CHAP. I. 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 sen⯑timents from certain refinements of self-love, think themselves at no loss to ac⯑count, according to their own principles, both for this pleasure and this pain. Man, say they, conscious of his own weakness [15] and of the need which he has for the as⯑sistance of others, rejoices whenever he observes that they adopt his own passions, because he is then assured of that assist⯑ance; 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-interest⯑ed consideration. A man is mortified when, after having endeavoured 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 re⯑gards this correspondence of their senti⯑ments with his own as the greatest ap⯑plause.

Neither does his pleasure seem to arise altogether from the additional vivacity which his mirth may receive from sym⯑pathy 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 [16] 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 surprize 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 amuse⯑ment 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 tho' 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 [17] 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 enlieven that grief. Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by presenting another source of satis⯑faction; and it alleviates grief by insinu⯑ating into the heart almost the only agree⯑able sensation which it is at that time ca⯑pable of receiving.

It is to be observed accordingly, that we are still more anxious to communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our agree⯑able passions, that we derive still more satis⯑faction from their sympathy with the for⯑mer 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 found out a person to whom they can communicate the cause of their sor⯑row? Upon his sympathy they seem to disburthen themselves of a part of their distress: he is not improperly said to share [18] 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 re⯑lating their misfortunes they in some mea⯑sure renew their grief. They awaken in their memory the remembrance of those circumstances which occasioned their afflic⯑tion. 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 this sympathy, they had thus enlivened and renewed. The cruelest insult, on the con⯑trary, which can be offered to the unfor⯑tunate, 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 dis⯑agreeable, passion: and accordingly we are [19] 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 but little affect⯑ed with the favours which we may have re⯑ceived, but lose all patience if they seem in⯑different about the injuries which may have been done to us: nor are we half so angry with them for not entering into our gra⯑titude, as for not sympathising 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 aukward quarrel with them; but we quarrel with them in good earnest if in friendship with the last. The agreeable passions of love and joy can satisfy and sup⯑port the heart without any auxiliary plea⯑sure. The bitter and painful emotions of grief and resentment more strongly re⯑quire the healing consolation of sympa⯑thy.

As the person who is principally interest⯑ed in any event is pleased with our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we, too, seem [20] to be pleased when we are able to sympa⯑thize with him, and to be hurt when we are unable to do so. We run not only to congratulate the successful, but to con⯑dole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which we find in conversing with a man whom we can entirely sympathise with in all his passions, seems to do more than compensate the painfulness of that sorrow with which the view of his situa⯑tion affects us. On the contrary, it is al⯑ways disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with him, and instead of be⯑ing pleased with this exemption from sym⯑pathetic 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 can⯑not 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 [21] and folly. We are even put out of hu⯑mour 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. II. Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of the affections of other men, by their concord or disso⯑nance with our own.

WHEN the original passions of the person principally concerned are in perfect concord with the sympathetic emo⯑tions of the spectator, they necessarily ap⯑pear to this last just and proper, and suit⯑able to their objects; and, on the contrary, when, upon bringing the case home to him⯑self, 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 ap⯑prove of the passions of another, therefore, as suitable to their objects, is the same thing, as to observe that we intirely 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 inju⯑ries that have been done to me, and ob⯑serves that I resent them precisely as he does, necessarily approves of my resentment. [23] The man whose sympathy keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the reasonable⯑ness of my sorrow. He who admires the same poem, or the same picture, and ad⯑mires them exactly as I do, must surely al⯑low 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 con⯑trary, the person who, upon these diffe⯑rent occasions, either feels no such emo⯑tion 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 indig⯑nation of my friend can correspond to; if my grief exceeds what his most tender compassion can go along with; if my ad⯑miration is either too high or too low to tally with his own; if I laugh loud and heartily at what 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 ob⯑ject, to observe how I am affected by it, according as there is more or less dispropor⯑tion between his sentiments and mine, I [24] must incur a greater or less degree of his disapprobation: and upon all occasions his own sentiments are the standards and mea⯑sures 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 necessa⯑rily disapprove of it: neither can I possibly conceive that I should do the one without the other. To approve or disapprove, there⯑fore, of the opinions of others is acknow⯑ledged, by every body, to mean no more than to observe their agreement or disagree⯑ment 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 ap⯑probation would seem to be different from the perception of this coincidence. A lit⯑tle attention, however, will convince us that even in these cases our approbation [25] is ultimately founded upon a sympathy or correspondence of this kind. I shall give an instance in things of a very frivolous na⯑ture, 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 com⯑pany quite just and proper, though we our⯑selves 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 is 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 re⯑gard to all the other passions. A stranger passes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest affliction; and we are imme⯑diately told that he has just received the news of the death of his father. It is impossible that, in this case, we should not [26] 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 con⯑cern 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 pic⯑ture 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 sym⯑pathize with him. It is upon the consci⯑ousness of this conditional sympathy, that our approbation of his sorrow is founded, even in those cases in which that sympa⯑thy does not actually take place; and the general rules derived from our preceding experience of what, upon most occasions, our sentiments would correspond with, cor⯑rect the impropriety of our present emo⯑tions.

[27]The sentiment or affection of the heart from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ulti⯑mately depend, may be considered under two different aspects, or in two different relations; first, in relation to the cause that excites it, or the motive that gives oc⯑casion to it; and secondly, in relation to the end that it proposes, or the effect that it tends to produce.

In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion or disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or ob⯑ject which excites it, consists the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungrace⯑fulness 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 en⯑titled to reward, or is deserving of punish⯑ment.

Philosophers have, of late years, consider⯑ed chiefly the tendency of affections, and have given little attention to the relation which they stand in to the cause which ex⯑cites them. In common life, however, when we judge of any person's conduct, and of [28] the sentiments which directed it, we con⯑stantly consider them under both these as⯑pects. When we blame in another man the excesses of love, of grief, of resent⯑ment, 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 vio⯑lence 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 dispro⯑portioned to the cause which excites it, it is scarce possible that we should make use of any other rule or canon but the cor⯑respondent 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 propor⯑tioned and suitable to their objects: if otherwise, we necessarily disapprove of them, as extravagant and out of proportion.

[29]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 rea⯑son 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. III. 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 our⯑selves or to the person whose sentiments we judge of; or, secondly, when they are con⯑sidered 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 sen⯑timents 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 ap⯑pearances [31] which the great machine of the universe is perpetually exhibiting, with the secret wheels and springs which produce them; in a word, all the general subjects of science and taste, are what we and our com⯑panion 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 oc⯑casion 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 of⯑ten 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 com⯑plex 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 of admiration on account of them. But when they [32] 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 ad⯑justed them to all the various circumstan⯑ces of their objects; we not only approve of them, but wonder and are surprised at their uncommon and unexpected acute⯑ness and comprehensiveness, and he ap⯑pears to deserve a very high degree of ad⯑miration and applause. For approbation heightned by wonder and surprise, consti⯑tutes the sentiment which is properly call⯑ed 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 compre⯑hensive accuracy of the experienced mathe⯑matician, who unravels, with ease, the most intricate and perplexed proportions; it is the great leader in science and taste, the [33] man who directs and conducts our own sen⯑timents, the extent and superior justness of whose 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 bestow⯑ed 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 recommends them to our approba⯑tion.

[34]2. With regard to those objects, which affect in a particular manner either our⯑selves 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 impor⯑tant. 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, there⯑fore, apt to be very differently affected by them. But I can much more easily over⯑look the want of this correspondence of sentiments with regard to such indifferent objects as concern neither me nor my com⯑panion, than with regard to what interests me so much as the misfortune that has be⯑fallen me, or the injury that has been done me. Though you despise that pic⯑ture, or that poem, or even that system of philosophy, which I admire, there is little danger of our quarrelling upon that ac⯑count. Neither of us can reasonably be [35] 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 other⯑wise with regard to those objects by which either you or I are particularly affected. Though your judgments in matters of spe⯑culation, 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 mis⯑fortunes I have met with, or none that bears any proportion to the grief which distracts me; or if you have either no in⯑dignation 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.

[36]In all such cases, that there may be some correspondence of sentiments between the spectator and the person principally concern⯑ed, the spectator must, first of all, endea⯑vour, 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 in⯑cidents; and strive to render, as perfect as possible, that imaginary change of situa⯑tion 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 natu⯑rally sympathetic, never conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally animates the person prin⯑cipally 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 suf⯑ferers, continually intrudes itself upon them; and though it does not hinder them [37] from conceiving a passion somewhat analo⯑gous to what is felt by the sufferer, hinders them from conceiving any thing that ap⯑proaches to the same degree of violence. The person concerned is sensible of this, and, at the same time, passionately desires a more compleat sympathy. He longs for that re⯑lief which nothing can afford him but the entire concord of the affections of the spec⯑tators with his own. To see the emo⯑tions of their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the violent and disa⯑greeable passions, constitutes his sole con⯑solation. But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his passion to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of go⯑ing 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 emo⯑tions 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 [38] it in degree, but, in some measure, varies it in kind, and gives it a quite different modification. These two sentiments, how⯑ever, may, it is evident, have such a cor⯑respondence with one another, as is suffi⯑cient 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 con⯑cerned, so she teaches this last in some measure to assume those of the spectators. As they are continually placing themselves in his 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 cool⯑ness about his own fortune, with which he is sensible that they will view it. As they are constantly considering what they them⯑selves would feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is as constantly led to ima⯑gine 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 [39] 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 pas⯑sion, which he thus conceives, is much weaker than the original one, it necessa⯑rily abates the violence of what he felt be⯑fore 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 disturb⯑ed, 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 [40] 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 tran⯑quillity 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 merely an assumed appearance: for if we are at all masters of ourselves, the pre⯑sence 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 a mere 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-satis⯑faction 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 humani⯑ty, 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. IV. 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 and the ami⯑able virtues, the virtues of candid conde⯑scension and indulgent humanity, are founded upon the one: the great, the awful and respectable, the virtues of self-denial, of self-government, of that com⯑mand 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, take 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 re⯑sents their injuries, and who rejoices at [42] 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 ten⯑der sympathy of so affectionate a friend. And for a contrary reason, how disagree⯑able does he appear to be, whose hard and obdurate heart feels for himself only, but is altogether insensible to 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 con⯑verses, to those especially with whom we are most apt to sympathize, the unfortu⯑nate and the injured.

On the other hand, what noble pro⯑priety and grace do we feel in the con⯑duct 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 de⯑licacy, calls upon our compassion with sighs and tears and importunate lamenta⯑tions. But we reverence that reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow, which dis⯑covers itself only in the swelling of the eyes, [43] 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 re⯑spectful 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 objects, the most detestable. But we ad⯑mire 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 natu⯑rally call forth in that of the impartial spec⯑tator; which allows no word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more equita⯑ble sentiment would dictate; which never, even in thought, attempts any greater ven⯑geance, 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 re⯑strain [44] our selfish, and to indulge our be⯑nevolent affections, constitutes the perfec⯑tion of human nature; and can alone pro⯑duce among mankind that harmony of sen⯑timents and passions in which consists 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 im⯑ply a delicacy of sentiment and an acute⯑ness of understanding not commonly to be met with; so the virtues of sensibility and self-command are not apprehended to con⯑sist in the ordinary, but in the uncommon degrees of those qualities. The amiable virtue of humanity requires, surely, a sensi⯑bility, 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 mor⯑tals is capable of exerting. As in the com⯑mon [45] degree of the intellectual qualities, there is no abilities; so in the common de⯑gree of the moral, there is no virtue. Vir⯑tue is excellence, something uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is vulgar and ordinary. The ami⯑able virtues consist in that degree of sensi⯑bility which surprises by its exquisite and unexpected delicacy and tenderness. The awful and respectable, in that degree of self-command which astonishes by its amaz⯑ing superiority over the most ungovernable passions of human nature.

There is, in this respect, a considerable difference between virtue and mere pro⯑priety; between those qualities and actions which deserve to be admired and celebra⯑ted, 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 possest of, and sometimes even that degree is not necessary. Thus, to give a very low in⯑stance, to eat when we are hungry, is cer⯑tainly, upon ordinary occasions, perfectly right and proper, and cannot miss being [46] approved of as such by every body. No⯑thing, however, could be more absurd than to say it was virtuous.

On the contrary, there may frequently be a considerable degree of virtue in those actions, which fall short of the most per⯑fect propriety; because they may still ap⯑proach 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 ex⯑ertions 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 im⯑perfect a creature as man, is not able to stifle, altogether, the voice of human weak⯑ness, 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, there⯑fore, the behaviour of the sufferer fall short of the most perfect propriety, it may still deserve some applause, and even, in a cer⯑tain sense, may be denominated virtuous. It may still manifest an effort of genero⯑sity and magnanimity of which the greater [47] part of men are incapable; and though it fails of absolute perfection, it may be a much nearer approximation towards per⯑fection, than what, upon such trying oc⯑casions, is commonly either to be found or to be expected.

In all cases of this kind, when we are determining the degree of blame or ap⯑plause that seems due to any action, we very frequently make use of two different standards. The first is the idea of com⯑plete propriety and perfection, which, in those difficult situations, no human con⯑duct ever did, or ever can come up to; and in comparison with which the actions of all men must forever 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 ap⯑plause; and whatever falls short of it, to deserve blame.

It is in the same manner that we judge of the productions of all the arts which ad⯑dress themselves to the imagination. When [48] a critic examines the work of any of the great masters in poetry or painting, he may sometimes examine it by an idea of perfection, in his own mind, which nei⯑ther that nor any other human work will ever come up to; and as long as he com⯑pares it with this standard, he can see no⯑thing in it but faults and imperfections. But when he comes 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 com⯑mon 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 ap⯑plause, upon account of its approaching much nearer to perfection than the greater part of those works which can be brought into competition with it.

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 sympathise with them. Violent hunger, for example, though upon many occasions not only natural, but unavoidable, is al⯑ways indecent, and to eat voraciously is universally regarded as a piece of ill man⯑ners. There is, however, some degree of sympathy, even with hunger. It is agree⯑able to see our companions eat with a good appetite, and all expressions of loath⯑ing 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 expres⯑sion, with the one, and not with the other. We can sympathise with the distress which excessive hunger occasions, when we read the description of it in the journal of a [52] 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, our⯑selves, some degree of those passions, and therefore sympathise with them: but as we do not grow hungry by reading the description, we cannot properly, even in this case, be said to sympathise 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 the passions, all strong expressions of it are upon every occasion indecent, even between persons in whom its most com⯑pleat indulgence, is acknowledged by all laws, both human and divine, to be per⯑fectly 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 in⯑spire us with more gaiety, more plea⯑santry, and more attention; and an in⯑tire insensibility to the fair sex, renders a [53] man contemptible in some measure even to the men.

Such is our aversion for all the appe⯑tites which take their origin from the body: all strong expressions of them are loathsome and disagreeable. According to some antient philosophers, these are the passions which we share in common with the brutes, and which having no connec⯑tion with the characteristical qualities of human nature, are upon that account be⯑neath its dignity. But there are many other passions which we share in common with [...] brutes, such as resentment, natural [...], and even gratitude, which do not, upon that account, appear to be so brutal▪ The true cause of the peculiar [...] we conceive for the [...] body, when we see them [...] men, is that we cannot enter into them. To the person himself who [...] them, as soon as they are gratified, the object that excited them ceases to be agreeable: even its presence often be⯑comes offensive to him; he looks round to no purpose for the charm which trans⯑ported him the moment before, and he can now as little enter into his own [54] passion as another person. When we have dined, we order the covers to be re⯑moved; 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 pro⯑perly called temperance. To restrain them within those bounds, which regard to health and fortune prescribes, is the part of prudence. But to confine them with⯑in those limits, which grace, which pro⯑priety, which delicacy, and modesty, re⯑quire, is the office of temperance.

