed in the third part of this discourse, that the rules of
justice are the only rules of morality which are precise and accurate;
that those of all the other virtues are loose, vague, and indeterminate;
that the first may be compared to the rules of grammar; the others to
those which critics lay down for the attainment of what is sublime and
elegant in composition, and which present us rather with a general idea
of the perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and
infallible directions for acquiring it.
As the different rules of morality admit such different degrees of
accuracy, those authors who have endeavoured to collect and digest them
into systems have done it in two different manners; and one set has
followed thro’ the whole that loose method to which they were naturally
directed by the consideration of one species of virtues; while another
has as universally endeavoured to introduce into their precepts that
sort of accuracy of which only some of them are susceptible. The first
have wrote like critics, the second like grammarians.
I. The first, among whom we may count all the ancient moralists, have
contented themselves with describing in a general manner the different
vices and virtues, and with pointing out the deformity and misery of the
one disposition as well as the propriety and happiness of the other, but
have not affected to lay down many precise rules that are to hold good
unexceptionably in all particular cases. They have only endeavoured to
ascertain, as far as language is capable of ascertaining, first, wherein
consists the sentiment of the heart, upon which each particular virtue
is founded, what sort of internal feeling or emotion it is which
constitutes the essence of friendship, of humanity, of generosity, of
justice, of magnanimity, and of all the other virtues, as well as of the
vices which are opposed to them: and, secondly, What is the general way
of acting, the ordinary tone and tenour of conduct to which each of
those sentiments would direct us, or how it is that a friendly, a
generous, a brave, a just, and a humane man, would, upon ordinary
occasions, chuse to act.
To characterize the sentiment of the heart, upon which each particular
virtue is founded, though it requires both a delicate and accurate
pencil, is a talk, however, which may be executed with some degree of
exactness. It is impossible, indeed, to express all the variations which
each sentiment either does or ought to undergo, according to every
possible variation of circumstances. They are endless, and language
wants names to mark them by. The sentiment of friendship, for example,
which we feel for an old man is different from that which we feel for a
young: that which we entertain for an austere man different from that
which we feel for one of softer and gentler manners: and that again from
what we feel for one of gay vivacity and spirit. The friendship which we
conceive for a man is different from that with which a woman affects us,
even where there is no mixture of any grosser passion. What author could
enumerate and ascertain these and all the other infinite varieties which
this sentiment is capable of undergoing? But still the general sentiment
of friendship and familiar attachment which is common to them all, may
be ascertained with a sufficient degree of accuracy. The picture which
is drawn of it, though it will always be in many respects incomplete,
may, however, have such a resemblance as to make us know the original
when we meet with it, and even distinguish it from other sentiments to
which it has a considerable resemblance, such as good-will, respect,
esteem, admiration.
To describe, in a general manner, what is the ordinary way of acting to
which each virtue would prompt us, is still more easy. It is, indeed,
scarce possible to describe the internal sentiment or emotion upon which
it is founded, without doing something of this kind. It is impossible by
language to express, if I may say so, the invisible features of all the
different modifications of passion as they show themselves within. There
is no other way of marking and distinguishing them from one another, but
by describing the effects which they produce without, the alterations
which they occasion in the countenance, in the air and external
behaviour, the resolutions they suggest, the actions they prompt to. It
is thus that Cicero, in the first book of his Offices, endeavours to
direct us to the practice of the four cardinal virtues, and that
Aristotle in the practical parts of his Ethics, points out to us the
different habits by which he would have us regulate our behaviour, such
as liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, and even jocularity and good
humour, qualities, which that indulgent philosopher has thought worthy
of a place in the catalogue of the virtues, though the lightness of that
approbation which we naturally bestow upon them, should not seem to
entitle them to so venerable a name.
Such works present us with agreeable and lively pictures of manners. By
the vivacity of their descriptions they inflame our natural love of
virtue, and increase our abhorrence of vice: by the justness as well as
delicacy of their observations they may often help both to correct and
to ascertain our natural sentiments with regard to the propriety of
conduct, and suggesting many nice and delicate attentions, form us to a
more exact justness of behaviour, than what, without such instruction,
we should have been apt to think of. In treating of the rules of
morality, in this manner, consists the science which is properly called
Ethics, a science, which though like criticism, it does not admit of the
most accurate precision, is, however, both highly useful and agreeable.
It is of all others the most susceptible of the embellishments of
eloquence, and by means of them of bestowing, if that be possible, a new
importance upon the smallest rules of duty. Its precepts, when thus
dressed and adorned, are capable of producing upon the flexibility of
youth, the noblest and most lasting impressions, and as they fall in
with the natural magnanimity of that generous age, they are able to
inspire, for a time at least, the most heroic resolutions, and thus tend
both to establish and confirm the best and most useful habits of which
the mind of man is susceptible. Whatever precept and exhortation can do
to animate us to the practice of virtue, is done by this science
delivered in this manner.
II. The second set of moralists, among whom we may count all the
casuists of the middle and latter ages of the christian church, as well
as all those who in this and in the preceding century have treated of
what is called natural jurisprudence, do not content themselves with
characterizing in this general manner that tenour of conduct which they
would recommend to us, but endeavour to lay down exact and precise rules
for the direction of every circumstance of our behaviour. As justice is
the only virtue with regard to which such exact rules can properly be
given; it is this virtue, that has chiefly fallen under the
consideration of those two different sets of writers. They treat of it,
however, in a very different manner.
Those who write upon the principles of jurisprudence, consider only what
the person to whom the obligation is due, ought to think himself
entitled to exact by force; what every impartial spectator would approve
of him for exacting, or what a judge or arbiter, to whom he had
submitted his case, and who had undertaken to do him justice, ought to
oblige the other person to suffer or to perform. The casuists, on the
other hand, do not so much examine what it is, that might properly be
exacted by force, as what it is, that the person who owes the obligation
ought to think himself bound to perform from the most sacred and
scrupulous regard to the general rules of justice, and from the most
conscientious dread, either of wronging his neighbour, or of violating
the integrity of his own character. It is the end of jurisprudence to
prescribe rules for the decisions of judges and arbiters. It is the end
of casuistry to prescribe rules for the conduct of a good man. By
observing all the rules of jurisprudence, supposing them ever so
perfect, we should deserve nothing but to be free from external
punishment. By observing those of casuistry, supposing them such as they
ought to be, we should be entitled to considerable praise by the exact
and scrupulous delicacy of our behaviour.
It may frequently happen that a good man ought to think himself bound,
from a sacred and conscientious regard to the general rules of justice
to perform many things which it would be the highest injustice to extort
from him, or for any judge or arbiter to impose on him by force. To give
a trite example; a highwayman, by the fear of death, obliges a traveller
to promise him a certain sum of money. Whether such a promise, extorted
in this manner by unjust force, ought to be regarded as obligatory, is a
question that has been very much debated.
If we consider it merely as a question of jurisprudence, the decision
can admit of no doubt. It would be absurd to suppose that the highwayman
can be entitled to use force to constrain the other to perform. To
extort the promise was a crime which deserved the highest punishment,
and to extort the performance would only be adding a new crime to the
former. He can complain of no injury who has been only deceived by the
person by whom he might justly have been killed. To suppose that a judge
ought to enforce the obligation of such promises, or that the magistrate
ought to allow them to sustain an action at law, would be the most
ridiculous of all absurdities. If we consider this question, therefore,
as a question of jurisprudence, we can be at no loss about the decision.
But if we consider it as a question of casuistry, it will not be so
easily determined. Whether a good man, from a conscientious regard to
that most sacred rule of justice, which commands the observance of all
serious promises, would not think himself bound to perform, is at least
much more doubtful. That no regard is due to the disappointment of the
wretch who brings him into this situation, that no injury is done to the
robber, and consequently that nothing can be extorted by force, will
admit of no sort of dispute. But whether some regard is not, in this
case, due to his own dignity and honour, to the inviolable sacredness of
that part of his character which makes him reverence the law of truth,
and abhor every thing that approaches to treachery and falsehood, may,
perhaps, more reasonably be made a question. The casuists accordingly
are greatly divided about it. One party, with whom we may count Cicero
among the ancients, among the moderns, Puffendorf, Barbeyrac his
commentator, and above all the late Dr. Hutcheson, one who in most cases
was by no means a loose casuist, determine, without any hesitation, that
no sort of regard is due to any such promise, and that to think
otherwise is mere weakness and superstition. Another party, among whom
we may reckon [27]some of the ancient fathers of the church, as well as
some very eminent modern casuists, have been of another opinion, and
have judged all such promises obligatory.
Footnote 27:
St. Augustine, la Placette.