2. It is for the same reason that to cry out with bodily pain, how intolerable so⯑ever, appears always unmanly and un⯑becoming. 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 [55] 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 altoge⯑ther disproportioned to the violence of what is felt by the sufferer.

It is quite otherwise with those pas⯑sions which take their origin from the imagination. The frame of my body can be but little affected by the altera⯑tions which are brought about upon that of my companion: but my imagination is more ductile, and more readily as⯑sumes, if I may say so, the shape and configuration of the imaginations of those wi [...]h whom I am familiar. A disappoint⯑ment in love, or ambition, will, upon this account, call forth more sympathy than the greatest bodily evil. Those pas⯑sions arise altogether from the imagina⯑tion. 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 [56] the loss of his dignity, neglect from his friends, contempt from his enemies, de⯑pendance, want, and misery, coming fast upon him; and we sympathise 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 ridicu⯑lous tragedy, however, of which the ca⯑tastrophe 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 unea⯑siness. The agony which this creates is by no means over with the word. What at first disturbs us is not the object of [57] the senses, but the idea of the imagina⯑tion. As it is an idea, therefore, which occasions our uneasiness, till time and other accidents have in some measure ef⯑faced it from our memory, the imagina⯑tion continues to fret and rankle within, from the thought of it.

Pain never calls forth any very lively sym⯑pathy unless it is accompanied with danger. We sympathise with the fear, though not with the agony of the sufferer. Fear, how⯑ever, is a passion derived altogether from the imagination, which represents, with an uncertainty and fluctuation that in⯑creases our anxiety, not what we really feel, but what we may hereafter possibly suffer. The gout, or the tooth-ach, tho' exquisitely painful, excite very little sympa⯑thy; more dangerous diseases, tho' accom⯑panied 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 man⯑ner, the pain which proceeds from an ex⯑ternal [58] cause, than we do that which arises from an internal disorder. I can scarce form an idea of the agonies of my neigh⯑bour when he is tortured with the gout, or the stone; but I have the clearest con⯑ception 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. One who has been witness to a dozen dissections, and as many am⯑putations, 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 objects 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. Hippoly⯑tus 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 [59] interests us, but some other circumstance. It is not the sore foot, but the solitude, of Philoctetes which affects us, and dif⯑fuses over that charming tragedy, that ro⯑mantic wildness, which is so agreeable to the imagination. The agonies of Hercules and Hippolytus are interesting only be⯑cause we forsee that death is to be the conse⯑quence. If those heroes were to recover, we should think the representation of their sufferings perfectly ridiculous. What a tra⯑gedy would that be of which the distress con⯑sisted in a cholic. Yet no pain is more exquisite. These attempts to excite com⯑passion 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 pro⯑priety of constancy and patience in endur⯑ing it. The man, who under the seve⯑rest tortures allows no weakness to escape him, vents no groan, gives way to no passion which we do not entirely enter in⯑to, commands our highest admiration. His firmness enables him to keep time with our indifference and insensibility. [60] We admire and intirely go along with the magnanimous effort which he makes for this purpose. We approve of his be⯑haviour, 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 won⯑der and surprize, 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 ac⯑knowledged to be perfectly natural, are, however, but little sympathised with. The imaginations of mankind, not having acquired that particular turn, cannot enter into them; and such passions, though they [61] 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 natu⯑rally grows up between two persons of different sexes, who have long fixed their thoughts upon one another. Our imagi⯑nation 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 sympathise with his resentment, and grow angry with the very person with whom he his angry. If he has received a be⯑nefit, 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 dis⯑proportioned 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 [62] enter into it. All serious and strong ex⯑pressions of it appear ridiculous to a third person; and if the lover is not good com⯑pany to his mistress, he is to no body else. He himself is sensible of this; and as long as he continues in his sober senses, endea⯑vours to treat his own passion with raillery and ridicule. It is the only stile in which we care to hear of it; because it is the only stile in which we ourselves are disposed to talk of it. We grow weary of the grave, pedantic, and long-sentenced love of Cow⯑ley and Propertius, who never have done with exaggerating the violence of their at⯑tachments; but the gaiety of Ovid, and the gallantry of Horace, are always agree⯑able.

But tho' we feel no proper sympathy with an attachment of this kind, tho' we never approach even in imagination to⯑wards conceiving a passion for that parti⯑cular person, yet as we either have con⯑ceived, or may be disposed to conceive, passions of the same kind, we readily en⯑ter 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 in⯑terests [63] us not as a passion, but as a situa⯑tion 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 voy⯑age, it is not the hunger which interests us, but the distress which that hunger oc⯑casions. Tho' we do not properly enter into the attachment of the lover, we rea⯑dily 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 pas⯑toral tranquillity and retirement which the elegant, the tender, and the passionate Ti⯑bullus takes so much pleasure in describ⯑ing; a life like what the poets describe in the Fortunate Islands, a life of friend⯑ship, liberty, and repose; free from la⯑bour, 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 [64] 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 im⯑mediately 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 tra⯑gedies 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 mea⯑sure, improper, and is endured, not from any sympathy with the passion that is ex⯑pressed in it, but from concern for the dan⯑gers [65] and difficulties with which the audi⯑ence 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 Phaedra, as it is expressed in the French tragedy of that name, notwithstanding all the extra⯑vagance and guilt which attend 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 seconda⯑ry 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 va⯑lue of their objects, love is the only one that appears, even to the weakest minds, to have any thing in it that is either [66] graceful or agreeable. In itself, first of all, tho' it may be ridiculous, it is not na⯑turally odious; and tho' its consequences are often fatal and dreadful, its intentions are seldom mischievous. And then, tho' 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, gene⯑rosity, kindness, friendship, esteem; pas⯑sions with which, of all others, for rea⯑sons which shall be explained immediately, we have the greatest propensity to sympa⯑thize, 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; tho' in the one sex it necessarily leads to the last ruin and infamy; and tho' in the other, where it is apprehended to be least fatal, it is al⯑most always attended with an incapacity for labour, a neglect of duty, a contempt of fame, and even of common reputa⯑tion. Notwithstanding all this, the de⯑gree of sensibility and generosity with [67] 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 com⯑panions 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 phi⯑losopher 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 tho' derived from the imagi⯑nation, 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 undisci⯑plined [68] 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 oppo⯑site. What our sympathy with the per⯑son 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 suf⯑fered. 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 ren⯑der 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.

[69]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 in⯑dignation, as the hero is that of our sym⯑pathy 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 for the distress of the other. But tho' 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 hu⯑manity, provided it does not appear that he wants spirit, or that fear was the mo⯑tive of his forbearance, the higher the re⯑sentment 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 hu⯑man nature. A person becomes contemp⯑tible who tamely sits still, and submits to insults, without attempting either to repel or to revenge them. We cannot enter in⯑to [70] 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 enra⯑ged to see any man submit patiently to af⯑fronts 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 sympathise with it. It enlivens their own indignation a⯑gainst the enemy, whom they rejoice to see him attack in his turn, and are as real⯑ly 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 dan⯑gerous to insult or injure him, be ac⯑knowledged; and though their utility to the publick, 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 dis⯑agreeable in the passions themselves, which makes the appearance of them in other men the natural object of our aversion. [71] 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 par⯑ticular 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 ef⯑fects 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 pri⯑son is certainly more useful to the publick 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 ef⯑fects 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 [72] it was intended, it will be the more so. A palace, on the contrary, will always be agreeable: yet its remote effects may of⯑ten be inconvenient to the publick. It may serve to promote luxury, and set the example of the dissolution of manners. Its immediate effects, however, the con⯑veniency, the pleasure and the gaiety of the people who live in it, being all agree⯑able, and suggesting to the imagination a thousand agreeable ideas, that faculty gene⯑rally rests upon them, and seldom goes fur⯑ther in tracing its more distant conse⯑quences. Trophies of the instruments of musick 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 ab⯑surd and shocking. Instruments of sur⯑gery, however, are always more finely polished, and generally more nicely adapt⯑ed to the purposes for which they are intended, than instruments of agricul⯑ture. The remote effects of them too, [73] the health of the patient, is agreeable; yet as the immediate effect of them is pain and suffering, the sight of them always dis⯑pleases us. Instruments of war are agree⯑able, tho' their immediate effect may seem to be in the same manner pain and suf⯑fering. But then it is the pain and suf⯑fering of our enemies, with whom we have no sympathy; and, with regard to us, they are immediately connected with the agreeable ideas of courage, victory, and honour. They are themselves, there⯑fore, supposed to make one of the noblest parts of dress, and the imitation of them one of the finest ornaments of architec⯑ture. It is the same case with the quali⯑ties of the mind. The antient 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 mak⯑ing 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 [74] 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 so⯑ever 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 dis⯑gusts us. These, therefore, are the only passions of which the expressions, as I for⯑merly 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 continu⯑ed, 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 [75] mood, which disposes him to sympathize with, and share the joy which it expres⯑ses; 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, tho' sensible that themselves are not the objects of the anger. They con⯑ceive fear, however, by putting themselves in the situation of the person who is so. Even those of stouter hearts are disturb⯑ed; not indeed enough to make them a⯑fraid, 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 ob⯑jects of our aversion. Their disagreeable and boisterous appearance never excites, [76] never prepares, and often disturbs our sympathy. Grief does not more powerful⯑ly engage and attract us to the person in whom we observe it, than these, while we are ignorant of their cause, disgust and de⯑tach 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 ea⯑sily 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 melo⯑dious; and they naturally express them⯑selves in periods which are distinguished by regular pauses, and which upon that ac⯑count are easily adapted to the regular re⯑turns 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. Its periods too are all irregular, sometimes very long, and [77] 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 al⯑together 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. What⯑ever they may have lost, they can gene⯑rally [76] [...] [77] [...] [78] be very happy without it. What most disturbs them is the idea of per⯑fidy and ingratitude exercised towards themselves; and the discordant and dis⯑agreeable passions which this excites, con⯑stitutes, in their own opinion, the chief part of the injury that they suffer.

How many things are requisite to ren⯑der the gratification of resentment com⯑pleatly agreeable, and to make the spec⯑tator thoroughly sympathise with our re⯑venge? The provocation must first of all be such that we should become con⯑temptible, and be exposed to perpetual in⯑sults, if we did not, in some measure, re⯑sent it. Smaller offences are always bet⯑ter 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 ca⯑pable, concerning whose justness we ought to be so doubtful, concerning whose indul⯑gence [79] we ought so carefully to consult our natural sense of propriety, or so diligently to consider what will be the sentiments of the cool, and impartial spectator. Mag⯑nanimity, or a regard to maintain our own rank and dignity in society, is the only motive which can ennoble the expres⯑sions of this disagreeable passion. This motive must characterize our whole stile and deportment. These must be plain, open, and direct; determined without posi⯑tiveness, 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 ap⯑pear, 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 resent⯑ment 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 this whole set of passions, upon most occasions, so ungraceful and disagreeable; so there is another set op⯑posite to these, which a redoubled sym⯑pathy renders almost always peculiarly agreeable and becoming. Generosity, hu⯑manity, kindness, compassion, mutual friendship and esteem, all the social and benevolent affections, when expressed in the countenance or behaviour, even to⯑wards those who are peculiarly connected with ourselves, please the indifferent spec⯑tator 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 dis⯑position [81] to sympathise with the benevolent affections. They appear in every respect agreeable to us. We enter into the sa⯑tisfaction both of the person who feels them, and of the person who is the ob⯑ject of them. For as to be the object of hatred and indignation gives more pain than all the evil which a brave man can fear from his enemies; so there is a satisfaction in the consciousness of be⯑ing beloved, which, to a person of deli⯑cacy and sensibility, is of more import⯑ance to happiness than all the advantage which he can expect to derive from it. What character is so detestable as that of one who takes pleasure to sow dis⯑sention among friends, and to turn their most tender love into mortal hatred? Yet wherein does the atrocity of this so much [...]bhorred injury consist? Is it in de⯑priving them of the frivolous good offi⯑ [...]es, which, had their friendship continued, [...]hey might have expected from one ano⯑ther? It is in depriving them of that friend⯑ [...]hip itself, in robbing them of each others [...]ffections, from which both derived so much [...]atisfaction; it is in disturbing the har⯑mony of their hearts, and putting an end [82] 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, agree⯑able 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 ano⯑ther, and sympathy, with this mutual re⯑gard, 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 in which the parents and children ar [...] companions for one another, without an [...] other difference than what is made by re⯑spectful affection on the one side, an [...] kind indulgence on the other; whe [...] [83] freedom and fondness, mutual raillery, and mutual kindness, show that no op⯑position of interests divides the brothers, nor any rivalship of favour sets the sisters at variance, and where every thing pre⯑sents us with the idea of peace, chear⯑fulness, harmony, and contentment. On the contrary, how uneasy are we made when we go into a house in which jar⯑ring contention sets one half of those who dwell in it against the other; where amidst affected smoothness and complai⯑sance, 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 ne⯑ver 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, [84] 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 man⯑kind. It is always with concern, with sympathy and kindness, that we blame them for the extravagance of their attach⯑ment. There is a helplessness in the cha⯑racter of extreme humanity which more than any thing interests our pity. There is nothing in itself which renders it ei⯑ther ungraceful or disagreeable. We only regret that it is unfit for the world, be⯑cause the world is unworthy of it, and be⯑cause it must expose the person who is en⯑dowed with it as a prey to the perfidy and in⯑gratitude of insinuating falshood, 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 resent⯑ment. 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 ei⯑ther so graceful as is sometimes the one set, nor is ever so odious as is sometimes the other. Grief and joy, when conceiv⯑ed 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 resent⯑ment, 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 [...]ust benevolence; because no double sym⯑pa [...] can ever interest us for them. There [...]s, however, this difference between grief and joy, that we are generally most dis⯑posed to sympathise with small joys and great sorrows. The man, who by some [...]udden revolution of fortune is lifted up [...]ll at once into a condition of life, greatly [86] 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 pre⯑vents us from heartily sympathising with his joy. If he has any judgment he is sensible of this, and instead of appear⯑ing 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 endea⯑vours more than ever to be humble, as⯑siduous, 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 sympa⯑thy with our envy and aversion to his happiness, than we have with his hap⯑piness. It is seldom that with all this he succeeds. We suspect the sincerity of his humility, and he grows weary of this [87] constraint. In a little time, therefore, he generally leaves all his old friends behind him, some of the meanest of them ex⯑cepted, who may, perhaps, condescend to become his dependents: nor does he al⯑ways acquire any new ones; the pride of his new connections is as much affront⯑ed 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 at⯑tone 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 pet [...]lance, 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 happi⯑ness. 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 [88] 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 sym⯑pathise with those smaller joys which flow from less important causes. It is decent to be humble amidst great pros⯑perity; 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 con⯑versation, 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 up⯑on a peculiar relish for all the little plea⯑sures which common occurrences afford. We readily sympathise 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 dispo⯑sition. Hence it is that youth, the sea⯑son [89] of gaiety, so easily engages our affec⯑tions. That propensity to joy which seems even to animate the bloom, and to sparkle from the eyes of youth and beauty, tho' 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 acquaint⯑ance, from whom they are sorry to have ever been parted, and whom they em⯑brace 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 polite⯑ness, whether it be shewn to himself or to any other person, who takes it amiss that his intimate friend did not bid him [90] good-morrow when they met in the fore⯑noon, 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, sympa⯑thise with it in others, whenever we are not prejudiced by envy. But grief is pain⯑ful, and the mind, even when it is our own misfortune, naturally resists and re⯑coils from it. We would endeavour ei⯑ther 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 sympathising with it in others when excited by the like frivolous causes: for our sympathetic pas⯑sions are always less irresistible than our [91] 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 in⯑cident may give them, and those who are more thoroughly formed to society, turn, of their own accord, all such inci⯑dents into raillery, as they know their com⯑panions 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 cer⯑tainly be considered by them.

Our sympathy, on the contrary, with deep distress, is very strong and very sin⯑cere. It is unnecessary to give an in⯑stance. We weep even at the feigned representation of a tragedy. If you labour, therefore, under any signal calamity, if [92] 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 de⯑pend 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 am⯑bition, if you have only been jilted by your mistress, or only hen-pecked by your wife, lay your account with the raillery of all your acquaintance.

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 felt by the person prin⯑cipally 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 [94] we had a real sympathy with joy, and that congratulation was a principle of human nature. No body, I believe, ever thought it necessary to prove that com⯑passion was such.

First of all, our sympathy with sor⯑row is, in some sense, more universal than that with joy. Though sorrow is exces⯑sive, we may still have some fellow-feel⯑ing with it. What we feel does not, in⯑deed, in this case, amount to that com⯑pleat sympathy, to that perfect harmony and correspondence of sentiments which con⯑stitutes approbation. We do not weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the suf⯑ferer. 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 intirely 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 indig⯑nation.

[95]Pain besides, whether of mind or body, is a more pungent sensation than plea⯑sure, 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 viva⯑city of the original passion.

Over and above all this, we often struggle to keep down our sympathy with the sor⯑row 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 [96] wish to sympathise with the joy of others, when by that disagreeable sentiment we are disqualified from doing so. We are glad, we say, upon account of our neigh⯑bour's good fortune, when in our hearts, perhaps, we are really sorry. We often feel a sympathy with sorrow when we would wish to be rid of it; and we often miss that with joy when we would be glad to have it. The obvious observa⯑tion, therefore, which it naturally falls in our way to make, is that our pro⯑pensity to sympathise with sorrow must be very strong, and our inclination to sympathise with joy very weak.

Notwithstanding this prejudice, how⯑ever, I will venture to affirm, that, when there is no envy in the case, our propen⯑sity to sympathise with joy is much stronger than our propensity to sympathise 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 ex⯑cessive grief which we cannot entirely go [97] along with. We know what a prodigious effort is requisite before the sufferer can bring down his emotions to compleat har⯑mony 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; be⯑cause we are not conscious that any such vast effort is requisite to bring it down to what we can intirely 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 de⯑serve 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 con⯑cerned, and what the spectator can in⯑tirely 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 super⯑fluous: and if he is much elevated upon account of them, it must be the effect of [98] the most frivolous levity. This situation, however, may very well be called the na⯑tural and ordinary state of mankind. Notwithstanding the present misery and depravity of the world, so justly lament⯑ed, 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 ex⯑cite in their companion.

But though little can be added to this state, much may be taken from it. Tho' 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 pro⯑digious. Adversity, upon this account, ne⯑cessarily 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 sympathise entirely, and keep perfect time, with his sorrow, than thoroughly to enter into his joy, and must depart much further from his own na⯑tural and ordinary temper of mind in the one case than in the other. It is upon this account, that, though our sympathy [99] with sorrow is often a more pungent sen⯑sation than our sympathy with joy, it al⯑ways falls much more short of the violence of what is naturally felt by the person principally concerned.

It is agreeable to sympathise 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. 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 endea⯑vour to cover our concern from the com⯑pany. If we shed any tears, we carefully conceal them, and are afraid lest the specta⯑tors, not entering into this excessive ten⯑derness, 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, [100] 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 enounce him⯑self with shouts of exultation, in full con⯑fidence that we are heartily disposed to go along with him.

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 pain⯑ful emotion. It is always miserable to complain, even when we are oppressed by the most dreadful calamities. But the tri⯑umph of victory is not always ungraceful. Prudence, indeed, would often advise us to bear our 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? [101] And how sedate and moderate is commonly their grief at an execution? Our sorrow at a funeral generally amounts to no more than an affected gravity; but our mirth at a christening, or a marriage, is always from the heart, and without any affectation. Up⯑on 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 con⯑gratulate 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 in⯑terrupted by those natural bursts of passion [102] 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 per⯑haps, upon that account, work ourselves up into an artificial sympathy, which, how⯑ever, when it is raised, is always the slight⯑est and most transitory imaginable; and generally, as soon as we have left the room, vanishes, and is gone forever. Nature, it seems, when she 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 upon account of this dull sensibility to the afflictions of others, that magna⯑nimity amidst great distress appears always so divinely graceful. His behaviour is genteel and agreeable who can maintain his chearfulness amidst a number of frivo⯑lous disasters. But he appears to be more [103] 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 natu⯑rally agitate and distract those in his situa⯑tion. 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 pos⯑sess. There is the most perfect correspon⯑dence between his sentiments and ours, and upon that account the most perfect pro⯑priety 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 sur⯑prise and astonishment at that strength of mind which is capable of so noble and ge⯑nerous an effort. The sentiment of com⯑pleat sympathy and approbation, mixed and animated with wonder and surprise, con⯑stitutes what is properly called admiration, as has already been more than once taken notice of. Cato, surrounded on all sides [104] by his enemies, unable to resist them, dis⯑daining to submit to them, and reduced, by the proud maxims of that age, to the neces⯑sity of destroying himself; yet never shrink⯑ing 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 forti⯑tude, and the moment before he executes his fatal resolution, giving, with his usual tran⯑quillity, 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 magna⯑nimity, we are always extremely affected. We are more apt to weep and shed tears for such as, in this manner, seem to feel no⯑thing for themselves, than for those who give way to all the weakness of sorrow: and in this particular case, the sympathe⯑tic grief of the spectator appears to go be⯑yond the original passion in the person principally concerned. The friends of So⯑crates all wept when he drank the last [105] potion, while he himself expressed the gaiest and most chearful tranquillity. Upon all such occasions the spectator makes no ef⯑fort, 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 sen⯑sibility 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 oc⯑cur to him, concerning the calamity of his friend, for whom, perhaps, he never felt so exquisitely before, the tender and tear⯑ful passion of love. But it is quite other⯑wise with the person principally concerned. He is obliged, as much as possible, to turn away his eyes from whatever is either na⯑turally terrible or disagreeable in his situa⯑tion. Too serious an attention to those circumstances, he fears, might make so vi⯑olent an impression upon him, that he could no longer keep within the bounds of mode⯑ration, or render himself the object of the compleat sympathy and approbation of the spectators. He fixes his thoughts, there⯑fore, upon those only which are agreeable, [106] the applause and admiration which he is about to deserve by the heroic magnani⯑mity 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, ani⯑mates and transports him with joy, and enables him to support that triumphant gaiety which seems to exult in the vic⯑tory that he thus gains over his misfor⯑tunes.

On the contrary, he always appears, in some measure, mean and despicable, who is sunk in sorrow and dejection upon ac⯑count of any calamity of his own. We cannot bring ourselves to feel for him what he feels for himself, and what, per⯑haps, we should feel for ourselves if in his situation: we, therefore, despise him; un⯑justly, perhaps, if any sentiment could be regarded as unjust, to which we are by na⯑ture irresistibly determined. The weakness of sorrow never appears in any respect agree⯑able, 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 sor⯑row [107] is chiefly founded upon a sort of sympa⯑thy with his departed parent; and we readily enter into this humane emotion. But if he should indulge the same weakness upon ac⯑count of any misfortune which affected him⯑self only, he would no longer meet with any such indulgence. If he should be reduced to beggary and ruin, if he should be expos⯑ed 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 forever in the opi⯑nion 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 ex⯑pose 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 Byron, who had so often braved death in the field, that he wept upon the scaf⯑fold, when he beheld the state to which he [108] was fallen, and remembered the favour and the glory from which his own rash⯑ness 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 sympathise 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 pub⯑lic, and to feel, that though our situation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no mor⯑tal conceives for us the half of what we suffer. Nay, it is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pur⯑sue riches and avoid poverty. For to what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? what is the end of avarice and am⯑bition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power, and preheminence? Is it to supply the ne⯑cessities of nature? The wages of the meanest labourer can supply them. We see that they afford him food and cloath⯑ing, [109] the comfort of a house, and of a fa⯑mily. If we examine his oeconomy with rigor, we shall find that he spends a great part of them upon conveniencies, 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 highest 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 cloath⯑ed in the same humble attire? Do they ima⯑gine 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 observ⯑ed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency and ap⯑probation, [110] 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 dis⯑posed to go along with him in all those agreeable emotions with which the advan⯑tages 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 man⯑kind, or, that if they take any notice of him, they have, however, scarce any fel⯑low-feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers. He is mortified upon both accounts; for though to be overlook⯑ed, and to be disapproved of, are things entirely different, yet as obscurity covers us from the daylight of honour and ap⯑probation, to feel that we are taken no [111] notice of, necessarily damps the most agree⯑able 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 obscuri⯑ty as if shut up in his own hovel. Those hum⯑ble cares and painful attentions which occu⯑py those in his situation, afford no amuse⯑ment 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 fortu⯑nate 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 circum⯑stances 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 [112] direct their eyes; it is upon him that their passions seem all to wait with expectation, in order to receive that movement and di⯑rection which he shall impress upon them; and, if his behaviour is not altogether absurd, he has, every moment, an opportu⯑nity of interesting mankind, and of render⯑ing himself the object of the observation and fellow-feeling of every body about him. It is this, which, notwithstanding the re⯑straint it imposes, notwithstanding the loss of liberty with which it is attended, renders greatness the object of envy, and compen⯑sates, in the opinion of mankind, all that toil, all that anxiety, all those mortifica⯑tions which must be undergone in the pur⯑suit of it; and what is of yet more conse⯑quence, all that leisure, all that ease, all that careless security, which are forfeited forever 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 [113] feel, therefore, a peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of these 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 [...]o agreeable a situation! We could even wish them immortal; and it seems hard to [...]s, that death should at last put an end [...]o such perfect enjoyment. It is cruel, we [...]hink, in nature, to compel them from [...]heir 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 [...]eadily make them, if experience did not [...]each us its absurdity. Every calamity [...]hat befals them, every injury that is done [...]hem, excites in the breast of the spectator [...]en times more compassion and resentment [...]han he would have felt, had the same [...]hings happened to other men. It is the misfortunes of Kings only which afford [...]he proper subjects for tragedy. They re⯑ [...]emble, in this respect, the misfortunes of [...]overs. Those two situations are the chief which interest us upon the theatre; be⯑cause, in spite of all that reason and expe⯑rience [114] can tell us to the contrary, the pre⯑judices of the imagination attach to these two states a happiness superior to any other. To disturb, or to put an end to such per⯑fect enjoyment, seems to be the most atro⯑cious 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 in⯑dignation which they feel for the misfor⯑tunes 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 high 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 fre⯑quently arises from our admiration for the advantages of their situation, than from [115] any private expectations of benefits 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 recompence but the va⯑nity or the honour of obliging them. Nei⯑ther is our deference to their inclinations founded chiefly, or altogether, upon a re⯑gard to the utility of such submission, and to the order of society, which is best sup⯑ported by it. Even when the order of society seems to require that we should op⯑pose 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 sub⯑mit 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 [116] mortifications. To treat them in any re⯑spect 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 fa⯑miliarity and acquaintance. The strongest motives, the most furious passions, fear, hatred and resentment, are scarce sufficient to balance this natural disposition to re⯑spect them: and their conduct must, ei⯑ther 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 mo⯑ment, and easily relapse into their habi⯑tual 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. Com⯑passion soon takes the place of resentment, they forget all past provocations, their old principles of loyalty revive, and they ru [...] to re-establish the ruined authority of thei [...] old masters, with the same violence wit [...] [117] 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 mak⯑ing 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 pub⯑lic 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 him⯑self worthy of that superiority over his fel⯑low citizens, to which the virtue of his ancestors had raised them? Is it by know⯑ledge, by industry, by patience, by self-denial, or by virtue of any kind? As all his words, as all his motions are attended [...]o, 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 [118] indifferent occasions, with that freedom and elevation which the thought of this natu⯑rally inspires. His air, his manner, his de⯑portment, all mark that elegant and grace⯑ful sense of his own superiority, which those who are born to inferior stations can hard⯑ly ever arrive at: these are the arts by which he proposes to make mankind more easily submit to his authority, and to go⯑vern their inclinations according to his own pleasure: and in this he is seldom disap⯑pointed. These arts, supported by rank and preheminence, are, upon ordinary oc⯑casions, 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 ac⯑quired 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 at⯑tended, or by the unwearied and unre⯑lenting application with which he pursued them? Was it by his extensive knowledge, by his exquisite judgment, or by his he⯑roic valour? It was by none of these qua⯑lities. [119] But he was, first of all, the most powerful prince in Europe, and consequent⯑ly 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 a deportment which could suit only him and his rank, and which would have been ridiculous in any other person. The embarassment 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 ma⯑jesty, I hope, will believe that I do not tremble thus before your enemies: had no difficulty to obtain what he demand⯑ed.’ 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 a⯑bove mediocrity, established this prince in the esteem of his own age, and have drawn, [120] even from posterity, a good deal of re⯑spect for his memory. Compared with these, in his own times, and in his own presence, no other virtue, it seems, ap⯑peared 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 re⯑warded 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 per⯑fect modesty and plainness, joined to as [121] 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 dis⯑tinguish himself, it must be by more im⯑portant virtues. He must acquire depen⯑dants 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 dan⯑ger, and firm in distress. These talents he must bring into publick view, by the difficulty, importance, and, at the same time, good judgment of his undertakings, and by the severe and unrelenting applica⯑tion with which he pursues them. Pro⯑bity and prudence, generosity and frank⯑ness, must characterise 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 ap⯑plause is to be acquired by those who can [122] acquit themselves with honour. With what impatience does the man of spirit and ambition, who is depressed by his situ⯑ation, look round for some great opportu⯑nity to distinguish himself? No circum⯑stances, which can afford this, appear to him undesireable. 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 occa⯑sions 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 embarass himself with what can be attended either with dif⯑ficulty 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 publick confu⯑sions, not from the love of mankind, for the great never look upon their inferiors [123] 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 re⯑quired in such situations, and that the pub⯑lick 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, forti⯑tude, 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 gene⯑rally 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, tho' [...]oaded 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 con⯑tempt, and afterwards with envy, are at [124] last contented to truckle with the same ab⯑ject 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 Aemilius, 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 spec⯑tators, amidst the public rejoicings and prosperity, with the tenderest sorrow and compassion. The King appeared next in the procession; and seemed like one con⯑founded and astonished, and bereft of all sentiment, by the greatness of his cala⯑mities. His friends and ministers follow⯑ed after him. As they moved along, they often cast their eyes upon their fallen sove⯑reign, and always burst into tears at the sight; their whole behaviour demonstrat⯑ing that they thought not of their own misfortunes, but were occupied intirely by the superior greatness of his. The gene⯑rous [125] Romans, on the contrary, beheld him with disdain and indignation, and regard⯑ed 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? Accord⯑ing 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 at⯑tend upon all his motions. He was no longer to be gazed upon by multitudes, nor to have it in his power to render him⯑self the object of their respect, their grati⯑tude, 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 mag⯑nanimity [126] could scarce conceive how any man could be so mean-spirited as to bear to survive.

‘Love, says my Lord Rochefaucault, is commonly succeeded by ambition; but ambition is hardly ever succeeded by love.’ That passion, when once it has got intire possession of the breast, will ad⯑mit 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, cha⯑grined at the thoughts of their own insig⯑nificancy, incapable of being interested in the occupations of private life, without en⯑joyment 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 liber⯑ty for the lordly servitude of a Court, but [127] to live free, fearless, and independant? 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 ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth who have alrea⯑dy engrossed the attention of half mankind before you.