If we consider the matter according to the common sentiments of mankind,
we shall find that some regard would be thought due even to a promise of
this kind; but that it is impossible to determine how much, by any
general rule that will apply to all cases without exception. The man who
was quite frank and easy in making promises of this kind, and who
violated them with as little ceremony, we should not choose for our
friend and companion. A gentleman who should promise a highwayman five
pounds and not perform, would incur some blame. If the sum promised,
however, was very great, it might be more doubtful, what was proper to
be done. If it was such, for example, that the payment of it would
entirely ruin the family of the promiser, if it was so great as to be
sufficient for promoting the most useful purposes, it would appear in
some measure criminal, at least extremely improper, to throw it, for the
sake of a punctilio, into such worthless hands. The man who should
beggar himself, or who should throw away an hundred thousand pounds,
though he could afford that vast sum, for the sake of observing such a
parole with a thief, would appear to the common sense of mankind, absurd
and extravagant in the highest degree. Such profusion would seem
inconsistent with his duty, with what he owed both to himself and
others, and what, therefore, regard, to a promise extorted in this
manner, could by no means authorize. To fix, however, by any precise
rule, what degree of regard ought to be paid to it, or what might be the
greatest sum which could be due from it, is evidently impossible. This
would vary according to the characters of the persons, according to
their circumstances, according to the solemnity of the promise, and even
according to the incidents of the rencounter: and if the promiser had
been treated with a great deal of that sort of gallantry, which is
sometimes to be met with in persons of the most abandoned characters,
more would seem due than upon other occasions. It may be said in
general, that exact propriety requires the observance of all such
promises, whenever it is not inconsistent with some other duties that
are more sacred; such as regard to the public interest, to those whom
gratitude, whom natural affection, or whom the laws of proper
beneficence should prompt us to provide for. But, as was formerly taken
notice of, we have no precise rules to determine what external actions
are due from a regard to such motives, nor, consequently, when it is
that those virtues are inconsistent with the observance of such
promises.
It is to be observed, however, that whenever such promises are violated,
though for the most necessary reasons, it is always with some degree of
dishonour to the person who made them. After they are made, we may be
convinced of the impropriety of observing them. But still there is some
fault in having made them. It is at least a departure from the highest
and noblest maxims of magnanimity and honour. A brave man ought to die,
rather than make a promise which he can neither keep without folly, nor
violate without ignominy. For some degree of ignominy always attends a
situation of this kind. Treachery and falsehood are vices so dangerous,
so dreadful, and, at the same time, such as may so easily, and, upon
many occasions, so safely be indulged, that we are more jealous of them
than of almost any other. Our imagination therefore attaches the idea of
shame to all violations of faith, in every circumstance and in every
situation. They resemble, in this respect, the violations of chastity in
the fair sex, a virtue of which, for the like reasons, we are
excessively jealous; and our sentiments are not more delicate with
regard to the one, than with regard to the other. Breach of chastity
dishonours irretrievably. No circumstances, no solicitation can excuse
it; no sorrow, no repentance atone for it. We are so nice in this
respect that even a rape dishonours, and the innocence of the mind
cannot, in our imagination, wash out the pollution of the body. It is
the same case with the violation of faith, when it has been solemnly
pledged, even to the most worthless of mankind. Fidelity is so necessary
a virtue, that we apprehend it in general to be due even to those to
whom nothing else is due, and whom we think it lawful to kill and
destroy. It is to no purpose that the person who has been guilty of the
breach of it, urges that he promised in order to save his life, and that
he broke his promise because it was inconsistent with some other
respectable duty to keep it. These circumstances may alleviate, but
cannot entirely wipe out his dishonour. He appears to have been guilty
of an action with which, in the imaginations of men, some degree of
shame is inseparably connected. He has broke a promise which he had
solemnly averred he would maintain; and his character, if not
irretrievably stained and polluted, has at least a ridicule affixed to
it, which it will be very difficult entirely to efface; and no man, I
imagine, who had gone through an adventure of this kind, would be fond
of telling the story.
This instance may serve to show wherein consists the difference between
casuistry and jurisprudence, even when both of them consider the
obligations of the general rules of justice.
But though this difference be real and essential, though those two
sciences propose quite different ends, the sameness of the subject has
made such a similarity between them, that the greater part of authors
whose professed design was to treat of jurisprudence, have determined
the different questions they examine, sometimes according to the
principles of that science, and sometimes according to those of
casuistry, without distinguishing, and, perhaps, without being
themselves aware when they did the one, and when the other.
The doctrine of the casuists, however, is by no means confined to the
consideration of what a conscientious regard to the general rules of
justice, would demand of us. It embraces many other parts of Christian
and moral duty. What seems principally to have given occasion to the
cultivation of this species of science was the custom of auricular
confession, introduced by the Roman Catholic superstition, in times of
barbarism and ignorance. By that institution, the most secret actions,
and even the thoughts of every person, which could be suspected of
receding in the smallest degree from the rules of Christian purity, were
to be revealed to the confessor. The confessor informed his penitents
whether, and in what respect they had violated their duty, and what
penance it behoved them to undergo, before he could absolve them in the
name of the offended Deity.
The consciousness, or even the suspicion of having done wrong, is a load
upon every mind, and is accompanied with anxiety and terror in all those
who are not hardened by long habits of iniquity. Men, in this, as in all
other distresses, are naturally eager to disburthen themselves of the
oppression which they feel upon their thoughts, by unbosoming the agony
of their mind to some person whose secrecy and discretion they can
confide in. The shame, which they suffer from this acknowledgment, is
fully compensated by that alleviation of their uneasiness which the
sympathy of their confident seldom fails to occasion. It relieves them
to find that they are not altogether unworthy of regard, and that
however their past conduct may be censured, their present disposition is
at least approved of, and is perhaps sufficient to compensate the other,
at least to maintain them in some degree of esteem with their friend. A
numerous and artful clergy had, in those times of superstition,
insinuated themselves into the confidence of almost every private
family. They possessed all the little learning which the times could
afford, and their manners, though in many respects rude and disorderly,
were polished and regular compared with those of the age they lived in.
They were regarded, therefore, not only as the great directors of all
religious, but of all moral duties. Their familiarity gave reputation to
whoever was so happy as to possess it, and every mark of their
disapprobation stamped the deepest ignominy upon all who had the
misfortune to fall under it. Being considered as the great judges of
right and wrong, they were naturally consulted about all scruples that
occurred, and it was reputable for any person to have it known that he
made those holy men the confidents of all such secrets, and took no
important or delicate step in his conduct without their advice and
approbation. It was not difficult for the clergy, therefore, to get it
established as a general rule, that they should be entrusted with what
it had already become fashionable to entrust them, and with what they
generally would have been entrusted though no such rule had been
established. To qualify themselves for confessors became thus a
necessary part of the study of churchmen and divines, and they were
thence led to collect what are called cases of conscience, nice and
delicate situations, in which it is hard to determine whereabouts the
propriety of conduct may lie. Such works, they imagined, might be of use
both to the directors of consciences and to those who were to be
directed; and hence the origin of books of casuistry.
The moral duties which fell under the consideration of the casuists were
chiefly those which can, in some measure at least, be circumscribed
within general rules, and of which the violation is naturally attended
with some degree of remorse and some dread of suffering punishment. The
design of that institution which gave occasion to their works, was to
appease those terrors of conscience which attend upon the infringement
of such duties. But it is not every virtue of which the defect is
accompanied with any very severe compunctions of this kind, and no man
applies to his confessor for absolution, because he did not perform the
most generous, the most friendly, or the most magnanimous action which,
in his circumstances, it was possible to perform. In failures of this
kind, the rule that is violated is commonly not very determinate, and is
generally of such a nature too, that though the observance of it might
entitle to honour and reward, the violation seems to expose to no
positive blame, censure, or punishment. The exercise of such virtues the
casuists seem to have regarded as a sort of works of supererogation,
which could not be very strictly enacted, and which it was therefore
unnecessary for them to treat of.
The breaches of moral duty, therefore, which came before the tribunal of
the confessor, and upon that account fell under the cognizance of the
casuists, were chiefly of three different kinds.
First and principally, breaches of the rules of justice. The rules here
are all express and positive, and the violation of them is naturally
attended with the consciousness of deserving, and the dread of suffering
punishment both from God and man.
Secondly, breaches of the rules of chastity. These in all grosser
instances are real breaches of the rules of justice, and no person can
be guilty of them without doing the most unpardonable injury to some
other. In smaller instances, when they amount only to a violation of
those exact decorums which ought to be observed in the conversation of
the two sexes, they cannot indeed justly be considered as violations of
the rules of justice. They are generally, however, violations of a
pretty plain rule, and, at least in one of the sexes, tend to bring
ignominy upon the person who has been guilty of them, and consequently
to be attended in the scrupulous with some degree of shame and
contrition of mind.
Thirdly, breaches of the rules of veracity. The violation of truth, it
is to be observed, is not always a breach of justice, though it is so
upon many occasions, and consequently cannot always expose to any
external punishment. The vice of common lying, though a most miserable
meanness, may frequently do hurt to no person, and in this case no claim
of vengeance or satisfaction can be due either to the persons imposed
upon, or to others. But though the violation of truth is not always a
breach of justice, it is always a breach of a very plain rule, and what
naturally tends to cover with shame the person who has been guilty of
it. The great pleasure of conversation, and indeed of society, arises
from a certain correspondence of sentiments and opinions, from a certain
harmony of minds, which like so many musical instruments coincide and
keep time with one another. But this most delightful harmony cannot be
obtained unless there is a free communication of sentiments and
opinions. We all desire, upon this account, to feel how each other is
affected, to penetrate into each other’s bosoms, and to observe the
sentiments and affections which really subsist there. The man who
indulges us in this natural passion, who invites us into his heart, who,
as it were, sets open the gates of his breast to us, seems to exercise a
species of hospitality more delightful than any other. No man, who is in
ordinary good temper, can fail of pleasing, if he has the courage to
utter his real sentiments as he feels them, and because he feels them.
It is this unreserved sincerity which renders even the prattle of a
child agreeable. How weak and imperfect soever the views of the
open-hearted, we take pleasure to enter into them, and endeavour, as
much as we can, to bring down our own understanding to the level of
their capacities, and to regard every subject in the particular light in
which they appear to have considered it. This passion to discover the
real sentiments of others is naturally so strong, that it often
degenerates into a troublesome and impertinent curiosity to pry into
those secrets of our neighbours which they have very justifiable reasons
for concealing, and, upon many occasions, it requires prudence and a
strong sense of propriety to govern this, as well as all the other
passions of human nature, and to reduce it to that pitch which any
impartial spectator can approve of. To disappoint this curiosity,
however, when it is kept within proper bounds, and aims at nothing which
there can be any just reason for concealing, is equally disagreeable in
its turn. The man who eludes our most innocent questions, who gives no
satisfaction to our most inoffensive inquiries, who plainly wraps
himself up in impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a wall
about his breast. We run forward to get within it, with all the
eagerness of harmless curiosity, and feel ourselves all at once pushed
back with the rudest and most offensive violence. If to conceal is so
disagreeable, to attempt to deceive us is still more disgusting, even
though we could possibly suffer nothing by the success of the fraud. If
we see that our companion wants to impose upon us, if the sentiments and
opinions which he utters appear evidently not to be his own, let them be
ever so fine, we can derive no sort of entertainment from them; and if
something of human nature did not now and then transpire through all the
covers which falsehood and affectation are capable of wrapping around
it, a puppet of wood would be altogether as pleasant a companion as a
person who never spoke as he was affected. No man ever deceives, with
regard to the most insignificant matters, who is not conscious of doing
something like an injury to those he converses with; and who does not
inwardly blush and shrink back with shame and confusion even at the
secret thought of a detection. Breach of veracity, therefore, being
always attended with some degree of remorse and self-condemnation,
naturally fell under the cognizance of the casuists.
The chief subjects of the works of the casuists, therefore, were the
conscientious regard that is due to the rules of justice; how far we
ought to respect the life and property of our neighbour; the duty of
restitution; the laws of chastity and modesty, and wherein consisted
what, in their language, are called the sins of concupiscence: the rules
of veracity, and the obligation of oaths, promises, and contracts of all
kinds.
It may be said in general of the works of the casuists that they
attempted, to no purpose, to direct by precise rules what belongs to
feeling and sentiment only to judge of. How is it possible to ascertain
by rules the exact point at which, in every case, a delicate sense of
justice begins to run into a frivolous and weak scrupulosity of
conscience? When it is that secrecy and reserve begin to grow into
dissimulation? How far an agreeable irony may be carried, and at what
precise point it begins to degenerate into a detestable lie? What is the
highest pitch of freedom and ease of behaviour which can be regarded as
graceful and becoming, and when it is that it first begins to run into a
negligent and thoughtless licentiousness? With regard to all such
matters, what would hold good in any one case would scarce do so exactly
in any other, and what constitutes the propriety and happiness of
behaviour varies in every case with the smallest variety of situation.
Books of casuistry, therefore, are generally as useless as they are
commonly tiresome. They could be of little use to one who should consult
them upon occasion, even supposing their decisions to be just; because,
notwithstanding the multitude of cases collected in them, yet upon
account of the still greater variety of possible circumstances, it is a
chance, if among all those cases there be found one exactly parallel to
that under consideration. One, who is really anxious to do his duty,
must be very weak, if he can imagine that he has much occasion for them;
and with regard to one who is negligent of it, the style of those
writings is not such as is likely to awaken him to more attention. None
of them tend to animate us to what is generous and noble. None of them
tend to soften us to what is gentle and humane. Many of them, on the
contrary, tend rather to teach us to chicane with our own consciences,
and by their vain subtilties serve to authorize innumerable evasive
refinements with regard to the most essential articles of our duty. That
frivolous accuracy which they attempted to introduce into subjects which
do not admit of it, almost necessarily betrayed them into those
dangerous errors, and at the same time rendered their works dry and
disagreeable, abounding in abstruse and metaphysical distinctions, but
incapable of exciting in the heart any of those emotions which it is the
principal use of books of morality to excite.
The two useful parts of moral philosophy, therefore, are Ethics and
Jurisprudence: casuistry ought to be rejected altogether, and the
ancient moralists appear to have judged much better, who, in treating of
the same subjects, did not affect any such nice exactness, but contented
themselves with describing, in a general manner, what is the sentiment
upon which justice, modesty, and veracity are founded, and what is the
ordinary way of acting to which those virtues would commonly prompt us.
Something, indeed, not unlike the doctrine of the casuists, seems to
have been attempted by several philosophers. There is something of this
kind in the third book of Cicero’s Offices, where he endeavours like a
casuist to give rules for our conduct in many nice cases, in which it is
difficult to determine whereabouts the point of propriety may lie. It
appears too, from many passages in the same book, that several other
philosophers had attempted something of the same kind before him.
Neither he nor they, however, appear to have aimed at giving a complete
system of this sort, but only meant to show how situations may occur, in
which it is doubtful, whether the highest propriety of conduct consists
in observing or in receding from what, in ordinary cases, are the rules
of duty.
Every system of positive law may be regarded as a more or less imperfect
attempt towards a system of natural jurisprudence, or towards an
enumeration of the particular rules of justice. As the violation of
justice is what men will never submit to from one another, the public
magistrate is under a necessity of employing the power of the
commonwealth to enforce the practice of this virtue. Without this
precaution, civil society would become a scene of bloodshed and
disorder, every man revenging himself at his own hand whenever he
fancied he was injured. To prevent the confusion which would attend upon
every man’s doing justice to himself, the magistrate, in all governments
that have acquired any considerable authority, undertakes to do justice
to all, and promises to hear and to redress every complaint of injury.
In all well-governed states too, not only judges are appointed for
determining the controversies of individuals, but rules are prescribed
for regulating the decisions of those judges; and these rules are, in
general, intended to coincide with those of natural justice. It does
not, indeed, always happen that they do so in every instance. Sometimes
what is called the constitution of the state, that is, the interest of
the government; sometimes of the interest of particular orders of men
who tyrannize the government, warp the positive laws of the country from
what natural justice would prescribe. In some countries, the rudeness
and barbarism of the people hinder the natural sentiments of justice
from arriving at that accuracy and precision which, in more civilized
nations, they naturally attain to. Their laws are, like their manners,
gross and rude and undistinguishing. In other countries the unfortunate
constitution of their courts of judicature hinders any regular system of
jurisprudence from ever establishing itself among them, though the
improved manners of the people may be such as would admit of the most
accurate. In no country do the decisions of positive law coincide
exactly, in every case, with the rules which the natural sense of
justice would dictate. Systems of positive law, therefore, though they
deserve the greatest authority, as the records of the sentiments of
mankind in different ages and nations, yet can never be regarded as
accurate systems of the rules of natural justice.
It might have been expected that the reasonings of lawyers, upon the
different imperfections and improvements of the laws of different
countries, should have given occasion to an inquiry into what were the
natural rules of justice independent of all positive institution. It
might have been expected that these reasonings should have led them to
aim at establishing a system of what might properly be called natural
jurisprudence, or a theory of the general principles which ought to run
through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations. But tho’ the
reasonings of lawyers did produce something of this kind, and though no
man has treated systematically of the laws of any particular country,
without intermixing in his work many observations of this sort; it was
very late in the world before any such general system was thought of, or
before the philosophy of law was treated of by itself, and without
regard to the particular institutions of any one nation. In none of the
ancient moralists, do we find any attempt towards a particular
enumeration of the rules of justice. Cicero in his Offices, and
Aristotle in his Ethics, treat of justice in the same general manner in
which they treat of all the other virtues. In the laws of Cicero and
Plato, where we might naturally have expected some attempts towards an
enumeration of those rules of natural equity, which ought to be enforced
by the positive laws of every country, there is however, nothing of this
kind. Their laws are laws of police, not of justice. Grotius seems to
have been the first, who attempted to give the world any thing like a
system of those principles which ought to run through, and be the
foundation of the laws of all nations; and his treatise of the laws of
war and peace, with all its imperfections, is perhaps at this day the
most complete work that has yet been given upon this subject. I shall in
another discourse endeavour to give an account of the general principles
of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have
undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in what
concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and
whatever else is the object of law. I shall not, therefore, at present
enter into any further detail concerning the history of jurisprudence.
THE END.
CONSIDERATIONS
Concerning the FIRST
FORMATION OF LANGUAGES,
AND THE
Different Genius of original and compounded LANGUAGES.