Of such mighty importance does it ap⯑pear to be, in the imaginations of men, to stand in that situation which sets them most in the view of general sympathy and atten⯑tion. And thus, place, that great object which divides the wives of aldermen, is the end of half the labours of human 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, in⯑deed despise place; that is, they despise sitting at the head of the table, and are in⯑different who it is that is pointed out to the company by that frivolous circum⯑stance, which the smallest advantage is ca⯑pable of overbalancing. But rank, distinc⯑tion, preeminence, no man despises, unless [128] he is either raised very much above, or sunk very much below, the ordinary stan⯑dard of human nature; unless he is either so confirmed in wisdom and real philo⯑sophy, as to be satisfied that, while the propriety of his conduct renders him the just object of approbation, it is of little consequence tho' he be neither attended to, nor approved of; or so habituated to the idea of his own meanness, so sunk in sloth⯑ful and sottish indifference, as intirely 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 condi⯑tions of life, we shall find, that the exces⯑sive 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 appro⯑bation [129] of mankind, be, as we have been endeavouring to show, what chiefly re⯑commends to us one condition above ano⯑ther, this may be equally attained in them all. The noblest propriety of conduct may be supported in adversity, as well as in prosperity; and tho' 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 the⯑atre which can exhibit its virtue to advan⯑tage, 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 dan⯑ger, who never encountered any difficulty, who never surmounted any distress, can excite but an inferior degree of admira⯑tion. 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 [...]s, they are all of a different kind. They [...]re rapid and sudden changes of fortune, [...]ituations the most apt to drive those who [...]re in them to frenzy and distraction, or [...]o abject despair; but in which their he⯑roes [130] act with so much propriety, or at least with so much spirit and undaunted reso⯑lution, 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 Caesar or Alexander? To a generous mind, therefore, ought it not to be as much the object of envy? If a more dazzling splen⯑dor seems to attend the fortunes of suc⯑cessful conquerors, it is because they join together the advantages of both situations, the lustre of prosperity to the high admi⯑ration which is excited by dangers en⯑countered, and difficulties surmounted, with intrepidity and valour.

It was upon this account that, accord⯑ing to the stoical philosophy, to a wise man all the different conditions of life were equal. Nature, they said, had re⯑commended some objects to our choice, and others to our disapprobation. Our primary appetites directed us to the pur⯑suit of health, strength, ease, and perfec⯑tion, 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 [131] 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 conse⯑quence 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 di⯑recting all our actions according to these, consisted the happiness and glory of hu⯑man nature. In departing from those rules which they prescribed to us, its great⯑est wretchedness and most compleat de⯑pravity. The outward appearance of this order and propriety was indeed more ea⯑sily 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 pro⯑priety, was equally impossible in every situ⯑ation. Tho' the giddy multitude might admire him, tho' his vanity might some⯑times be elated by their ignorant praises into something that resembled self-appro⯑bation, [132] yet still when he turned his view to what passed within his own breast, he was secretly conscious to himself of the absurd⯑ity 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 propri⯑ety, to act so as to deserve approbation was equally easy upon all occasions. Was he in prosperity, he returned thanks to Ju⯑piter for having joined him with circum⯑stances 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 oppo⯑sed to him a vigorous athlete, over whom, tho' the contest was likely to be more vio⯑lent, the victory was more glorious, and equally certain. Can there be any shame in that distress which is brought upon us [133] 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 ad⯑vantage. 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 mea⯑sure his strength and activity with the strongest. And in the same manner, one who is master of all his passions, does not dread any circumstance in which the su⯑perintendent of the universe may think proper to place him. The bounty of that divine being has provided him with vir⯑ [...]ues which render him superior to every [...]ituation. If it is pleasure, he has temper⯑ance 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 [...]o despise it. He never complains of the destiny of providence, nor thinks the uni⯑verse in confusion when he is out of order. [134] 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 it⯑self, 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 be⯑falls 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 oc⯑casion 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 [135] 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 would 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 chear⯑fulness with which I embraced their allot⯑ment. If I am going to sail, says Epicte⯑tus, I chuse the best ship, and the best pi⯑lot, 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 di⯑rection of my conduct, require this of me; but they require no more: and if, not⯑withstanding, 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, despond⯑ing, or afraid. Whether we are to be drowned, or to come to a harbour, is the business of Jupiter, not mine. I leave it intirely to his determination, nor ever [136] break my rest with considering which way he is likely to decide it, but receive what⯑ever comes with equal indifference and se⯑curity.

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 other objection, except that honourable one, that they teach us to aim at a per⯑fection altogether beyond the reach of hu⯑man nature. I shall not at present stop to examine it. I shall only observe, in con⯑firmation 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 publick, under small disasters, than under great misfortunes. The first excite no sympathy; but the second, tho' 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 fel⯑low-feeling [137] 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 gentle⯑man, to whom dishonour is the greatest of all evils, come to be regarded among a hu⯑mane and generous people, as the most dreadful of any. With regard to persons of that rank, therefore, they are univer⯑ [...]ally laid aside, and the law, while it takes [...]heir life upon many occasions, respects [...]heir honour upon almost all. To scourge [138] a person of quality, or to set him in the pillory, upon account of any crime what⯑ever, is a brutality of which no European government, except that of Russia, is ca⯑pable.

A brave man is not rendered contemp⯑tible by being brought to the scaffold; he is, by being set in the pillory. His beha⯑viour in the one situation may gain him universal esteem and admiration. No be⯑haviour in the other can render him agree⯑able. The sympathy of the spectators sup⯑ports 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 pu⯑nishment, though not by the crime. The man, on the contrary, who dies with re⯑solution, [139] as he is naturally regarded with 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 suspi⯑cion that his situation is the object of con⯑tempt or derision to any body, and he can, with propriety, assume the air, not only of perfect serenity, but of triumph and exultation.

‘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 observing just now, with regard to punish⯑ments.

Human virtue is superior to pain, to poverty, to danger, and to death; nor does it even require its remotest efforts to despise them. But to have its misery ex⯑posed to insult and derision, to be led in triumph, to be set up for the hand of scorn [140] to point at, is a situation in which its con⯑stancy is much more apt to fail. Com⯑pared with the contempt of mankind, all other evils are easily supported.

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 ob⯑ject of resentment, appears to deserve punishment.

TO us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which ap⯑pears to be the proper and approved ob⯑ [...]ect of that sentiment, which most imme⯑diately and directly prompts us to reward, or to do good to another. And in the same manner, that action must appear to [...]eserve punishment, which appears to be [...]he proper and approved object of that [...]entiment which most immediately and [...]irectly prompts us to punish, or to inflict [...]vil upon another.

The sentiment which most immediate⯑ [...]y and directly prompts us to reward, is gratitude; that which most immediately [...]nd directly prompts us to punish, is re⯑ [...]entment.

[144]To us, therefore, that action must ap⯑pear to deserve reward, which appears to be the proper and approved object of gra⯑titude; as, on the other hand, that action must appear to deserve punishment, which appears to be the proper and approved ob⯑ject of resentment.

To reward, is to recompense, to remu⯑nerate, to return good for good received. To punish, too, is to recompense, to re⯑munerate, 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 ex⯑cite 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 ob⯑ject of such agreeable emotions, and con⯑sequently, 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 [145] [...]appy, without regarding who was the [...]uthor of his prosperity. But gratitude is [...]ot to be satisfied in this manner. If the person to whom we owe many obliga⯑ [...]ions, is made happy without our assist⯑ [...]nce, though it pleases our love, it does [...]ot content our gratitude. Till we have [...]ecompensed him, till we ourselves have [...]een instrumental in promoting his hap⯑ [...]iness, we feel ourselves still loaded with [...]hat debt which his past services have laid [...]pon us.

The hatred and dislike, in the same manner, which grow upon habitual dis⯑ [...]pprobation, would often lead us to take [...] malicious pleasure in the misfortune [...]f the man whose conduct and character [...]xcite so painful a passion. But though [...]islike and hatred harden us against all [...]ympathy, and sometimes dispose us even [...]o rejoice at the distress of another, yet, [...]f there is no resentment in the case, if [...]either we nor our friends have received [...]ny great personal provocation, these [...]assions would not naturally lead us to wish to be instrumental in bringing it [...]bout. Though we could fear no punish⯑ment in consequence of our having had [146] some hand in it, we would rather that it should happen by other means. To one under the dominion of violent hatred i [...] would be agreeable, perhaps, to hear, th [...] the person whom he abhorred and detested was killed by some accident. But if he had the least spark of justice, which, tho' thi [...] passion is not very favourable to virtue, he might still have, it would hurt him exces⯑sively to have been himself, even witho [...] design, the occasion of this misfortune. Much more would the very thought of vo⯑luntarily contributing to it shock him be⯑yond all measure. He would reject wi [...] horror even the imagination of so execra⯑ble a design; and if he could imagine him⯑self capable of such an enormity, he would begin to regard himself in the same odio [...] light in which he had considered the per⯑son who was the object of his dislike. Bu [...] it is quite otherwise with resentment: i [...] the person who had done us some great in⯑jury, who had murdered our father or ou [...] brother, for example, should soon after⯑wards die of a fever, or even be brought [...] the scaffold upon account of some othe [...] crime, tho' it might sooth our hatred, [...] would not fully gratify our resentment. [147] 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 can⯑not 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, thro' fear of the like punish⯑ment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. The natural gratifi⯑cation of this passion tends, of its own ac⯑cord, to produce all the political ends of punishment; the correction of the crimi⯑nal, and the example to the public.

Gratitude and resentment, therefore, are [...]he sentiments which most immediately and directly prompt to reward and to pu⯑nish. To us, therefore, he must appear to deserve reward, who appears to be the pro⯑per 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 ap⯑proved of.

But these, as well as all the other pas⯑sions of human nature, seem proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial spectator intirely sympathises with them, when every indifferent by-stander in⯑tirely enters into, and goes along with them.

He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or persons, is the na⯑tural object of a gratitude which every hu⯑man 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 [149] is ready to adopt and sympathise 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 pu⯑nishment, which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that account re⯑joices 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 sa⯑tisfaction with which they naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good for⯑tune. We enter into the love and affec⯑tion 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, tho' they should lose no⯑thing 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, pro⯑tected, relieved by another, our sympathy with the joy of the person who receives the [150] benefit serves only to animate our fellow-feeling with his gratitude towards him who bestows it. When we look upon the per⯑son 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 sym⯑pathize 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 up⯑on him. As we intirely enter into the af⯑fection from which these returns proceed, they necessarily seem every way proper and suitable to their object.

2. In the same manner, as we sympa⯑thize with the sorrow of our fellow-creature whenever we see his distress, so we like⯑wise enter into his abhorrence and aver⯑sion 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, [151] 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 dis⯑tress of the sufferer seems to serve only to animate our fellow-feeling with his resent⯑ment against the offender. We are rejoic⯑ed 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 re⯑sentment of his friends and relations, but with the imaginary resentment which in fancy we lend to the dead, who is no long⯑er capable of feeling that or any other hu⯑man 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 de⯑formed and mangled carcase of the slain, when we bring home in this manner his [152] 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 prin⯑cipal 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 consci⯑ousness of what passes upon earth. His blood, we think, calls aloud for vengeance. The ve⯑ry ashes of the dead seem to be disturbed at the thought that his injuries are to pass unre⯑venged. The horrors which are supposed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghosts which, superstition imagines, rise from their graves to demand vengeance up⯑on those who brought them to an untimely end, all take their origin from this natu⯑ral sympathy with the imaginary resent⯑ment of the slain. And with regard, at least, to this most dreadful of all crimes, [153] nature, antecedent to all reflexions upon the utility of punishment, has in this man⯑ner 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 per⯑son 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 en⯑ter into the affections which influenced [154] 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 con⯑duct 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 pu⯑nishment.

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 gra⯑titude of the person who received the bene⯑fit of his actions. A very small return seems due to that foolish and profuse ge⯑nerosity which confers the greatest benefits from the most trivial motives, and gives an estate to a man merely because his name and sirname happen to be the same with those of the giver. Such services do not seem to demand any proportionable recom⯑pense. [155] 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 bene⯑factor 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 ea⯑sily absolve him from a great deal of that submissive veneration and esteem which we should think due to a more respectable cha⯑racter; 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 de⯑mand to a worthier patron. Those Princes, who have heaped, with the greatest profu⯑sion, 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 [156] and nobility of England exposed their lives and fortunes in the cause of his more fru⯑gal and distinguishing son, notwithstand⯑ing the coldness and distant severity of his ordinary deportment.

2. Secondly, I say, That wherever the conduct of the agent appears to have been intirely directed by motives and affections which we thoroughly enter into and ap⯑prove of▪ we can have no sort of sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, how great soevet the mischief which may have been done to him. When two people quarrel, if we take part with, and intirely 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, can⯑not but harden us against all fellow-feeling with the other, whom we necessarily re⯑gard 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 indigna⯑tion would have prompted us to inflict upon him, it cannot either displease or pro⯑voke [157] us. When an inhuman murderer is brought to the scaffold, tho' 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 indig⯑nation 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.

1. 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 intirely go along with. Our heart must adopt the principles of the agent, and go along with all the affections which influ⯑enced his conduct, before it can intirely [158] sympathize with, and beat time to, the gra⯑titude 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 recom⯑pence.

But when to the beneficent tendency of the action is joined the propriety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we intirely 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 ac⯑tions seem then to demand, and, if I may say so, to call aloud for a proportionable recompense. We then intirely enter into that gratitude which prompts to bestow it. The benefactor seems then to be the proper object of reward, when we thus intirely sympathize with, and approve of, that sen⯑timent which prompts to reward him. When we approve of, and go along with, the affection from which the action pro⯑ceeds, we must necessarily approve of the [159] action, and regard the person towards whom it is directed as its proper and suit⯑able 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, un⯑less he has been the cause of it from mo⯑tives 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 influ⯑enced his conduct. If there appears to have been no impropriety in these, how fa⯑tal 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 intirely sympathize with the resentment of the sufferer. Such actions seem then to deserve, and, if I may say so, [160] to call aloud for, a proportionable punish⯑ment; and we intirely enter into, and there⯑by approve of, that resentment which prompts to inflict it. The offender neces⯑sarily seems then to be the proper object of punishment, when we thus intirely sympa⯑thize 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 ap⯑prove 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 de⯑merit.

1. AS our sense, therefore, of the pro⯑priety of conduct arises from what I shall call a direct sympathy with the affec⯑tions and motives of the person who acts, so our sense of its merit arises from what I shal [...] call an indirect sympathy with the grati⯑tude of the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon.

[161]As we cannot indeed enter thoroughly into the gratitude of the person who re⯑ceives 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 bene⯑fit of his actions.

We may, upon many different occa⯑sions, plainly distinguish those two differ⯑ent emotions combining and uniting toge⯑ther in our sense of the good desert of a particular character or action. When we [...]ead in history concerning actions of pro⯑per and beneficent greatness of mind, how [...]agerly do we enter into such designs? How much are we animated by that high-spi⯑ [...]ited generosity which directs them? How [...]een are we for their success? How grieved at [...]heir disappointment? In imagination we become the very person whose actions are [...]epresented to us: we transport ourselves [...]n fancy to the scenes of those distant and forgotten adventures, and imagine our⯑selves acting the part of a Scipio or a Ca⯑millus, [162] 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 em⯑brace, as it were, their benefactor along with them. Our heart readily sympathi⯑zes with the highest transports of their grateful affection. No honours, no re⯑wards, 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 per⯑formed them rejoice in his turn, arises from the sympathetic emotions of grati⯑tude and love, with which, when we bring [163] home to our own breasts the situation of those principally concerned, we feel our⯑selves 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 anti⯑pathy to the affections and motives of the agent, so our sense of its demerit arises from what I shall here too call an indirect sym⯑pathy with the resentment of the sufferer.

As we cannot indeed enter into the resentment of the sufferer, unless our heart before-hand disapproves the motives of the agent, and renounces all fellow-feeling with them; so upon this account the [...]ense of demerit, as well as that of merit, [...]eems to be a compounded sentiment, and [...]o be made up of two distinct emotions; [...] direct antipathy to the sentiments of the [...]gent, and an indirect sympathy with the [...]esentment of the sufferer.

We may here too, upon many different [...]ccasions, plainly distinguish those two [...]ifferent emotions combining and uniting [...]ogether in our sense of the ill desert of a [...]articular character or action. When we [164] read in history concerning the perfidy and cruelty of a Borgia or a Nero, our heart rises up against the detestable sentiment [...] which influenced their conduct, and re⯑nounces 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, mur⯑dered, or betrayed, what indignation do we not feel against such insolent and inhu⯑man oppressors of the earth? Our sym⯑pathy 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 [165] 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 re⯑taliation, 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 i [...], and of making him grieve in his turn, arises from the sympa⯑thetic indignation which naturally boils up in the breast of the spectator, whenever he thoroughly brings home to himself the case of the sufferer ^*.

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 grati⯑tude 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 re⯑sentment, or excite the sympathetic resent⯑ment of the spectator.

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force, the meer want of it ex⯑poses to no punishment: because the meer 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 [171] justly excite dislike and disapprobation: it cannot, however, provoke any resentment which mankind will go along with. The man who does not recompence his bene⯑factor, when he has it in his power, and when his benefactor needs his assistance, is, no doubt, guilty of the blackest in⯑gratitude. The heart of every impartial spectator rejects all fellow-feeling with the selfishness of his motives, and he is the pro⯑per object of the highest disapprobation. But still he does no posiive hurt to anybody; he only does not do that good which in pro⯑priety he ought to have done. He is the ob⯑ject 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 posi⯑tive hurt to some particular persons. His want of gratitude, therefore, cannot be punished. To oblige him by force to per⯑form what ingratitude he ought to per⯑form, 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 [172] 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 near⯑est to what is called a perfect and compleat obligation. What friendship, what gene⯑rosity, 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 meer 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 [173] for these purposes, nor can the spectator ever go along with it when it is exerted for any other. But the meer want of the be⯑neficent virtues, though it may disappoint us of the good which might reasonably be expected, neither does, nor attempts to do, any mischief from whch we can have oc⯑casion 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 viola⯑tion exposes to resentment, and consequent⯑ly 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 pro⯑per object of resentment, and of punish⯑ment, 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 ap⯑prove of, that which is employed to pre⯑vent and beat off the injury, and to re⯑strain the offender from hurting his neigh⯑bours. The person himself who meditates [174] 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 dis⯑tinction between justice and all the other social virtues, which has of late been par⯑ticularly insisted upon by an author of very great and original genius, that we feel ourselves to be under a stricter obliga⯑tion to act according to justice, than agreeably to friendship, charity, or gene⯑rosity; that the practice of these last men⯑tioned virtues seems to be left in some measure to our own choice, but that, some⯑how or other, we feel ourselves to be in a peculiar manner tyed, 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 blameable, or the proper object of disapprobation, from what [175] force may be employed either to punish or to prevent. That seems blameable which falls short of that ordinary degree of proper be⯑neficence 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 blameable nor praise-worthy. A father, a son, a brother, who behaves to the corres⯑pondent 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 ex⯑traordinary 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 blame⯑able in the other.

Even the most ordinary degree of kind⯑ness or beneficence, however, cannot, among equals, be extorted by force. Among equals each individual is naturally, and an⯑tecedent to the institution of civil govern⯑ment, 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 ge⯑nerous [176] spectator not only approves of his conduct when he does this, but enters so far into his sentiments as often to be will⯑ing 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 reve⯑rence which might be expected to his father; when brothers are without the usual de⯑gree 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 persua⯑sion. Upon all such occasions for equals to use force against one another, would [177] 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 en⯑trusted with the power not only of preserv⯑ing the public peace by restraining injustice, but of promoting the prosperity of the com⯑monwealth, by establishing good disci⯑pline, and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety; he may prescribe rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual injuries among fellow-citizens, but com⯑mand mutual good offices to a certain de⯑gree. When the sovereign commands what is meerly indifferent, and what antecedent to his orders might have been omitted with⯑out any blame, it becomes not only blame⯑able but punishable to disobey him. When he commands, therefore, what, antecedent to any such order, could not have been o⯑mitted without the greatest blame, it surely [178] becomes much more punishable to be want⯑ing in obedience. Of all the duties of a law⯑giver, however, this, perhaps, is what it requires the greatest delicacy and reserve to execute with propriety and judgment. To neglect it altogether exposes the common⯑wealth to many gross disorders and shock⯑ing enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice.

Though the meer 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 observation 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. Meer justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neigh⯑bour. [179] 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 ful⯑fils, however, all the rules of what is pe⯑culiarly called justice, and does every thing 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 benificent. Those whose hearts never open to the feel⯑ings of humanity, should, we think, be shut out, in the same manner, from the affec⯑tions of all their fellow-creatures, and be allowed to live in the midst of society, as in a great desart where there is no-body to care for them, or to enquire 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 re⯑gard to the sufferings of his brethren is capable of restraining him, he ought to [180] be over-awed by the fear of his own. The man who is barely innocent, who only ob⯑serves the laws of justice with regard to others, and meerly 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 in⯑dignation for evil which that other has done to us. To disturb his happiness meerly because it stands in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real use to him meerly because it may be of equal or of 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 [181] other people, is what no impartial specta⯑tor can go along with. Every man, is no doubt, by nature first, and principally re⯑commended 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 connection, 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 tho' 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. Tho' 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 [182] it. Tho' 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. Tho' it may be true, therefore, that every individual, in his own breast, na⯑turally prefers himself to all mankind, yet he dares not look mankind in the face, and avow that he acts according to this princi⯑ple. 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 extrava⯑gant 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 bet⯑ter than any other in it. If he would act so as that the impartial spectator may en⯑ter 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 some⯑thing 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 happi⯑ness [183] 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 compe⯑titors. But if he should justle, or throw down any of them, the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a vio⯑lation of fair play, which they cannot ad⯑mit of. This man is to them, in every re⯑spect, as good as he: they do not enter into that self-love by which he prefers him⯑self 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 injur⯑ed, and the offender becomes the object of their hatred and indignation. He is sen⯑sible 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 sufferers runs naturally the higher, so does likewise the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, as well as the sense of guilt in the [184] 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 indivi⯑duals only, in the sight both of mankind, and of the person who has committed it. To be deprived of that which we are pos⯑sessed of, is a greater evil than to be disap⯑pointed of what we have only the expecta⯑tion. 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 vio⯑lation seems to call 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 pro⯑mi [...]es of others.

The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on the sentiments which mankind must entertain with re⯑gard [185] to him, without feeling all the ago⯑nies of shame and horror, and consterna⯑tion. When his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to reflect on his past con⯑duct, he can enter into none of the mo⯑tives 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 ha⯑tred 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 pro⯑per object of the resentment and indigna⯑tion of mankind, and of what is the na⯑tural consequence of resentment, venge⯑ance 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 ima⯑gines himself as it were rejected, and thrown out from the affections of all mankind. He cannot hope for the consolation of sym⯑pathy in this his greatest, and most dread⯑ful [186] distress. The remembrance of his crimes has shut out all fellow-feeling 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 hos⯑tile, 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 soli⯑tude is still more dreadful than society. His own thoughts can present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate, and disastrous, the melancholy forebod⯑ings of incomprehensible misery and ruin. The horror of solitude drives him back in⯑to society, and he comes again into the presence of mankind, astonished to appear before them, loaded with shame and dis⯑tracted 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 sen⯑timents which can enter the human breast the most dreadful. It is made up of shame [187] 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 resent⯑ment 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 sur⯑vey 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 har⯑mony with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with confidence and [188] benevolent satisfaction, secure that he has rendered himself worthy of their most fa⯑vourable regards. In the combination of all these sentiments consists the conscious⯑ness of merit, or of deserved reward.

CHAP. III. Of the utility of this constitution of na⯑ture.

IT is thus that man, who can subsist on⯑ly 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 like⯑wise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally af⯑forded 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 mu⯑tual good offices.

But tho' the necessary assistance should not be afforded from such generous and dis⯑interested [189] motives, tho' among the different members of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, the society, tho' less happy and agreeable, will not necessa⯑rily be dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among different mer⯑chants, from a sense of its utility, with⯑out any mutual love or affection; and tho' no one man in it should owe any obliga⯑tion, or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary ex⯑change 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 in⯑jury begins, the moment that mutual re⯑sentment and animosity take place, all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the dif⯑ferent members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their dis⯑cordant 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 existence of society than [190] justice. Society may subsist, tho' not in the most comfortable state, without benefi⯑cence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it.

Tho' nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing con⯑sciousness 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 build⯑ing, 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 edi⯑fice. If it is removed, the great, the im⯑mense fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and to 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. To en⯑force the observation of justice, therefore, nature has implanted in the human breast that consciousness of ill-desert, those ter⯑rors of merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safe-guards of the association of mankind, to protect [191] the weak, to curb the violent, and to chas⯑tize the guilty. Men, tho' naturally sym⯑pathetic, feel so little for another, with whom they have no particular connection, in comparison of what they feel for them⯑selves; the misery of one, who is merely their fellow-creature, is of so little impor⯑tance 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 up⯑on him; and a man would enter an assem⯑bly 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 pro⯑duce; and in the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for advancing the two great pur⯑poses of nature, the support of the indivi⯑dual, and the propogation 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 organi⯑zations. [192] 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 pur⯑poses of circulation or digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably ad⯑justed to the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their vari⯑ous motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they were endow⯑ed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we ne⯑ver ascribe any such desire or intention to them, but to the watch-maker, and we know that they are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But tho', in account⯑ing for the operations of bodies, we never fail to distinguish in this manner the effi⯑cient from the final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with [193] one another. When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason would re⯑commend 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 tolerably observed, as no so⯑cial intercourse can take place among men who do not generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this ne⯑cessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved of the enforce⯑ment of the laws of justice by the punish⯑ment of those who violated them. Man, it has been said, has a natural love for so⯑ciety, and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own sake, and tho' he himself was to derive no benefit from [194] it. The orderly and flourishing state of society is agreeable to him, and he takes delight in contemplating it. It's disorder and confusion, on the contrary, is the ob⯑ject of his aversion, and he is chagrined at whatever tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own interest is con⯑nected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness, perhaps the preserva⯑tion of his existence, depends upon its pre⯑servation. 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 ap⯑pearance 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 beat 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 ap⯑proves of the enforcement of the laws of justice even by the capital punishment of those who viola [...]e them. The disturber of [195] 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 in⯑justice. And so far this account is un⯑doubtedly true that we frequently have oc⯑casion to confirm our natural sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment by re⯑flecting 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 inso⯑lence of his injustice is broken and hum⯑bled by the terror of his approaching pu⯑nishment; 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 [196] general interest of society. They counter⯑balance the impulse of this weak and par⯑tial humanity, by the dictates of a hu⯑manity that is more generous and com⯑prehensive. 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 de⯑fend 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 licenti⯑ous ridiculing the most sacred rules of mo⯑rality, and professing, sometimes from the corruption, but more frequently from the vanity of their hearts, the most abomi⯑nable maxims of conduct. Our indigna⯑tion rouses, and we are eager to refute and expose such detestable principles. But tho' it is their intrinsic hatefulness and detest⯑ableness, 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 be⯑cause we ourselves hate and detest them. [197] 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 ha⯑tred and detestation? But when we are asked why we should not act in such or such a manner, the very question seems to sup⯑pose 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, there⯑fore, that it ought to be so for the sake of something else. Upon this account we ge⯑nerally 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, there⯑fore, to insist upon this topic.

But tho' 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 unthink⯑ing, abhor fraud, perfidy, and injustice, and delight to see them punished. But few men have reflected upon the necessity [198] of justice to the existence of society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be.

That it is not a regard to the preserva⯑tion of society, which originally interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against individuals, may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations. The con⯑cern which we take in the fortune and hap⯑piness 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 be⯑cause 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 com⯑pounded and made up of the particular regards which we feel for the different in⯑dividuals of which it is composed. As when a small sum is unjustly taken from [199] 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 in⯑dividual who has been injured. It is to be observed, however, that this concern does not necessarily include in it any de⯑gree of those exquisite sentiments which are commonly called love, esteem and af⯑fection, 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 fel⯑low-feeling with his natural indignation; tho' with those who are not either extreme⯑ly candid, or who have not been accus⯑tomed [200] to correct and regulate their natu⯑ral sentiments by general rules, it is very apt to damp it.

Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment, mere⯑ly from a view to the general interest of society, which, we imagine, cannot other⯑wise be secured. Of this kind are all the punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil police, or military dis⯑cipline. 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 dis⯑order in the society. A centinel, for ex⯑ample, who falls asleep upon his watch, suffers death by the laws of war, because such carelessness might endanger the whole army. This severity may, upon many oc⯑casions, appear necessary, and, for that reason, just and proper. When the pre⯑servation 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 [201] the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment so great, that it is with diffi⯑culty that our heart can reconcile itself to it. Though such carelessness appears very blameable, yet the thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resent⯑ment, as would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must recollect himself, must make an ef⯑fort, and exert his whole firmness and re⯑solution, before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go along with it when it is inflicted by others. It is not, how⯑ever, in this manner, that he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful mur⯑derer or parricide. His heart, in this case, applauds with ardour, and even with trans⯑port, 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 senti⯑ments 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, [202] 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 an⯑other world, that crime which the injus⯑tice 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 reli⯑gion authorises 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 guil⯑ty of the like practices here. The justice of God, however, we think, still requires, that he should hereafter avenge the inju⯑ries [203] 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 pro⯑duce; 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 oc⯑casions the misery of mankind, which the same divine quality renders the object of his aversion; is not the doctrine of nature, but of an artificial, though ingenious, re⯑finement of philosophy. All our natural sentiments prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is supposed necessarily to ap⯑pear 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 pu⯑nishment. That the gods neither resent nor hurt, was the general maxim of all the different sects of the ancient philoso⯑phy: and if, by resenting, be understood, that violent and disorderly perturbation, which often distracts and confounds the human breast; or if, by hurting, be un⯑derstood, [204] 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 abhor⯑rence and aversion, and what, for its own sake, it is fit and right should be punished, the truth of this maxim can, by no means, be so easily admitted. If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt to fear, lest before the holiness of God, vice should appear to be more worthy of punishment than the weakness and imperfection of hu⯑man virtue can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a be⯑ing of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, or in the im⯑perfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence of his fellow-creatures, he may often justly elevate himself, and may of⯑ten 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 can scarce imagine, that his littleness and weakness should ever seem [205] to be 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 pu⯑nishment; neither can he see any reason why the divine indignation should not be let loose without any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as he is sensible that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for happiness, he is conscious that he can⯑not demand it from the justice, but that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow, humiliation, contri⯑tion at the thought of his past conduct, are, upon this account, the sentiments which become him, and seem to be the only means which he has left for appeasing that wrath which, he knows, he has just⯑ly provoked. He even distrusts the effi⯑cacy 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 ca⯑pable [206] of making, before the purity of the divine justice can be reconciled to his ma⯑nifold offences. The doctrines of revela⯑tion 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 atone⯑ment has been paid for our manifold trans⯑gressions and iniquities.