The assignation of particular names, to denote particular objects, that
is, the institution of nouns substantive, would, probably, be one of the
first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages, who had
never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the
societies of men, would naturally begin to form that language by which
they would endeavour to make their mutual wants intelligible to each
other, by uttering certain sounds, whenever they meant to denote certain
objects. Those objects only which were most familiar to them, and which
they had most frequent occasion to mention, would have particular names
assigned to them. The particular cave whose covering sheltered them from
the weather, the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the
particular fountain whose water allayed their thirst, would first be
denoted by the words _cave_, _tree_, _fountain_, or by whatever other
appellations they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark
them. Afterwards, when the more enlarged experience of these savages had
led them to observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to make
mention of, other caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they
would naturally bestow, upon each of those new objects, the same name,
by which they had been accustomed to express the similar object they
were first acquainted with. The new objects had none of them any name of
its own, but each of them exactly resembled another object, which had
such an appellation. It was impossible that those savages could behold
the new objects, without recollecting the old ones; and the name of the
old ones, to which the new bore so close a resemblance. When they had
occasion, therefore, to mention, or to point out to each other, any of
the new objects, they would naturally utter the name of the
correspondent old one, of which the idea could not fail, at that
instant, to present itself to their memory in the strongest and
liveliest manner. And thus, those words, which were originally the
proper names of individuals, would each of them insensibly become the
common name of a multitude. A child that is just learning to speak,
calls every person who comes to the house its papa or its mama; and thus
bestows upon the whole species those names which it had been taught to
apply to two individuals. I have known a clown, who did not know the
proper name of the river which ran by his own door. It was _the river_,
he said, and he never heard any other name for it. His experience, it
seems, had not led him to observe any other river. The general word
_river_, therefore, was, it is evident, in his acceptance of it, a
proper name, signifying an individual object. If this person had been
carried to another river, would he not readily have called it a river?
Could we suppose any person living on the banks of the Thames so
ignorant, as not to know the general word _river_, but to be acquainted
only with the particular word _Thames_, if he was brought to any other
river, would he not readily call it a _Thames_? This, in reality, is no
more than what they, who are well acquainted with the general word, are
very apt to do. An Englishman, describing any great river which he may
have seen in some foreign country, naturally says, that it is another
Thames. The Spaniards, when they first arrived upon the coast of Mexico,
and observed the wealth, populousness, and habitations of that fine
country, so much superior to the savage nations which they had been
visiting for some time before, cried out, that it was another Spain.
Hence it was called New Spain; and this name has stuck to that
unfortunate country ever since. We say, in the same manner, of a hero,
that he is an Alexander; of an orator, that he is a Cicero; of a
philosopher, that he is a Newton. This way of speaking, which the
grammarians call an Antonomasia, and which is still extremely common,
though now not at all necessary, demonstrates how much mankind are
naturally disposed to give to one object the name of any other, which
nearly resembles it, and thus to denominate a multitude, by what
originally was intended to express an individual.
It is this application of the name of an individual to a great multitude
of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the idea of that
individual, and of the name which expresses it, that seems originally to
have given occasion to the formation of those classes and assortments,
which, in the schools, are called genera and species, and of which the
ingenious and eloquent M. Rousseau of Geneva[28], finds himself so much
at a loss to account for the origin. What constitutes a species is
merely a number of objects, bearing a certain degree of resemblance to
one another, and on that account denominated by a single appellation,
which may be applied to express any one of them.
Footnote 28:
Origine de l’Inegalité. Partie premiere, p. 376, 377, Edition
d’Amsterdam, des Oeuvres diverses de J. J. Rousseau.
When the greater part of objects had thus been arranged under their
proper classes and assortments, distinguished by such general names, it
was impossible that the greater part of that almost infinite number of
individuals, comprehended under each particular assortment or species,
could have any peculiar or proper names of their own, distinct from the
general name of the species. When there was occasion, therefore, to
mention any particular object, it often became necessary to distinguish
it from the other objects comprehended under the same general name,
either, first, by its peculiar qualities; or, secondly, by the peculiar
relation which it stood in to some other things. Hence the necessary
origin of two other sets of words, of which the one should express
quality; the other relation.
Nouns adjective are the words which express quality considered as
qualifying, or, as the schoolmen say, in concrete with, some particular
subject. Thus the word _green_ expresses a certain quality considered as
qualifying, or as in concrete with, the particular subject to which it
may be applied. Words of this kind, it is evident, may serve to
distinguish particular objects from others comprehended under the same
general appellation. The words _green tree_, for example, might serve to
distinguish a particular tree from others that were withered or blasted.
Prepositions are the words which express relation considered, in the
same manner, in concrete with the co-relative object. Thus the
prepositions _of_, _to_, _for_, _with_, _by_, _above_, _below_, _&c._
denote some relation subsisting between the objects expressed by the
words between which the prepositions are placed; and they denote that
this relation is considered in concrete with the co-relative object.
Words of this kind serve to distinguish particular objects from others
of the same species, when those particular objects cannot be so properly
marked out by any peculiar qualities of their own. When we say, _the
green tree of the meadow_, for example, we distinguish a particular
tree, not only by the quality which belongs to it, but by the relation
which it stands in to another object.
As neither quality nor relation can exist in abstract, it is natural to
suppose that the words which denote them considered in concrete, the way
in which we always see them subsist, would be of much earlier invention,
than those which express them considered in abstract, the way in which
we never see them subsist. The words _green_ and _blue_ would, in all
probability, be sooner invented than the words _greenness_ and
_blueness_; the words _above_ and _below_, than the words _superiority_
and _inferiority_. To invent words of the latter kind requires a much
greater effort of abstraction than to invent those of the former. It is
probable, therefore, that such abstract terms would be of much later
institution. Accordingly, their etymologies generally show that they are
so, they being generally derived from others that are concrete.
But though the invention of nouns adjective be much more natural than
that of the abstract nouns substantive derived from them, it would
still, however, require a considerable degree of abstraction and
generalization. Those, for example, who first invented the words,
_green_, _blue_, _red_, and the other names of colours, must have
observed and compared together a great number of objects, must have
remarked their resemblances and dissimilitudes in respect of the quality
of colour, and must have arranged them, in their own minds, into
different classes and assortments, according to those resemblances and
dissimilitudes. An adjective is by nature a general, and in some
measure, an abstract word, and necessarily presupposes the idea of a
certain species or assortment of things, to all of which it is equally
applicable. The word _green_ could not, as we were supposing might be
the case of the word _cave_, have been originally the name of an
individual, and afterwards have become, by what grammarians call an
Antonomasia the name of a species. The word _green_ denoting, not the
name of a substance, but the peculiar quality of a substance, must from
the very first have been a general word, and considered as equally
applicable to any other substance possessed of the same quality. The man
who first distinguished a particular object by the epithet of _green_,
must have observed other objects that were not _green_, from which he
meant to separate it by this appellation. The institution of this name,
therefore, supposes comparison. It likewise supposes some degree of
abstraction. The person who first invented this appellation must have
distinguished the quality from the object to which it belonged, and must
have conceived the object as capable of subsisting without the quality.
The invention, therefore, even of the simplest nouns adjective, must
have required more metaphysics than we are apt to be aware of. The
different mental operations, of arrangement or classing, of comparison,
and of abstraction, must all have been employed, before even the names
of the different colours, the least metaphysical of all nouns adjective,
could be instituted. From all which I infer, that when languages were
beginning to be formed, nouns adjective would by no means be the words
of the earliest invention.
There is another expedient for denoting the different qualities of
different substances, which as it requires no abstraction, nor any
conceived separation of the quality from the subject, seems more natural
than the invention of nouns adjective, and which, upon this account,
could hardly fail, in the first formation of language, to be thought of
before them. This expedient is to make some variation upon the noun
substantive itself, according to the different qualities which it is
endowed with. Thus, in many languages, the qualities both of sex and of
the want of sex, are expressed by different terminations in the nouns
substantive, which denote objects so qualified. In Latin, for example,
_lupus_, _lupa_; _equus_, _equa_; _juvencus_, _juvenca_; _Julius_,
_Julia_; _Lucretius_, _Lucretia_, &c. denote the qualities of male and
female in the animals and persons to whom such appellations belong,
without needing the addition of any adjective for this purpose. On the
other hand, the words _forum_, _pratum_, _plaustrum_, denote by their
peculiar termination the total absence of sex in the different
substances which they stand for. Both sex, and the want of all sex,
being naturally considered as qualities modifying and inseparable from
the particular substances to which they belong, it was natural to
express them rather by a modification in the noun substantive, than by
any general and abstract word expressive of this particular species of
quality. The expression bears, it is evident, in this way, a much more
exact analogy to the idea or object which it denotes, than in the other.
The quality appears, in nature, as a modification of the substance, and
as it is thus expressed, in language, by a modification of the noun
substantive, which denotes that substance, the quality and the subject
are, in this case, blended together, if I may say so, in the expression,
in the same manner, as they appear to be in the object and in the idea.
Hence the origin of the masculine, feminine, and neutral genders, in all
the ancient languages. By means of these, the most important of all
distinctions, that of substances into animated and inanimated, and that
of animals into male and female, seem to have been sufficiently marked
without the assistance of adjectives, or of any general names denoting
this most extensive species of qualifications.
There are no more than these three genders in any of the languages with
which I am acquainted; that is to say, the formation of nouns
substantive, can, by itself, and without the accompaniment of
adjectives, express no other qualities but those three above-mentioned,
the qualities of male, of female, of neither male nor female. I should
not, however, be surprised, if, in other languages with which I am
unacquainted, the different formations of nouns substantive should be
capable of expressing many other different qualities. The different
diminutives of the Italian, and of some other languages, do, in reality,
sometimes, express a great variety of different modifications in the
substances denoted by those nouns which undergo such variations.
It was impossible, however, that nouns substantive could, without losing
altogether their original form, undergo so great a number of variations,
as would be sufficient to express that almost infinite variety of
qualities, by which it might, upon different occasions, be necessary to
specify and distinguish them. Though the different formation of nouns
substantive, therefore, might, for some time, forestall the necessity of
inventing nouns adjective, it was impossible that this necessity could
be forestalled altogether. When nouns adjective came to be invented, it
was natural that they should be formed with some similarity to the
substantives, to which they were to serve as epithets or qualifications.
Men would naturally give them the same terminations with the
substantives to which they were first applied, and from that love of
similarity of sound, from that delight in the returns of the same
syllables, which is in the foundation of analogy in all languages, they
would be apt to vary the termination of the same adjective, according as
they had occasion to apply it to a masculine, to a feminine, or to a
neutral substantive. They would say, _magnus lupus_, _magna lupa_,
_magnum pratum_, when they meant to express a great he wolf, a great
_she wolf_, a great _meadow_.
This variation, in the termination of the noun adjective, according to
the gender of the substantive, which takes place in all the ancient
languages, seems to have been introduced chiefly for the sake of a
certain similarity of sound, of a certain species of rhyme, which is
naturally so very agreeable to the human ear. Gender, it is to be
observed, cannot properly belong to a noun adjective, the signification
of which is always precisely the same, to whatever species of
substantives it is applied. When we say, _a great man_, _a great woman_,
the word _great_ has precisely the same meaning in both cases, and the
difference of the sex in the subjects to which it may be applied, makes
no sort of difference in its signification. _Magnus_, _magna_, _magnum_,
in the same manner, are words which express precisely the same quality,
and the change of the termination is accompanied with no sort of
variation in the meaning. Sex and gender are qualities which belong to
substances, but cannot belong to the qualities of substances. In
general, no quality, when considered in concrete, or as qualifying some
particular subject, can itself be conceived as the subject of any other
quality; though when considered in abstract it may. No adjective
therefore can qualify any other adjective. A _great good man_, means a
man who is both _great_ and _good_. Both the adjectives qualify the
substantive; they do not qualify one another. On the other hand, when we
say, the _great goodness_ of the man, the word _goodness_ denoting a
quality considered in abstract, which may itself be the subject of other
qualities, is upon that account capable of being qualified by the word,
_great_.
If the original invention of nouns adjective would be attended with so
much difficulty, that of prepositions would be accompanied with yet
more. Every preposition, as I have already observed, denotes some
relation considered in concrete with the co-relative object. The
preposition _above_, for example, denotes the relation of superiority,
not in abstract, as it is expressed by the word _superiority_, but in
concrete with some co-relative object. In this phrase, for example, _the
tree above the cave_, the word _above_, expresses a certain relation
between the _tree_ and the _cave_, and it expresses this relation in
concrete with the co-relative object, the _cave_. A preposition always
requires, in order to complete the sense, some other word to come after
it; as may be observed in this particular instance. Now, I say, the
original invention of such words would require a yet greater effort of
abstraction and generalization, than that of nouns adjective. First of
all, a relation is, in itself, a more metaphysical object than a
quality. Nobody can be at a loss to explain what is meant by a quality;
but few people will find themselves able to express, very distinctly,
what is understood by a relation. Qualities are almost always the
objects of our external senses; relations never are. No wonder,
therefore, that the one set of objects should be so much more
comprehensible than the other. Secondly, though prepositions always
express the relation which they stand for, in concrete with the
co-relative object, they could not have originally been formed without a
considerable effort of abstraction. A preposition denotes a relation,
and nothing but a relation. But before men could institute a word, which
signified a relation, and nothing but a relation, they must have been
able, in some measure, to consider this relation abstractedly from the
related objects; since the idea of those objects does not, in any
respect, enter into the signification of the preposition. The invention
of such a word, therefore, must have required a considerable degree of
abstraction. Thirdly, a preposition is from its nature a general word,
which, from its very first institution, must have been considered as
equally applicable to denote any other similar relation. The man who
first invented the word _above_, must not only have distinguished, in
some measure, the relation of _superiority_ from the objects which were
so related, but he must also have distinguished this relation from other
relations, such as, from the relation of _inferiority_ denoted by the
word _below_, from the relation of _juxtaposition_, expressed by the
word _beside_, and the like. He must have conceived this word,
therefore, as expressive of a particular sort or species of relation
distinct from every other, which could not be done without a
considerable effort of comparison and generalization.
Whatever were the difficulties, therefore, which embarrassed the first
invention of nouns adjective, the same, and many more, must have
embarrassed that of prepositions. If mankind, therefore, in the first
formation of languages, seem to have, for some time, evaded the
necessity of nouns adjective, by varying the termination of the names of
substances, according as these varied in some of their most important
qualities, they would much more find themselves under the necessity of
evading, by some similar contrivance, the yet more difficult invention
of prepositions. The different cases in the ancient languages is a
contrivance of precisely the same kind. The genitive and dative cases,
in Greek and Latin, evidently supply the place of the prepositions; and
by a variation in the noun substantive, which stands for the co-relative
term, express the relation which subsists between what is denoted by
that noun substantive, and what is expressed by some other word in the
sentence. In these expressions, for example, _fructus arboris_, _the
fruit of the tree_; _sacer Herculi_, _sacred to Hercules_; the
variations made in the co-relative words, _arbor_ and _Hercules_,
express the same relations which are expressed in English by the
prepositions _of_ and _to_.
To express a relation in this manner, did not require any effort of
abstraction. It was not here expressed by a peculiar word denoting
relation and nothing but relation, but by a variation upon the
co-relative term. It was expressed here, as it appears in nature, not as
something separated and detached, but as thoroughly mixed and blended
with the co-relative object.
To express relation in this manner, did not require any effort of
generalization. The words _arboris_ and _Herculi_, while they involve in
their signification the same relation expressed by the English
prepositions _of_ and _to_, are not, like those prepositions, general
words, which can be applied to express the same relation between
whatever other objects it might be observed to subsist.
To express relation in this manner did not require any effort of
comparison. The words _arboris_ and _Herculi_ are not general words
intended to denote a particular species of relations which the inventors
of those expressions meant, in consequence of some sort of comparison,
to separate and distinguish from every other sort of relation. The
example, indeed, of this contrivance would soon probably be followed,
and whoever had occasion to express a similar relation between any other
objects would be very apt to do it by making a similar variation on the
name of the co-relative object. This, I say, would probably, or rather
certainly happen; but it would happen without any intention or foresight
in those who first set the example, and who never meant to establish any
general rule. The general rule would establish itself insensibly, and by
slow degrees, in consequence of that love of analogy and similarity of
sound, which is the foundation of by far the greater part of the rules
of grammar.
To express relation therefore, by a variation in the name of the
co-relative object, requiring neither abstraction, nor generalization,
nor comparison of any kind, would, at first, be much more natural and
easy, than to express it by those general words called prepositions, of
which the first invention must have demanded some degree of all those
operations.
The number of cases is different in different languages. There are five
in the Greek, six in the Latin, and there are said to be ten in the
Armenian language. It must have naturally happened that there should be
a greater or a smaller number of cases, according as in the terminations
of nouns substantive the first formers of any language happened to have
established a greater or a smaller number of variations, in order to
express the different relations they had occasion to take notice of,
before the invention of those more general and abstract prepositions
which could supply their place.
It is, perhaps, worth while to observe that those prepositions, which in
modern languages hold the place of the ancient cases, are, of all
others, the most general, and abstract, and metaphysical; and of
consequence, would probably be the last invented. Ask any man of common
acuteness, What relation is expressed by the preposition _above_? He
will readily answer, that of _superiority_. By the preposition _below_?
He will as quickly reply, that of _inferiority_. But ask him, what
relation is expressed by the preposition _of_, and, if he has not
beforehand employed his thoughts a good deal upon these subjects, you
may safely allow him a week to consider of his answer. The prepositions
_above_ and _below_ do not denote any of the relations expressed by the
cases in the ancient languages. But the preposition _of_, denotes the
same relation, which is in them expressed by the genitive case; and
which, it is easy to observe, is of a very metaphysical nature. The
preposition of, denotes relation in general, considered in concrete with
the co-relative object. It marks that the noun substantive which goes
before it, is somehow or other related to that which comes after it, but
without in any respect ascertaining, as is done by the preposition
_above_, what is the peculiar nature of that relation. We often apply
it, therefore, to express the most opposite relations; because, the most
opposite relations agree so far that each of them comprehends in it the
general idea or nature of a relation. We say, _the father of the son_,
and _the son of the father_; _the fir-trees of the forest_, and the
_forest of the fir-trees_. The relation in which the father stands to
the son, is, it is evident, a quite opposite relation to that in which
the son stands to the father; that in which the parts stand to the
whole, is quite opposite to that in which the whole stands to the parts.
The word _of_, however, serves very well to denote all those relations,
because in itself it denotes no particular relation, but only relation
in general; and so far as any particular relation is collected from such
expressions, it is inferred by the mind, not from the preposition
itself, but from the nature and arrangement of the substantives, between
which the preposition is placed.