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 ob⯑jects, which, in all animals, immediately excite those two passions of gratitude and [211] resentment. They are excited by inani⯑mated, 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, cor⯑rects 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 ob⯑ject 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 ob⯑jects, 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 [212] rather preserve it with care and affection, as a monument that was, in some mea⯑sure, 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 con⯑ceives something like a real love and af⯑fection 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 re⯑spect that seems due to such benefactors. The decay of the one, or the ruin of the other, affects us with a kind of melancho⯑ly, 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 af⯑fection, which the authors of those super⯑stitions 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 [213] cannot vent themselves with any sort of sa⯑tisfaction upon it. As they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain, so their gra⯑tification consists in retaliating those sensati⯑ons 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 re⯑sentment 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 remark⯑ably 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 stab⯑bed he 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 ca⯑pable of feeling those sensations, they are [214] still far from being compleat and perfect objects, either of gratitude or resentment; and those passions still feel, that there is something wanting to their entire gratifi⯑cation. What gratitude chiefly desires, is not only to make the benefactor feel plea⯑sure 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 bene⯑factor, is the concord between his senti⯑ments 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 we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves. To main⯑tain in him these agreeable and flattering sentiments, is one of the chief ends pro⯑posed by the returns we are disposed to make to him. A generous mind often dis⯑dains the interested thought of extorting new favours from its benefactor, by what [215] may be called the importunities of its gra⯑titude. But to preserve and to increase his esteem, is an interest which the greatest mind does not think unworthy of its at⯑tention. And this is the foundation of what I formerly observed, that when we cannot enter into the motives of our bene⯑factor, 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 ob⯑ject which does not deserve to be pursued for its own sake.

The object, on the contrary, which re⯑sentment 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 [216] he gives to himself above us, and that ab⯑surd self-love, by which he seems to ima⯑gine, 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 in⯑justice 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 sen⯑sible 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 ap⯑pears 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 compleat and proper object, either of gra⯑titude or resentment, it must possess three different qualifications. First, it must be the cause of pleasure in the one case, [217] 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 or in the one case, and dis⯑approved of in the other. It is by the first qualification, that any object is ca⯑pable 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 compleat satisfac⯑tion, 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, there⯑fore, either in one way or another, is the sole exciting cause of gratitude and resent⯑ment; though the intentions of any per⯑son 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 the evil which he intended, as one of the ex⯑citing 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 [218] person, there was either no laudable de⯑gree of benevolence, on the one hand, or no blameable degree of malice on the o⯑ther, 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 alto⯑gether 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 for⯑tune is, first, to diminish our sense of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the most laudable or blameable intentions, when they fail of producing their proposed effects: and, se⯑condly, to increase our sense of the merit [219] 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.

I. 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 incompleat in the other. Nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who are immediately affec⯑ted by the consequence of any action. It is felt, in some measure, even by the im⯑partial 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 pa⯑tron and benefactor, and as intitled to his respect and gratitude. The person obliged, we are apt to think, may, with some jus⯑tice, imagine himself on a level with the first; but we cannot enter in his senti⯑ments, if he does not feel himself inferior [220] 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 un⯑successful attempt of this kind; but which, like all other fine speeches, must be under⯑stood with a grain of allowance. The senti⯑ments 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 them⯑selves 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 perfect⯑ly compleat: and accordingly if, between the friend who fails and the friend who succeeds, all other circumstances are equal, [221] there will, even in the noblest and the best mind, be some little difference of affec⯑tion in favour of him who succeeds. Nay, so unjust are mankind in this respect, that though the intended benefit should be pro⯑cured, 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 per⯑sons 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 be⯑nefit; since had it not been for the con⯑currence 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 specta⯑tor, diminish the debt which they owe to him. The person himself who has unsuc⯑cessfully endeavoured to confer a benefit, has by no means the same dependency up⯑on [222] 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 mea⯑sure imperfect, even to those who are ful⯑ly convinced of their capacity to produce them. The general who has been hinder⯑ed by the envy of ministers from gaining some great advantage over the enemies of his country, regrets the loss of the oppor⯑tunity for ever after. Nor is it only upon account of the public that he regrets it. He laments that he was hindered from per⯑forming an action which would have ad⯑ded a new lustre to his character in his own eyes, as well as in those of every o⯑ther 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 ca⯑pable of executing it, and that had he been permitted to go on, success was infal⯑lible. He still did not execute it; and [223] though he might deserve all the approba⯑tion which is due to a magnanimous and great design, he still wanted the actual me⯑rit of having performed a great action. To take the management of any affair of public concern from the man who has al⯑most brought it to a conclusion, is regard⯑ed as the most invidious injustice. As he had done so much, he should, we think, have been allowed to acquire the compleat merit of putting an end to it. It was ob⯑jected 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 Lu⯑cullus, it seems, was less compleat 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 compleatly discovered in that as in the ac⯑tual execution. But a plan does not, even [224] to the most intelligent, give the same plea⯑sure 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, ne⯑ver approaches to the wonder and admi⯑ration which are sometimes excited by the second. We may believe of many men, that their talents are superior to those of Caesar 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 astonish⯑ment and admiration with which those two heroes have been regarded in all ages and na⯑tions. The calm judgments of the mind may approve of them more, but they want the splendor of great actions to dazzle and trans⯑port 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 un⯑grateful mankind, to be diminished by the miscarriage, so does likewise the demerit of an unsuccessful attempt to do evil. The [225] design to commit a crime, how clearly so⯑ever it may be proved, is scarce ever pu⯑nished 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 pu⯑nishment 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 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 com⯑mit it. A treasonable concert, tho' nothing has been done, or even attempted in con⯑sequence of it, nay, a treasonable conver⯑ [...]ation, is in many countries punished in [226] 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 sup⯑pose 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 execu⯑ting. 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, tho' he should wound him, yet, unless death ensues within a cer⯑tain time, the assassine is not liable to the last punishment. The resentment of man⯑kind, however, runs so high against thi [...] crime, their terror for the man who show himself capable of committing it is s [...] great, that the mere attempt to commit i [...] [227] ought in all countries to be capital. The attempt to commit smaller crimes is almost always punished very lightly, and some⯑times is not punished at all. The thief, whose hand has been caught in his neigh⯑bour'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 at⯑tempt to ravish is not punished as a rape. The attempt to seduce a married woman is not punished at all, tho' seduction is pu⯑nished severely. Our resentment against the person who only attempted to do a mis⯑chief 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 for our misfortune in⯑creases it. His real demerit, however, is undoubtedly the same in both cases, since his intentions were equally criminal; and [228] there is in this respect, therefore, an irre⯑gularity 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 dis⯑poses them either to dispense with, or to mi⯑tigate punishments wherever their natural indignation is not goaded on by the conse⯑quences 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 com⯑pany, has resolved, and perhaps taken measures to perpetrate some crime, but who has fortunately been prevented by an acci⯑dent which put it out of his power, is sure, if he has any remains of conscience, to re⯑gard 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 into which he was just ready to plunge himself, and to hinder him from rendering all the rest of his life a [229] s [...]ene of horror, remorse, and repentance. But tho' his hands are innocent, he is con⯑scious 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, tho' he knows that the failure arose from no virtue in him. He still considers himself as less de⯑serving 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 remem⯑ber 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 me⯑rit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the motives or affection from which [...]hey proceed, when they happen to give [230] 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, tho' in his inten⯑tion 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 natural⯑ly 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 vic⯑tory, is intitled to considerable preferments, and the general always chuses one of his principal favourites to go upon so agree⯑able an errand. The first author of our sorrow is, on the contrary, just as natural⯑ly [231] the object of a transitory resentment. We can scarce avoid looking upon him with chagrine and uneasiness; and the rude and brutal are apt to vent upon him that spleen which his intelligence gives oc⯑casion 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 disagree⯑able 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 ex⯑ertion of the social and benevolent affec⯑tions; but it requires the most solid and substantial to make us enter into that of the unsocial and malevolent.

But tho' in general we are averse to enter into the unsocial and malevolent affections, tho' we lay it down for a rule that we ought never to approve of their gratifica⯑tion unless so far as the malicious and un⯑just intention of the person, against whom [232] 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 would have appeared to deserve, had no such unlucky consequence followed from it.

There is a degree of negligence, which would appear to deserve some chastise⯑ment tho' 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 regard⯑ing where it was likely to fall, he would undoubtedly deserve some chastisement. A very accurate police would punish so ab⯑surd an action, even tho' 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 wanton⯑ly exposes his neighbour to what no man in his senses would chuse to expose himself, [233] and evidently wants that sense of what is due to his fellow creatures which is the ba⯑sis of justice and of society. Gross negli⯑gence therefore is, in the law, said to be al⯑most equal to malicious design ^*. 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 coun⯑tries, particularly by the old law of Scot⯑land, liable to the last punishment. And tho' this is no doubt excessively severe, it is not altogether inconsistent with our natu⯑ral sentiments. Our just indignation a⯑gainst 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 [234] 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 sen⯑timents would be very different. The con⯑sideration 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 mis⯑taken, be found a great degree of severity in the laws of almost all nations; as I have already observed that in those of an op⯑posite kind there was a very general re⯑laxation of discipline.

There is another degree of negligence which does not involve in it any sort of in⯑justice. 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 de⯑serves upon this account some degree of blame and censure, but no sort of punish⯑ment. Yet if by a negligence ^b of this kind [235] he should occasion some damage to an⯑other person, he is by the laws of, I be⯑lieve, 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 de⯑cision of the law is approved of by the na⯑tural 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 blameable negligence should be made up by the person who was guilty of it.

There is another species of negligence ^c, 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 at⯑tention, when no bad consequences follow from it, is so far from being regarded as blameable, that the contrary quality is ra⯑ther considered as such. That timid circum⯑spection which is afraid of every thing, is never regarded as a virtue, but as a qua⯑lity which more than any other incapacitates [236] for action and business. Yet when, from a want of this excessive care, a person hap⯑pens to occasion some damage to another, he is often by the law obliged to compen⯑sate 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 an⯑xiety about merely possible effects, 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 de⯑sert, with regard to him. He naturally runs up to the sufferer to express his con⯑cern 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 [237] thing he can to appease that animal resent⯑ment, which he is sensible will be apt to arise in the breast of the sufferer. To make no apology, to offer no atonement, is re⯑garded 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 for⯑tune of another? This task would surely never be imposed upon him, did not even the impartial spectator feel some indul⯑gence for what may be regarded as the un⯑just resentment of that other.

CHAP. III. Of the final cause of this irregularity of sentiments.

SUCH is the effect of the good or bad consequences of actions upon the sen⯑timents both of the person who performs them, and of others; and thus, fortune, which governs the world, has some influ⯑ence where we should be least willing to allow her any, and directs in some mea⯑sure [238] the sentiments of mankind, with re⯑gard 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 our sentiments, with regard to the merit or propriety of his conduct. But when we come to particulars, we find that our sen⯑timents are scarce in any one instance ex⯑actly conformable to what this equitable maxim would direct. The happy or un⯑prosperous event of any action, is not on⯑ly apt to give us a good or bad opinion of the prudence with which it was conduct⯑ed, but almost always too animates our gratitude or resentment, our sense of the merit or demerit of the design.

Nature, however, when she implanted the seeds of this irregularity in the human breast, seems, as upon all other occasions, to have intended the happiness and perfec⯑tion of the species. If the hurtfulness of the design, if the malevolence of the affec⯑tion, were alone the causes which excit⯑ed [239] 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 haboured, though they had never broke out into any action. Sentiments, thoughts, intentions, would become the objects of punishment; and if the indignation of mankind run 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 circum⯑spect 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 punish⯑ment and resentment. Actions therefore which either produce actual evil, or at⯑tempt to produce it, and thereby put us in the immediate fear of it, are by the au⯑thor of nature rendered the only proper and approved objects of human punish⯑ment [230] and resentment. Sentiments, designs, affections, though it is from these that ac⯑cording to cool reason human actions derive their whole merit or demerit, are placed by the great Judge of hearts beyond the li⯑mits of every human jurisdiction, and are reserved for the cognizance of his own un⯑erring tribunal. That necessary rule of justice, therefore, that men in this life are liable to punishment for their actions on⯑ly, not for their designs and intentions, is founded upon this salutary and useful ir⯑regularity in human sentiments concern⯑ing merit or demerit, which at first sight appears so absurd and unaccountable. But every part of nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the provi⯑dential care of its author, and we may ad⯑mire 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 meer 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 [241] both of himself and others, as may seem most favourable to the happiness of all. He must not be satisfied with indolent be⯑nevolence, 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 be⯑stow 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 of⯑fices, will be but of little avail to excite either the loudest acclamations of the world, or even the highest degree of self- [...]pplause. The man who has performed [...]o single action of importance, but whose whole conversation and deportment express [...]he justest, the noblest, and most generous [...]entiments, can be intitled to demand no [...]ery high reward, even tho' his inutility [...]hould be owing to nothing but the want [...]f an opportunity to serve. We can still [...]efuse it him without blame. We can [242] still ask him, What have you done? What actual service can you produce, to intitle you to so great a recompence? We esteem you, and love you; but we owe you no⯑thing. To reward indeed that latent vir⯑tue which has been useless only for want of an opportunity to serve, to bestow upon it those honours and preferments which, tho' in some measure it may be said to deserve them, it could not with propriety have in⯑sisted 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 be⯑nevolent affections seem to deserve most praise, when they do not wait till it be⯑comes almost a crime for them not to exert themselves. The malevolent, on the con⯑trary, 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 reve⯑rence the happiness of his brethren, to tremble lest he should, even unknowingly, do any thing that can hurt them, and to [243] dread that animal resentment which he feels is ready to burst out against him, if he should without design be the unhappy ins⯑trument 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 alto⯑gether without reward. He then calls to his assistance that just and equitable ma⯑xim, that those events which did not de⯑pend upon our conduct ought not to di⯑minish the esteem that is due to us. He summons up his whole magnanimity and firmness of soul, and strives to regard him⯑self, 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, [...]f the sentiments of mankind were either altogether candid and equitable, or even perfectly consistent with themselves. The more candid and humane part of mankind [244] intirely go along with the effort which he thus makes to support himself in his own opinion. They exert their whole genero⯑sity and greatness of mind, to correct in themselves this irregularity of human na⯑ture, and endeavour to regard his unfor⯑tunate 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.

CHAP. I. Of those systems which make virtue [...] in propriety.

ACCORDING to Plato, to Ari⯑stotle and to Zeno, virtue consists in the propriety of conduct, or in the suitable⯑ness of the affection from which we act [...] the object which excites it.

I. In the system of Plato ^a the soul is con⯑sidered as something like a little state or re⯑publick, composed of three different facul⯑ties or orders.

The first is the judging faculty, the faculty which determines not only what are the pro⯑per means for attaining any end, but [...] what ends are fit to be pursued, and [...] degree of relative value we ought to [...] upon each. This faculty Plato called, as [...] is very properly called, reason, and cons [...]dered it as what had a right to be the govern [...]ing [419] principle of the whole. Under this ap⯑pellation, it is evident, he comprehended not only that faculty by which we judge of truth and falshood, but that by which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of de⯑sires and affections.

The different passions and appetites, the natural subjects of this ruling principle, but which are so apt to rebel against their master, [...] reduced to two different classes or orders. The first consisted of those passions, which are [...]ounded in pride and resentment, or in what [...]he schoolmen called the irascible part of the [...]oul; ambition, animosity, the love of ho⯑ [...]our and the dread of shame, the desire of [...]ictory, superiority and revenge; all those [...]assions, in short, which are supposed either [...]o arise from, or to denote what by a meta⯑ [...]hor in our language we commonly call spi⯑ [...]t or natural fire. The second consisted of [...]hose passions which are founded in the love [...]f pleasure, or in what the schoolmen called [...]he concupiscible part of the soul. It com⯑ [...]ehended all the appetites of the body, the [...] of ease and security, and of all sensual [...]ratifications.