What I have said concerning the preposition _of_, may in some measure be
applied to the prepositions, _to_, _for_, _with_, _by_, and to whatever
other prepositions are made use of in modern languages, to supply the
place of the ancient cases. They all of them express very abstract and
metaphysical relations, which any man, who takes the trouble to try it,
will find it extremely difficult to express by nouns substantive, in the
same manner as we may express the relation denoted by the preposition
_above_, by the noun substantive _superiority_. They all of them,
however, express some specific relation, and are, consequently, none of
them so abstract as the preposition _of_, which may be regarded as by
far the most metaphysical of all prepositions. The prepositions
therefore, which are capable of supplying the place of the ancient
cases, being more abstract than the other prepositions, would naturally
be of more difficult invention. The relations at the same time which
those prepositions express, are, of all others, those which we have most
frequent occasion to mention. The prepositions _above_, _below_, _near_,
_within_, _without_, _against_, &c. are much more rarely made use of, in
modern languages, than the prepositions _of_, _to_, _for_, _with_,
_from_, _by_. A preposition of the former kind will not occur twice in a
page; we can scarce compose a single sentence without the assistance of
one or two of the latter. If these latter prepositions, therefore, which
supply the place of the cases, would be of such difficult invention on
account of their abstractedness, some expedient, to supply their place,
must have been of indispensable necessity, on account of the frequent
occasion which men have to take notice of the relations which they
denote. But there is no expedient so obvious, as that of varying the
termination of one of the principal words.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe, that there are some of the cases
in the ancient languages, which, for particular reasons, cannot be
represented by any prepositions. These are the nominative, accusative,
and vocative cases. In those modern languages, which do not admit of any
such variety in the terminations of their nouns substantive, the
correspondent relations are expressed by the place of the words, and by
the order and construction of the sentence.
As men have frequently occasion to make mention of multitudes as well as
of single objects, it became necessary that they should have some method
of expressing number. Number may be expressed either by a particular
word, expressing number in general, such as the words _many_, _more_,
&c. or by some variation upon the words which express the things
numbered. It is this last expedient which mankind would probably have
recourse to, in the infancy of language. Number, considered in general,
without relation to any particular set of objects numbered, is one of
the most abstract and metaphysical ideas, which the mind of man is
capable of forming; and, consequently, is not an idea, which would
readily occur to rude mortals, who were just beginning to form a
language. They would naturally, therefore, distinguish when they talked
of a single, and when they talked of a multitude of objects, not by any
metaphysical adjectives, such as the English, _a_, _an_, _many_, but by
a variation upon the termination of the word which signified the objects
numbered. Hence the origin of the singular and plural numbers, in all
the ancient languages; and the same distinction has likewise been
retained in all the modern languages, at least, in the greater part of
words.
All primitive and uncompounded languages seem to have a dual, as well as
a plural number. This is the case of the Greek, and I am told of the
Hebrew, of the Gothic, and of many other languages. In the rude
beginnings of society, _one_, _two_, and _more_, might possibly be all
the numeral distinctions which mankind would have any occasion to take
notice of. These they would find it more natural to express, by a
variation upon every particular noun substantive, than by such general
and abstract words as _one_, _two_, _three_, _four_, &c. These words,
though custom has rendered them familiar to us, express, perhaps, the
most subtile and refined abstractions, which the mind of man is capable
of forming. Let any one consider within himself, for example, what he
means by the word _three_, which signifies neither three shillings, nor
three pence, nor three men, nor three horses, but three in general; and
he will easily satisfy himself that a word, which denotes so very
metaphysical an abstraction, could not be either a very obvious or a
very early invention. I have read of some savage nations, whose language
was capable of expressing no more than the three first numeral
distinctions. But whether it expressed those distinctions by three
general words, or by variations upon the nouns substantive, denoting the
things numbered, I do not remember to have met with any thing which
could determine.
As all the same relations which subsist between single, may likewise
subsist between numerous objects, it is evident there would be occasion
for the same number of cases in the dual and in the plural, as in the
singular number. Hence the intricacy and complexness of the declensions
in all the ancient languages. In the Greek there are five cases in each
of the three numbers, consequently fifteen in all.
As nouns adjective, in the ancient languages, varied their terminations
according to the gender of the substantive to which they were applied,
so did they likewise, according to the case and the number. Every noun
adjective in the Greek language, therefore, having three genders, and
three numbers, and five cases in each number, may be considered as
having five and forty different variations. The first formers of
language seem to have varied the termination of the adjective, according
to the case and the number of the substantive, for the same reason which
made them vary according to the gender; the love of analogy, and of a
certain regularity of sound. In the signification of adjectives there is
neither case nor number, and the meaning of such words is always
precisely the same, notwithstanding all the variety of termination under
which they appear. _Magnus vir_, _magni viri_, _magnorum virorum_; _a
great man_, _of a great man_, _of great men_ in all these expressions
the words _magnus_, _magni_, _magnorum_, as well as the word _great_,
have precisely one and the same signification, though the substantives
to which they are applied have not. The difference of termination in the
noun adjective is accompanied with no sort of difference in the meaning.
An adjective denotes the qualification of a noun substantive. But the
different relations in which that noun substantive may occasionally
stand, can make no sort of difference upon its qualification.
If the declensions of the ancient languages are so very complex, their
conjugations are infinitely more so. And the complexness of the one is
founded upon the same principle with that of the other, the difficulty
of forming, in the beginnings of language, abstract and general terms.
Verbs must necessarily have been coeval with the very first attempts
towards the formation of language. No affirmation can be expressed
without the assistance of some verb. We never speak but in order to
express our opinion that something either is or is not. But the word
denoting this event, or this matter of fact, which is the subject of our
affirmation, must always be a verb.
Impersonal verbs, which express in one word a complete event, which
preserve in the expression that perfect simplicity and unity, which
there always is in the object and in the idea, and which suppose no
abstraction, or metaphysical division of the event into its several
constituent members of subject and attribute, would, in all probability,
be the species of verbs first invented. The verbs _pluit_, _it rains_;
_ningit_, _it snows_; _tonat_, _it thunders_; _lucet_, _it is day_;
_turbatur_, _there is a confusion_, &c. each of them express a complete
affirmation, the whole of an event, with that perfect simplicity and
unity with which the mind conceives it in nature. On the contrary, the
phrases, _Alexander ambulat_, _Alexander walks_; _Petrus sedet_, _Peter
sits_, divide the event, as it were, into two parts, the person or
subject, and the attribute, or matter of fact, affirmed of that subject.
But in nature, the idea or conception of Alexander walking, is as
perfectly and completely one single conception, as that of Alexander not
walking. The division of this event, therefore, into two parts, is
altogether artificial, and is the effect of the imperfection of
language, which, upon this, as upon many other occasions, supplies, by a
number of words, the want of one, which could express at once the whole
matter of fact that was meant to be affirmed. Every body must observe
how much more simplicity there is in the natural expression, _pluit_,
than in the more artificial expressions, _imber decidit_, _the rain
falls_; or, _tempestas est pluvia_, _the weather is rainy_. In these two
last expressions, the simple event, or matter of fact, is artificially
split and divided, in the one, into two; in the other, into three parts.
In each of them it is expressed by a sort of grammatical circumlocution,
of which the significancy is founded upon a certain metaphysical
analysis of the component parts of the idea expressed by the word
_pluit_. The first verbs, therefore, perhaps even the first words, made
use of in the beginnings of language, would in all probability be such
impersonal verbs. It is observed accordingly, I am told, by the Hebrew
Grammarians, that the radical words of their language, from which all
the others are derived, are all of them verbs, and impersonal verbs.
It is easy to conceive how, in the progress of language, those
impersonal verbs should become personal. Let us suppose, for example,
that the word _venit_, _it comes_, was originally an impersonal verb,
and that it denoted, not the coming of something in general, as at
present, but the coming of a particular object, such as _the Lion_. The
first savage inventors of language, we shall suppose, when they observed
the approach of this terrible animal, were accustomed to cry out to one
another, _venit_, that is, _the lion comes_; and that this word thus
expressed a complete event, without the assistance of any other.
Afterwards, when, on the further progress of language, they had begun to
give names to particular substances, whenever they observed the approach
of any other terrible object, they would naturally join the name of that
object to the word _venit_, and cry out, _venit ursus_, _venit lupus_.
By degrees the word _venit_ would thus come to signify the coming of any
terrible object, and not merely the coming of the lion. It would now
therefore, express, not the coming of a particular object, but the
coming of an object of a particular kind. Having become more general in
its signification, it could no longer represent any particular distinct
event by itself, and without the assistance of a noun substantive, which
might serve to ascertain and determine its signification. It would now,
therefore, have become a personal, instead of an impersonal verb. We may
easily conceive how, in the further progress of society, it might still
grow more general in its signification, and come to signify, as at
present, the approach of any thing whatever, whether good, bad, or
indifferent.
It is probably in some such manner as this, that almost all verbs have
become personal, and that mankind have learned by degrees to split and
divide almost every event into a great number of metaphysical parts,
expressed by the different parts of speech, variously combined in the
different members of every phrase and sentence.[29] The same sort of
progress seems to have been made in the art of speaking as in the art of
writing. When mankind first began to attempt to express their ideas by
writing, every character represented a whole word. But the number of
words being almost infinite, the memory found itself quite loaded and
oppressed by the multitude of characters which it was obliged to retain.
Necessity taught them, therefore, to divide words into their elements,
and to invent characters which should represent, not the words
themselves, but the elements of which they were composed. In consequence
of this invention, every particular word came to be represented, not by
one character, but by a multitude of characters; and the expression of
it in writing became much more intricate and complex than before. But
though particular words were thus represented by a greater number of
characters, the whole language was expressed by a much smaller, and
about four and twenty letters were found capable of supplying the place
of that immense multitude of characters, which were requisite before. In
the same manner, in the beginnings of language, men seem to have
attempted to express every particular event, which they had occasion to
take notice of, by a particular word, which expressed at once the whole
of that event. But as the number of words must, in this case, have
become really infinite, in consequence of the really infinite variety of
events, men found themselves partly compelled by necessity, and partly
conducted by nature, to divide every event into what may be called its
metaphysical elements, and to institute words, which should denote not
so much the events, as the elements of which they were composed. The
expression of every particular event, became in this manner more
intricate and complex, but the whole system of the language became more
coherent, more connected, more easily retained and comprehended.
Footnote 29:
As the far greater part of Verbs express, at present, not an event,
but the attribute of an event, and, consequently, require a subject,
or nominative case, to complete their signification, some grammarians,
not having attended to this progress of nature, and being desirous to
make their common rules quite universal, and without any exception,
have insisted that all verbs required a nominative, either expressed
or understood; and have, accordingly put themselves to the torture to
find some awkward nominatives to those few verbs, which still
expressing a complete event, plainly admit of none. _Pluit_, for
example, according to _Sanctius_, means _pluvia pluit_, in English,
_the rain rains_. See Sanctii Minerva, l. 3. c. 1.
When verbs, from being originally impersonal had thus, by the division
of the event into its metaphysical elements, become personal, it is
natural to suppose that they would first be made use of in the third
person singular. No verb is ever used impersonally in our language, nor,
so far as I know, in any other modern tongue. But in the ancient
languages, whenever any verb is used impersonally, it is always in the
third person singular. The termination of those verbs, which are still
always impersonal, is constantly the same with that of the third person
singular of personal verbs. The consideration of these circumstances,
joined to the naturalness of the thing itself, may serve to convince us
that verbs first became personal in what is now called the third person
singular.
But as the event, or matter of fact, which is expressed by a verb, may
be affirmed either of the person who speaks, or of the person who is
spoken to, as well as of some third person or object, it became
necessary to fall upon some method of expressing these two peculiar
relations of the event. In the English language this is commonly done,
by prefixing, what are called the personal pronouns, to the general word
which expresses the event affirmed. _I came_, _you came_, _he_ or _it
came_; in these phrases the event of having come is, in the first,
affirmed of the speaker; in the second, of the person spoken to; in the
third, of some other person, or object. The first formers of language,
it may be imagined, might have done the same thing, and prefixing in the
same manner the two first personal pronouns, to the same termination of
the verb, which expressed the third person singular, might have said,
_ego venit_, _tu venit_, as well as _ille_ or _illud venit_. And I make
no doubt but they would have done so, if at the time when they had first
occasion to express these relations of the verb, there had been any such
words as either _ego_ or _tu_ in their language. But in this early
period of the language, which we are now endeavouring to describe, it is
extremely improbable that any such words would be known. Though custom
has now rendered them familiar to us, they, both of them, express ideas
extremely metaphysical and abstract. The word _I_, for example, is a
word of a very particular species. Whatever speaks may denote itself by
this personal pronoun. The word _I_, therefore, is a general word,
capable of being predicated, as the logicians say, of an infinite
variety of objects. It differs, however, from all other general words in
this respect; that the objects of which it may be predicated, do not
form any particular species of objects distinguished from all others.
The word _I_, does not, like the word _man_, denote a particular class
of objects, separated from all others by peculiar qualities of their
own. It is far from being the name of a species, but, on the contrary,
whenever it is made use of, it always denotes a precise individual, the
particular person who then speaks. It may be said to be, at once, both
what the logicians call, a singular, and what they call, a common term;
and to join in its signification the seemingly opposite qualities of the
most precise individuality, and the most extensive generalization. This
word, therefore, expressing so very abstract and metaphysical an idea,
would not easily or readily occur to the first formers of language. What
are called the personal pronouns, it may be observed, are among the last
words of which children learn to make use. A child, speaking of itself,
says, _Billy walks_, _Billy sits_, instead of _I walk_, _I sit_. As in
the beginnings of language, therefore, mankind seem to have evaded the
invention of at least the more abstract proportions, and to have
expressed the same relations which these _now_ stand for, by varying the
termination of the co-relative term, so they likewise would naturally
attempt to evade the necessity of inventing those more abstract pronouns
by varying the termination of the verb, according as the event which it
expressed was intended to be affirmed of the first, second, or third
person. This seems, accordingly, to be the universal practice of all the
ancient languages. In Latin, _veni_, _venisti_, _venit_, sufficiently
denote, without any other addition, the different events expressed by
the English phrases, _I came_, _you came_, he, or _it came_. The verb
would, for the same reason, vary its termination, according as the event
was intended to be affirmed of the first, second, or third persons
plural; and what is expressed by the English phrases, _we came_, _ye
came_, _they came_, would be denoted by the Latin words, _venimus_,
_venistis_, _venerunt_. Those primitive languages, too, which, upon
account of the difficulty of inventing numeral names, had introduced a
dual, as well as a plural number, into the declension of their nouns
substantive, would probably, from analogy, do the same thing in the
conjugations of their verbs. And thus in all those original languages,
we might expect to find, at least six, if not eight or nine variations,
in the termination of every verb, according as the event which it
denoted was meant to be affirmed of the first, second, or third persons
singular, dual, or plural. These variations again being repeated, along
with others, through all its different tenses, modes and voices, must
necessarily have rendered their conjugations still more intricate and
complex than their declensions.
Language would probably have continued upon this footing in all
countries, nor would ever have grown more simple in its declensions and
conjugations, had it not become more complex in its composition, in
consequence of the mixture of several languages with one another,
occasioned by the mixture of different nations. As long as any language
was spoke by those only who learned it in their infancy, the intricacy
of its declensions and conjugations could occasion no great
embarrassment. The far greater part of those who had occasion to speak
it, had acquired it at so very early a period of their lives, so
insensibly and by such slow degrees, that they were scarce ever sensible
of the difficulty. But when two nations came to be mixed with one
another, either by conquest or migration, the case would be very
different. Each nation, in order to make itself intelligible to those
with whom it was under the necessity of conversing, would be obliged to
learn the language of the other. The greater part of individuals too,
learning the new language, not by art, or by remounting to its rudiments
and first principles, but by rote, and by what they commonly heard in
conversation, would be extremely perplexed by the intricacy of its
declensions and conjugations. They would endeavour, therefore, to supply
their ignorance of these, by whatever shift the language could afford
them. Their ignorance of the declensions they would naturally supply by
the use of prepositions; and a Lombard, who was attempting to speak
Latin, and wanted to express that such a person was a citizen of Rome,
or a benefactor to Rome, if he happened not to be acquainted with the
genitive and dative cases of the word _Roma_, would naturally express
himself by prefixing the prepositions _ad_ and _de_ to the nominative;
and, instead of _Romæ_, would say, _ad Roma_, and _de Roma_. _Al Roma_
and _di Roma_, accordingly, is the manner in which the present Italians,
the descendants of the ancient Lombards and Romans, express this and all
other similar relations. And in this manner prepositions seem to have
been introduced, in the room of the ancient declensions. The same
alteration has, I am informed, been produced upon the Greek language,
since the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. The words are, in a
great measure, the same as before; but the grammar is entirely lost,
prepositions having come in the place of the old declensions. This
change is undoubtedly a simplification of the language, in point of
rudiments and principle. It introduces, instead of a great variety of
declensions, one universal declension, which is the same in every word,
of whatever gender, number, or termination.
A similar expedient enables men, in the situation above-mentioned, to
get rid of almost the whole intricacy of their conjugations. There is in
every language a verb, known by the name of the substantive verb; in
Latin, _sum_; in English, _I am_. This verb denotes not the existence of
any particular event, but existence in general. It is, upon this
account, the most abstract and metaphysical of all verbs; and,
consequently, could by no means be a a word of early invention. When it
came to be invented, however, as it had all the tenses and modes of any
other verb, by being joined with the passive participle, it was capable
of supplying the place of the whole passive voice, and of rendering this
part of their conjugations as simple and uniform, as the use of
prepositions had rendered their declensions. A Lombard, who wanted to
say, _I am loved_, but could not recollect the word _amor_, naturally
endeavoured to supply his ignorance, by saying, _ego sum amatus_. _Io
sono amato_, is at this day the Italian expression, which corresponds to
the English phrase above-mentioned.