[420]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 ungo⯑vernable ambition and resentment, or by the importunate sollicitations of present ease and pleasure. But tho' these two orders of pas⯑sions are so apt to mislead us, they are still considered as necessary parts of human na⯑ture: 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 [...]s distinguish those who act in the same man⯑ner; the second to provide for the suppo [...] and necessities of the body.

In the strength, acuteness and perfection [...] the governing principle was placed the essen⯑tial virtue of prudence, which, according [...] Plato consisted in a just and clear discern⯑ment, founded upon general and [...] ideas, of the ends which were proper to [...] pursued, and of the means which were pr [...]per for attaining them.

[421]When the first set of passions, those of the irascible part of the soul, had that degree of strength and firmness, which enabled them, un⯑der the direction of reason, to despise all dan⯑gers in the pursuit of what was honourable and noble; it constituted the virtue of for⯑titude and magnanimity. This order of pas⯑sions, 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 re⯑strain the inferior and brutal appetites. We are often angry at ourselves, it was observed, we often become the objects of our own re⯑sentment and indignation, when the love of pleasure prompts us to do what we disap⯑prove of; and the irascible part of our na⯑ [...]ure is in this manner called in to assist the [...]ational against the concupiscible.

When all those three different parts of our [...]ature were in perfect concord with one an⯑ [...]ther, when neither the irascible nor concupi⯑ [...]cible passions ever aimed at any gratification which reason did not approve of, and when [...]eason never commanded any thing, but what [...]hese of their own accord were willing to [...]erform: this happy composure, this perfect [...]nd compleat harmony of soul constituted [422] that virtue which in their language is express⯑ed 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, con [...]ined itself to it's proper office, without attempting to encroach upon that of any other; when reason directed and pas⯑sion obeyed, and when each passion perform⯑ed its proper duty, and exerted itself towards its proper object easily and without reluc⯑tance, and with that degree of force and en⯑ergy, which was suitable to the value of what it pursued. In this consisted that compleat virtue, that perfect propriety of conduct, which Plato, after some of the antient Pytha⯑goreans, denominated Justice.

The word, it is to be observed, which ex⯑presses justice in the Greek language has se⯑veral different meanings; and as the corres⯑pondent word in all other languages, so far as I know, has the same, there must be some natural affinity among those various significa⯑tions. In one sense we are said to do justice to our neighbour when we abstain from doing [423] 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 ob⯑servance of which may be extorted by force, and the violation of which exposes to punish⯑ment. In another sense we are said not to do justice to our neighbour unless we con⯑ceive for him all that love, respect and esteem, which his character, his situation, and his connection 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 hurt⯑ing him in every respect, if we do not exert ourselves to serve him and to place him in that situation in which the impartial specta⯑tor would be pleased to see him. The first sense of the word coincides with what Ari⯑stotle and the Schoolmen call commutative [...]ustice; and with what Grotius calls the jus⯑titia expletrix, which consists in abstaining from what is anothers, and in doing volun⯑tarily whatever we can with propriety be forced to do. The second sense of the word coincides with what some have called distri⯑butive [424] justice ^a, and with the justitia attributri [...] of Grotius, which consists in proper benefi⯑cence, in the becoming use of what is our own, and in the applying it to those pur⯑poses either of charity or generosity, to which it is most suitable in our situation that it should be applied. In this sense justice com⯑prehends 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, tho' 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 im⯑partial 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 atten⯑tion [425] to any particular object of self-interest. In this last sense, what is called justice means the same thing with exact and perfect proprie⯑ty of conduct and behaviour, and compre⯑hends in it, not only the offices of both com⯑mutative 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, com⯑prehends in it the perfection of every sort of virtue.

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 ap⯑probation. It consists, according to him, in that state of mind in which every faculty con⯑fines itsself within its proper sphere without encroaching upon that of any other, and per⯑forms its proper office with that precise de⯑gree 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, ^a according to Aristotle, con⯑sists [426] in the habitual mediocrity of the affec⯑tions according to right reason. Every par⯑ticular 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 a middle be⯑tween the opposite vices of cowardice and of presumptuous rashness, of which the one of⯑fends 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 ex⯑cess of arrogance and the defect of pusillani⯑mity, of which the one consists in too extrava⯑gant, the other in too weak a sentiment of our own worth and dignity. It is unnecessary to ob⯑serve that this account of virtue corresponds too pretty exactly with what has been said above concerning the propriety and impro⯑priety of conduct.

[427]According to Aristotle ^a, indeed, virtue did not so much consist in those moderate and right affections, as in the habit of this mode⯑ration. 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 accord⯑ing to Aristotle, in the reasonable moderation of the affection from which the action pro⯑ceeds, 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 it's 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, be⯑cause 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 hu⯑mour than of any thing steady or permanent [428] in the character, it can reflect no great ho⯑nour upon the performer. When we deno⯑minate 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 dispo⯑sition 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, tem⯑perance and fortitude. But tho' single actions, how laudable soever, reflect very little praise upon the person who performs them, a single vitious action performed by one whose conduct is usually very regular, greatly dimi⯑nishes 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 be⯑haviour we might have been apt to imagine.

[429]Aristotle too ^a, when he made virtue to con⯑sist in practical habits, had it probably in his view to oppose the doctrine of Plato, who seems to have been of opinion that just sen⯑timents and reasonable judgments concerning what was fit to be done or to be avoided, were alone sufficient to constitute the most per⯑fect virtue. Virtue, according to Plato, might be considered as a species of science, and no man, he thought, could see clearly and de⯑monstratively 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 under⯑standing was capable of getting the better of inveterate habits, and that good morals arose not from knowledge but from action.

III. According to Zeno ^b, the founder of the Stoical doctrine, every animal was by nature recommended to its own care, and was indowed with the principle of self-love [430] 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.

The self-love of man embraced, if I may say so, his body and all its different mem⯑bers, his mind and all its different faculties and powers, and desired the preservation and maintainance 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 all the ex⯑ternal conveniencies which could promote these, wealth, power, honours, the respect and esteem of those we live with, were na⯑turally pointed out to us as things eligible, and of which the possession was preferable to the contrary. On the other hand, sickness, infirmity, unweildiness, 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 [431] 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 unweil⯑deness 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 which were 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 which might [...]e 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 de⯑gree of attention that was due to it, accord⯑ing to the place which it held in this natural scale of things, we maintained, according to the [432] Stoics, that perfect rectitude of conduct which constituted the essence of virtue. This was what they called to live consistently, to live ac⯑cording to nature, and to obey those laws and directions which nature or the author of na⯑ture had prescribed for our conduct.

So far the Stoical idea of propriety and virtue is not very different from that of Aristotle and the antient peripatetics. What chiefly distin⯑guished 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 mis⯑fortune excited no passionate grief, if his own injuries called forth no violent resentment, rea⯑son, or a regard to the general rules which deter⯑mined what was right and fit to 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, de⯑manded the most perfect apathy, and re⯑garded every emotion that could in the smal⯑lest degree disturb the tranquility of the mind, as the effect of levity and folly. The Peri⯑patetics seem to have thought that no passion exceeded the bounds of propriety as long as [433] the spectator, by the utmost effort of huma⯑ [...]ity, could sympathize with it. The stoics, [...]n the contrary, appear to have regarded every [...]assion as improper, which made any demand [...]pon the sympathy of the spectator, or re⯑ [...]uired him to alter in any respect the natural [...]nd ordinary state of his mind, in order to [...]eep time with the vehemence of its emo⯑ [...]ons. A man of virtue, they seem to have [...]ought, ought not to depend upon the ge⯑ [...]erosity of those he lives with for pardon or [...]pprobation.

According to the stoics every event ought, [...] a wise man, to appear indifferent, and what [...] its own sake could be the object neither [...] desire, nor aversion, neither of joy, nor [...]rrow. If he preferred some events to [...], if some situations were the objects of [...] choice, and others of his rejection ¹², it [...] not, because he regarded the one as in [...]emselves, in any respect better than the other, [...] thought that his own happiness would be [...]ore compleat in what is called the fortu⯑ [...]te, than in what is commonly regarded as [...] distressful situation; but because the [...] of action, the rule which the gods had [434] given him for the direction of his condu [...] ▪ required him to choose and reject in this [...]. Among the primary objects of natural inclination, or among those things which nature had originally recommended to us [...] eligible, was the prosperity of our family▪ of our relations, of our friends, of our coun [...]try, of mankind, and of the universe in ge [...]neral. Nature too had taught us that as [...] prosperity of two was preferable to that [...] one, that of many or of all must be [...] more so. That we ourselves were but [...] ▪ and that consequently wherever our [...] was inconsistent with that either [...] the whole, or of any considerable [...] of the whole, it ought, even in our [...] choice, to yield to what was so vastly prefer⯑able. As all the events in this world [...] conducted by the providence of a [...] powerful and good God, we might be [...] that whatever happened, tended to [...] prosperity and perfection of the whole. [...] we ourselves, therefore, were in poverty, [...] sickness, or in any other calamity, we [...] first of all to use our utmost endeavours, [...] far as justice and our duty to others would [...], to rescue ourselves from this disagr [...]able circumstance. But if after all we [...] [435] 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 de⯑sire, if we would maintain that compleat pro⯑priety and rectitude of sentiment and conduct in which the perfection of our nature con⯑sists. If, indeed, any opportunity of extri⯑cating ourselves should offer, it became our duty to embrace it. The order of the uni⯑verse, it was evident, no longer required our continuance in this situation, and the great director of the world plainly called upon us [...]o leave it, by so clearly pointing out the road which we were to follow. It was the same [...]ase with the adversity of our relations, our [...]riends, our country. If without violating [...]ny more sacred obligation, it was in our [...]ower to prevent or to put an end to their [...]alamity, it undoubtedly was our duty to do [...]. The propriety of action, the rule which [...]upiter had given us for the direction of our [...]onduct, evidently required this of us. But [436] 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 or⯑der of the whole; which was what we our⯑selves, if we were wise and equitable, ought most of all to desire. ‘In what sense, says Epictetus, are some things said to be ac⯑cording to our nature, and others contrary to it? It is in that sense in which we co [...] ⯑sider 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 con⯑sider it as a foot, and not as something de⯑tached from the rest of the body, it must behoove it sometimes to trample in the di [...]t, 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 [...] to conceive with regard to ourselves. What are you? A man. If you consider yourse [...] as something separated and detached, it i [...] 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 [...] a whole, upon account of that whole i [...] [437] will behoove you sometimes to be in sick⯑ness, sometimes to be exposed to the incon⯑veniency of a sea voyage, sometimes to be in want; and at last, perhaps, to die be⯑fore your time. Why then do you com⯑plain? Don't you know that by doing so, as the foot ceases to be a foot, so you cease to be a man ^a.’

This submission to the order of the uni⯑verse, 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 that 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 ac⯑quiesce in their being thus sacrificed to the [...]nterests of the whole. It is only when we view those opposite interests with the eyes of others that what concerns ourselves can appear [...]o be so contemptible in the comparison, as to [...]e resigned without any reluctance. To [...]very body but the person principally con⯑ [...]erned nothing can appear more agreeable to [438] reason and propriety than that the part should give place to the whole. But what is agree⯑able 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, accord⯑ing to the stoics, are perfectly agreeable to reason and propriety, and of their own ac⯑cord 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 antient, 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. Clark, which places virtue in acting ac⯑cording to the relations of things, in regula⯑ting our conduct according to the fitness or incongruity which there may be in the appli⯑cation of certain actions to certain things, or to certain relations: That of Mr. Woollaston, 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 [439] of my lord Shaftesbury, which places it in main⯑taining a proper balance of the affections, and in allowing, no passion to go beyond its pro⯑per sphere: are all of them more or less inac⯑curate 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 pro⯑priety, some degree of approbation is due. But still this description is imperfect. For tho' propriety is an essential ingredient in every virtuous action, it is not always the sole in⯑gredient. Beneficent actions have in them another quality by which they appear not only to deserve approbation but recompence. None of those systems account either easily or suf⯑ficiently 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 compleat. For, in the same manner, tho' impropriety is a necessary ingredient in every vitious action, it is not always the sole [440] ingredient, and there is often the highest de⯑gree 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 re⯑venge: and none of those systems easily and sufficiently accounts 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 antient 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 [...]hose who had gone before him, particularly from Aristippus; tho' it is very probable, notwithstanding this allegation of his enemies, [...]hat at least his manner of applying those principles was altogether his own.

According to Epicurus ^a bodily pleasure and [...]ain were the sole ultimate objects of natu⯑ [...]al desire and aversion. That they were al⯑ways the natural objects of those passions, he [...]hought, required no proof. Pleasure, might [...]ndeed, appear sometimes to be avoided; [...]ot, however, because it was pleasure, but [...]ecause, by the enjoyment of it, we should [...]ither forfeit some greater pleasure, or expose [442] 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, be⯑cause it was pain, but because by enduring it we might either avoid a still greater pain, or acquire some pleasure of much more impor⯑tance. That bodily pain and pleasure, there⯑fore, were always the natural objects of de⯑sire and aversion, was, he thought, abun⯑dantly evident. Nor was it less so, he ima⯑gined, that they were the sole ultimate ob⯑jects of those passions. Whatever else was either desired or avoided was so, according to him, upon account of its tendency to pro⯑duce one or other of those sensations. The tendency to procure pleasure rendered power and riches desireable, as the contrary ten⯑dency to produce pain made poverty and in⯑significancy the objects of aversion. Honour and reputation were valued, because the es⯑teem and love of those we live with were of the greatest consequence both to procure plea⯑sure 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 live with destroyed [443] all security, and necessarily exposed us to the greatest bodily evils.

All the pleasures and pains of the mind were, according to Epicurus, ultimately de⯑rived from those of the body. The mind was happy when it thought of the past plea⯑sures 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, tho' ultimately derived from those of the body, were vastly greater than their origi⯑nals. The body felt only the sensation of the present instant, whereas the mind felt also the past and the future, the one by re⯑membrance, 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 suf⯑fering of the present instant which chiefly [...]orments us, but either the agonizing re⯑membrance of the past, or the yet more hor⯑ [...]ible dread of the future. The pain of each [...]nstant, considered by itself, and cut off from [...]ll that goes before and all that comes after [444] it is a trifle, not worth the regarding. Yet this is all which the body can ever be said to suffer. For the same manner, when we en⯑joy 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 contri⯑butes by much the largest share of the enter⯑tainment.

Since our happiness and misery, therefore, depended chiefly upon 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 man⯑ner our body was affected. Tho' under great bodily pain, we might still enjoy a consider⯑able share of happiness, if our reason and judg⯑ment 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 suf⯑fering. That this was meerly the bodily sen⯑sation, the pain of the present instant, which [445] by itself could never be very great. That whatever agony we suffered from the dread of its continuance was the effect of an opi⯑nion 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 sen⯑sation, 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 pro⯑perly [446] be said to increase the happiness of this situation.

In ease of body, therefore, and in security or tranquility of mind, consisted, according to Epicurus, the most perfect state of human nature, the most compleat 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 desireable upon their own account, but upon account of their tendency to bring about this situation.

Prudence, for example, tho', according to this philosophy, the source and principle of all the virtues, was not desireable upon its own account. That careful and laborious and circumspect state of mind, ever watch⯑ful and ever attentive to the most distant con⯑sequences of every action, could not be a thing pleasant or agreeable for its own sake, but upon account of its tendency to 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 desireable for its own sake. The whole value of this virtue arose from its uti⯑lity from its enabling us to postpone the pre⯑sent [447] 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 de⯑sire. They are chosen only to avoid greater evils. We submit to labour, in order to avoid the greater shame and pain of poverty, and we expose 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 is necessarily comprehended. For⯑titude enables us to do all this chearfully, as the best which, in our present situation, can possibly be done, and is in reality no more than prudence, good judgment and presence of mind in properly appreciating pain, labour and danger, always chusing the less in order to avoid the greater.