There is another verb, which, in the same manner, runs through all
languages, and which is distinguished by the name of the possessive
verb; in Latin, _habeo_; in English, _I have_. This verb, likewise,
denotes an event of an extremely abstract and metaphysical nature, and,
consequently, cannot be supposed to have been a word of the earliest
invention. When it came to be invented, however, by being applied to the
passive participle, it was capable of supplying a great part of the
active voice, as the substantive verb had supplied the whole of the
passive. A Lombard, who wanted to say, _I had loved_, but could not
recollect the word _amaveram_, would endeavour to supply the place of
it, by saying either _ego habebam amatum_, or _ego habui amatum_. _Io
avevá amato_, or _Io ebbi amato_, are the correspondent Italian
expressions at this day. And thus upon the intermixture of different
nations with one another, the conjugations, by means of different
auxiliary verbs, were made to approach towards the simplicity and
uniformity of the declensions.
In general it may be laid down for a maxim, that the more simple any
language is in its composition, the more complex it must be in its
declensions and conjugations; and, on the contrary, the more simple it
is in its declensions and conjugations, the more complex it must be in
its composition.
The Greek seems to be, in a great measure, a simple, uncompounded
language, formed from the primitive jargon of those wandering savages,
the ancient Hellenians and Pelasgians, from whom the Greek nation is
said to have been descended. All the words in the Greek language are
derived from about three hundred primitives, a plain evidence that the
Greeks formed their language almost entirely among themselves, and that
when they had occasion for a new word, they were not accustomed, as we
are, to borrow it from some foreign language, but to form it, either by
composition or derivation from some other word or words, in their own.
The declensions and conjugations, therefore, of the Greek are much more
complex than those of any other European language with which I am
acquainted.
The Latin is a composition of the Greek and of the ancient Tuscan
languages. Its declensions and conjugations accordingly are much less
complex than those of the Greek: it has dropt the dual number in both.
Its verbs have no optative mood distinguished by any peculiar
termination. They have but one future. They have no aorist distinct from
the preterit-perfect; they have no middle voice; and even many of their
tenses in the passive voice are eked out, in the same manner as in the
modern languages, by the help of the substantive verb joined to the
passive participle. In both the voices, the number of infinitives and
participles is much smaller in the Latin than in the Greek.
The French and Italian languages are each of them compounded, the one of
the Latin, and the language of the ancient Franks, the other of the same
Latin and the language of the ancient Lombards. As they are both of
them, therefore, more complex in their composition than the Latin, so
are they likewise more simple in their declensions and conjugations.
With regard to their declensions, they have both of them lost their
cases altogether; and with regard to their conjugations, they have both
of them lost the whole of the passive, and some part of the active
voices of their verbs. The want of the passive voice they supply
entirely by the substantive verb joined to the passive participle; and
they make out part of the active, in the same manner, by the help of the
possessive verb and the same passive participle.
The English is compounded of the French and the ancient Saxon languages.
The French was introduced into Britain by the Norman conquest, and
continued, till the time of Edward III. to be the sole language of the
law as well as the principal language of the court. The English, which
came to be spoken afterwards, and which continues to be spoken now, is a
mixture of the ancient Saxon and this Norman French. As the English
language, therefore, is more complex in its composition than either the
French or the Italian, so is it likewise more simple in its declensions
and conjugations. Those two languages retain, at least, a part of the
distinction of genders, and their adjectives vary their termination
according as they are applied to a masculine or to a feminine
substantive. But there is no such distinction in the English language,
whose adjectives admit of no variety of termination. The French and
Italian languages have, both of them, the remains of a conjugation, and
all those tenses of the active voice, which cannot be expressed by the
possessive verb joined to the passive participle, as well as many of
those which can, are, in those languages, marked by varying the
termination of the principal verb. But almost all those other tenses are
in the English eked out by other auxiliary verbs, so that there is in
this language scarce even the remains of a conjugation. _I love_, _I
loved_, _loving_, are all the varieties of termination which the greater
part of English verbs admit of. All the different modifications of
meaning, which cannot be expressed by any of those three terminations,
must be made out by different auxiliary verbs joined to some one or
other of them. Two auxiliary verbs supply all the deficiencies of the
French and Italian conjugations; it requires more than half a dozen to
supply those of the English, which besides the substantive and
possessive verbs, makes use of _do_, _did_; _will_, _would_; _shall_,
_should_; _can_, _could_; _may_, _might_.
It is in this manner that language becomes more simple in its rudiments
and principles, just in proportion as it grows more complex in its
composition, and the same thing has happened in it, which commonly
happens with regard to mechanical engines. All machines are generally,
when first invented, extremely complex in their principles, and there is
often a particular principle of motion for every particular movement
which, it is intended, they should perform. Succeeding improvers
observe, that one principle may be so applied as to produce several of
those movements, and thus the machine becomes gradually more and more
simple, and produces its effects with fewer wheels, and fewer principles
of motion. In language, in the same manner, every case of every noun,
and every tense of every verb, was originally expressed by a particular
distinct word, which served for this purpose and for no other. But
succeeding observation discovered that one set of words was capable of
supplying the place of all that infinite number, and that four or five
prepositions, and half a dozen auxiliary verbs, were capable of
answering the end of all the declensions, and of all the conjugations in
the ancient languages.
But this simplification of languages, though it arises, perhaps, from
similar causes, has by no means similar effects with the correspondent
simplification of machines. The simplification of machines renders them
more and more perfect, but this simplification of the rudiments of
languages renders them more and more imperfect and less proper for many
of the purposes of language: and this for the following reasons.
First of all, languages are by this simplification rendered more prolix,
several words having become necessary to express what could have been
expressed by a single word before. Thus the words, _Dei_ and, _Deo_, in
the Latin, sufficiently show, without any addition, what relation, the
object signified is understood to stand in to the objects expressed by
the other words in the sentence. But to express the same relation in
English, and in all other modern languages, we must make use of, at
least, two words, and say, _of God_, _to God_. So far as the declensions
are concerned, therefore, the modern languages are much more prolix than
the ancient. The difference is still greater with regard to the
conjugations. What a Roman expressed by the single word, _amavissem_, an
Englishman is obliged to express by four different words, _I should have
loved_. It is unnecessary to take any pains to show how much this
prolixness must enervate the eloquence of all modern languages. How much
the beauty of any expression depends upon its conciseness, is well known
to those who have any experience in composition.
Secondly, this simplification of the principles of languages renders
them less agreeable to the ear. The variety of termination in the Greek
and Latin, occasioned by their declensions and conjugations, give a
sweetness to their language altogether unknown to ours, and a variety
unknown to any other modern language. In point of sweetness, the
Italian, perhaps, may surpass the Latin, and almost equal the Greek; but
in point of variety, it is greatly inferior to both.
Thirdly, this simplification, not only renders the sounds of our
language less agreeable to the ear, but it also restrains us from
disposing such sounds as we have, in the manner that might be most
agreeable. It ties down many words to a particular situation, though
they might often be placed in another with much more beauty. In the
Greek and Latin, though the adjective and substantive were separated
from one another, the correspondence of their terminations still showed
their mutual reference, and the separation did not necessarily occasion
any sort of confusion. Thus in the first line of Virgil:
_Tityre tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi._
We easily see that _tu_ refers to _recubans_, and _patulæ_ to _fagi_;
though the related words are separated from one another by the
intervention of several others: because the terminations, showing the
correspondence of their cases, determine their mutual reference. But if
we were to translate this line literally into English, and say,
_Tityrus, thou of spreading reclining under the shade beech_, Œdipus
himself could not make sense of it; because there is here no difference
of termination, to determine which substantive each adjective belongs
to. It is the same case with regard to verbs. In Latin the verb may
often be placed, without an inconveniency or ambiguity, in any part of
the sentence. But in English its place is almost always precisely
determined. It must follow the subjective and precede the objective
member of the phrase in almost all cases. Thus in Latin whether you say,
_Joannem verberavit Robertus_, or _Robertus verberavit Joannem_, the
meaning is precisely the same, and the termination fixes John to be the
sufferer in both cases. But in English _John beat Robert_, and _Robert
beat John_, have by no means the same signification. The place therefore
of the three principal members of the phrase is in the English, and for
the same reason in the French and Italian languages almost always
precisely determined; whereas in the ancient languages a greater
latitude is allowed, and the place of those members is often, in a great
measure, indifferent. We must have recourse to Horace, in order to
interpret some parts of Milton’s literal translation;
_Who now enjoys thee credulous all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable
Hopes thee; of flattering gales
Unmindful._
are verses which it is impossible to interpret by any rules of our
language. There are no rules in our language, by which any man could
discover, that, in the first line, _credulous_ referred to _who_, and
not to _thee_; or, that _all gold_ referred to any thing; or, that in
the fourth line, _unmindful_, referred to _who_, in the second, and not
to _thee_ in the third; or, on the contrary, that, in the second line
_always vacant, always amiable_, referred to _thee_ in the third, and
not to _who_ in the same line with it. In the Latin, indeed, all this is
abundantly plain.
_Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ,
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat te; nescius auræ fallacis._
Because the terminations in the Latin determine the reference of each
adjective to its proper substantive, which it is impossible for any
thing in the English to do. How much this power of transposing the order
of their words must have facilitated the composition of the ancients,
both in verse and prose, can hardly be imagined. That it must greatly
have facilitated their versification it is needless to observe; and in
prose, whatever beauty depends upon the arrangement and construction of
the several members of the period, must to them have been acquirable
with much more ease, and to much greater perfection, than it can be to
those whose expression is constantly confined by the prolixness,
constraint and monotony of modern languages.
FINIS.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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