It is the same case with justice. To ab⯑stain from what is anothers is not desireable upon its own account, and it cannot surely be better for you, that I should possess what [448] is my own, than that you should possess it. You ought, however, to abstain from what⯑ever belongs to me, because by doing other⯑wise you will provoke the resentment and in⯑dignation of mankind. The security and tranquility of your mind will be entirely de⯑stroyed. You will be filled with fear and consternation at the thought of that punish⯑ment which you will imagine that men are at all times ready to inflict upon you, and from which no power, no art, no conceal⯑ment, will ever in your own fancy be suffi⯑cient 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 other⯑wise excites their contempt and hatred. By the one we naturally secure, by the other we necessarily endanger, our own ease and tran⯑quility, the great and ultimate objects of all our desires. The whole virtue of justice, therefore, the most important of all the vir⯑tues, [449] is no more than discreet and prudent conduct with regard to our neighbours.

Such is the doctrine of Epicurus concern⯑ing the nature of virtue. It may seem ex⯑traordinary that this philosopher, who is de⯑scribed as a person of the most amiable man⯑ners, should never have observed, that, what⯑ever 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 secu⯑rity which love, respect and esteem can pro⯑cure us; That, on the contrary, to be odious, to be contemptible, to be the proper object of indignation, is more dreaded than all that we can suffer in our body from hatred, con⯑tempt or indignation; and that consequently our desire of the one character, and our aver⯑sion to the other, cannot arise from any regard [...]o the effects which either of them is likely [...]o produce upon the body.

[450]This system is, no doubt, altogether incon⯑sistent with that which I have been endea⯑vouring to establish. It is not difficult, how⯑ever, 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 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 o [...] as a statesman? The best way in this ca [...] [451] too is really to acquire the art and expe⯑rience of war and government, and to be⯑come really fit to be a general or a states⯑man. 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, tempe⯑rate, 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, there⯑fore, is in general so advantageous, and that of vice so contrary to our interest, the con⯑sideration of those opposite tendencies un⯑doubtedly stamps an additional beauty and propriety upon the one, and a new deformity and impropriety upon the other. Tempe⯑rance, magnanimity, justice and beneficence, come thus to be approved of, not only under their proper characters, but under the addi⯑tional character of the highest wisdom and most real prudence. And in the same man⯑ner the contrary vices of intemperance, pu⯑silanimity, injustice, and either malevolence or sordid selfishness come to be disapproved of, not only under their proper characters, [452] but under the additional character of the most short-sighted folly and weakness. Epi⯑curus appears in every virtue to have at⯑tended to this species of propriety only. It is that which is most apt to occur to those who are endeavouring to persuade others to regu⯑larity of conduct. When men by their prac⯑tice and perhaps too by their maxims, mani⯑festly show that the natural beauty of virtue is not likely to have much effect upon them, how is it possible to move them but by re⯑presenting 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 in⯑dulged 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 inge⯑nuity, the propensity to account for all ap⯑pearances 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 [...] so much pleasure in deducing all the pow [...] [453] and qualities of bodies from the most obvious and familiar, the figure, motion and arrange⯑ment of the small parts of matter, felt no doubt a similar satisfaction, when he ac⯑counted, in the same manner, for all the sen⯑timents 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 vir⯑tue consist in acting in the most suitable man⯑ner to obtain the ^a 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 de⯑sire; and secondly, in the account which it gave of the excellence of virtue or of the rea⯑son why that quality ought to be esteemed.

The primary objects of natural desire con⯑sisted, according to Epicurus in bodily plea⯑sure and pain, and in nothing else: whereas, according to the other three philosophers, there were many other objects, such us know⯑ledge, such as the happiness of our relations, of our friends, of our country, which were ultimately desireable for their own sake.

[454]Virtue too, according to Epicurus, did not deserve to be pursued for its own sake, nor was itself one of the primary objects of natu⯑ral appetite, but was eligible only upon ac⯑count of its tendency to prevent pain and to procure ease and pleasure. In the opinion of the other three, on the contrary, it was desireable, not meerly as the means of pro⯑curing 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 happi⯑ness must consist, not meerly in the agreeable⯑ness of his passive sensations, but also in the propriety of his active exertions.

CHAP. III. Of those systems which make virtue con⯑sist in benevolence.

THE system which makes virtue con⯑sist in benevolence, tho' I think not so antient 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 philo⯑sophers who, about and after the age of Au⯑gustus, called themselves Eclectics, who pre⯑tended to follow chiefly the opinions of Plato and Pythagoras, and who upon that account are commonly known by the name of the latter 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, [456] however, was still the supreme and governing attribute, to which the others were subser⯑vient, 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 perfec⯑tion and virtue of the human mind consisted in some resemblance or participation of the di⯑vine 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 cha⯑rity and love only that we could imitate, as became us, the conduct of God, that we could express our humble and devout admi⯑ration 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 attri⯑butes, and thereby become more proper ob⯑jects of his love and esteem; till at last we arrived at that immediate converse and com⯑munication with the deity to which it was [457] the great object of this philosophy to raise us.

This system, as it was much esteemed by many antient fathers of the christian church, so after the reformation it was adopted by se⯑veral 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, antient or modern, the late Dr. Hut⯑cheson, was undoubtedly beyond all compa⯑rison, the most acute, the most distinct, the most philosophical, and what is of the greatest consequence of all, the soberest and most ju⯑dicious.

That virtue consists in benevolence is a notion supported by many appearances in hu⯑man 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 beneficient, it is the proper object of gratitude and re⯑ward, and that upon all these accounts it ap⯑pears to our natural sentiments to possess a merit superior to any other. It has been ob⯑served [458] too that even the weaknesses of bene⯑volence are not very disagreeable to us, whereas those of every other passion are al⯑ways extremely disgusting. Who does not abhor, excessive malice, excessive selfishness, or excessive resentment? But the most ex⯑cessive indulgence even of partial friendship is not so offensive. It is the benevolent pas⯑sions only which can exert themselves with⯑out any regard or attention to propriety, and yet retain something about them which is en⯑gaging. 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 ob⯑ject either of blame or approbation. It is not so with the other passions. The moment they are deserted, the moment they are unaccom⯑panied by the sense of propriety, they cease to be agreeable.

As benevolence bestows upon those ac⯑tions 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 of⯑ten punishable for no other reason than be⯑cause [459] they show a want of sufficient attention to the happiness of our neighbour.

Besides all this Dr. Hutcheson ^a 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 di⯑minished as this motive was believed to have influenced it. If an action supposed to pro⯑ceed from gratitude, should be discovered to have arisen from an expectation of some new favour, or if what was apprehended to pro⯑ceed 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 baser 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 benevo⯑lence alone.

When those actions, on the contrary, which are commonly supposed to proceed [460] from a selfish motive, are discovered to have arisen from a benevolent one, it greatly en⯑hances our sense of their merit. If we be⯑lieved 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 cha⯑racter of virtue.

Last of all, what, he imagined, was an evi⯑dent proof of the justness of this account of virtue, in all the disputes of casuists con⯑cerning the rectitude of conduct, the public good, he observed, was the standard to which they constantly referred, thereby universally acknowledging that whatever tended to pro⯑mote the happiness of mankind was right and laudable and virtuous, and the contrary wrong, blameable and vitious. In the late debates about passive obedience and the right of resistence, the sole point in controversy among men of sense was, whether universal submission would probably be attended with greater evils than temporary insurrections [461] 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 bene⯑volence which was evidenced by any action, the greater the praise which must belong to it.

Those actions which aimed at the happi⯑ness of a great community, as they demon⯑strated 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 em⯑braced as its object the happiness of all intel⯑ligent beings. The least virtuous, on the con⯑trary, of those to which the character of vir⯑tue could in any respect belong, was that which aimed no further than at the happi⯑ness 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 infe⯑rior [462] affections to the desire of the general happiness of mankind, in regarding ourselves but as one of the many, whose prosperity was to be pursued no further than it was con⯑sistent 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 vitious whenever it obstructed the ge⯑neral good. When it had no other effect than to make the individual take care of his own happiness, it was meerly 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 de⯑monstrated the strength and vigour of the benevolent principle.

Dr. Hutcheson ^a was so far from allowing self-love to be in any case a motive of vir⯑tuous actions, that even a regard to the plea⯑sure of self-approbation, to the comfortable applause of our own consciences, according [463] 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 men the character of virtue. In the common judgments of man⯑kind, however, this regard to the approba⯑tion of our own minds is so far from being considered as what can in any respect dimi⯑nish the virtue of any action, that it is rather looked upon as the sole motive which de⯑serves the appellation of virtuous.

Such is the account given of the nature of virtue in this amiable system, a system which has a peculiar tendency to nourish and sup⯑port 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 suffi⯑ciently explain from whence arises the pecu⯑liar excellency of the supreme virtue of be⯑neficence, [464] so this system seems to have the contrary defect, of not sufficiently explain⯑ing from whence arises our approbation of the inferior virtues of prudence, vigilance, circumspection, temperance, constancy, firm⯑ness. The view and aim of our affections, the beneficent and hurtful effects which they tend to produce, are the only qualities that are at all attended to in this system. Their propriety and impropriety, their suitableness and unsuitableness to the cause which ex⯑cites 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 oeconomy, industry, discretion, attention and application of thought, are generally supposed to be cultivated from self-interested motives, and at the same time are appre⯑hended 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 be⯑nevolent affection. The cause of this, how⯑ever, is not that self-love can never be the [465] motive of a virtuous action, but that the be⯑nevolent 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 imper⯑fect, and upon the whole to deserve blame rather than praise. The mixture of a bene⯑volent 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 ought alone to be sufficient to prompt him, it would undoubtedly be a failing, tho' one of those amiable failings, which render a per⯑son rather the object of pity than of contempt or hatred. It would still, however, some⯑what diminish the dignity and respectableness of his character. Carelessness and want of oeconomy are universally disapproved of▪ [466] not, however, as proceeding from a want of benevolence, but from a want of the proper attention to the objects of self-interest.

Tho' the standard by which casuists fre⯑quently determine what is right or wrong in human conduct, be its tendency to the wel⯑fare 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 com⯑pleat in himself, can act from. But what⯑ever may be the case with the deity, so im⯑perfect a creature as man, the support of whose existence requires so many things exter⯑nal 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 [467] 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 descrip⯑tions of virtue, how different soever they may appear, are easily reducible.

That system which places virtue in obe⯑dience 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 im⯑pious and absurd in the highest degree, if asked from any doubt that we ought to obey him, can admit but of two different an⯑swers. 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 re⯑ward 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 pu⯑nishments [468] of any kind, there is a con⯑gruity and fitness that a creature should obey its creator, that a limited and imperfect be⯑ing should submit to one of infinite and in⯑comprehensible perfections. Besides one or other of these two it is impossible to con⯑ceive 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 in⯑terest and happiness; since it is upon this ac⯑count that we are obliged to obey the will of the deity. If the second answer be the pro⯑per one, virtue must consist in propriety, since the ground of our obligation to obe⯑dience 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 uti⯑lity 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 vitious. But the agreeableness or utility [469] of any affection depends upon the degree which it is allowed to subsist in. Every af⯑fection is useful when it is confined to a cer⯑tain degree of violence; and every affection is disadvantageous when it exceeds the bounds of this moderation. According to this system therefore, virtue consists, not in any one af⯑fection, 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 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 qua⯑lities may consist in. There is a real and essential difference between the propriety and impropriety of any affection, between bene⯑volence 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 ballance of the affections, and to give the mind a particular biass to some principles of action beyond the proportion that is due to them. The antient systems, which place virtue in propriety, seem chiefly to recom⯑mend the great, the awful and the respect⯑able [471] 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 meer 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 mil⯑der virtues in the highest degree, seems en⯑tirely to neglect the more awful and respect⯑able 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 which is due to what is pro⯑perly denominated virtue. All those prin⯑ciples 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 [472] with it: and prudence, it is as⯑serted, 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 cau⯑tion, vigilance, sobriety and judicious mode⯑ration, 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 ge⯑neral 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 exhorta⯑tion, to inspire the mind with fortitude and magnanimity, the antient systems of pro⯑priety would seem sufficient to do this. Or if it was possible, by the same means to soften [473] it into humanity, and to awaken the affec⯑tions 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, tho' 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 secu⯑rity, he exerted himself in a particular man⯑ner to show that virtue was, not meerly the best and the surest, but the only means of acquiring those invaluable possessions. The good effects of virtue, upon our inward tran⯑quility and peace of mind, are what other philosophers have chiefly celebrated. Epi⯑curus, 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 an⯑tient world by men of all different philoso⯑phical parties. It is from him that Cicero, the great enemy of the Epicurean system, borrows his most agreeable proofs that virtue [474] alone is sufficient to secure happiness. Sene⯑ca, tho' 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 di⯑stinction between vice and virtue, and of which the tendency, is upon that account, wholly pernicious: I mean the systems of the duke of Rochefaucault and Dr. Mande⯑ville. Tho' the notions of both these au⯑thors are in almost every respect erroneous, there are, however, some appearances in hu⯑man nature which, when viewed in a cer⯑tain manner, seem at first sight to favour them. These, first slightly sketched out with the elegance and delicate precision of the duke of Rochefaucault, and afterwards more fully represented with the lively and humourous, tho' 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 [475] being done from a love of praise and com⯑mendation, 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 prospe⯑rity 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 bestowing upon him the most extravagant praises. The pleasure which he expects from this, overbalances, 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 disin⯑terested; since, unless this was supposed, it [476] 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 meer 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 meer offspring of flattery begot upon pride.

Whether the most generous and public spi⯑rited actions may not in some sense be re⯑garded as proceeding from self-love I shall not at present examine. The decision of this question is not, I apprehend, of any im⯑portance towards establishing the reality of virtue, since self-love may frequently be a virtuous motive of action. I shall only en⯑deavour 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 best passion of hu⯑man nature. The second is the love of true glory, a passion inferior no doubt to the for⯑mer, [477] 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 in which he expects to be praised for them; who sets his character upon the frivolous ornaments of dress and equi⯑page, or the equally frivolous accomplish⯑ments 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 impor⯑tance 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 them⯑selves, who is never satisfied but when his own praises are ringing in his ears, and who sollicits with the most anxious importunity all external marks of respect, is fond of titles, of compliments, of being visited, of being [478] 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 tho' these three passions, the desire of rendering ourselves the proper objects of ho⯑nour and esteem; or of becoming what is ho⯑nourable and estimable; the desire of ac⯑quiring honour and esteem by really deserv⯑ing those sentiments; and the frivolous de⯑sire of praise at any rate, are widely dif⯑ferent; tho' the two former are always ap⯑proved 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 be⯑tween 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 de⯑sires esteem for what is really estimable, de⯑sires [479] 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 sollicitous about receiving many external marks of our regard. The other, on the contrary, is never to be satis⯑fied, 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 mor⯑tal affront and as an expression of the most determined contempt. He is restless and im⯑patient and perpetually afraid that we have [...]ost all respect for him, and is upon this ac⯑count always anxious to obtain new expres⯑sions of esteem, and cannot be kept in tem⯑per but by continual attendance and adu⯑ [...]ation.

There is an affinity too between the desire of becoming what is honourable and estim⯑ [...]ble, and the desire of honour and esteem, [...]etween the love of virtue and the love of [...]rue glory. They resemble one another not [480] 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 vani⯑ty, some reference to the sentiments of others. The man of the greatest magnanimity, who desires virtue for its own sake, and is most in⯑different about what actually are the opinions of mankind with regard to him, is still, how⯑ever, delighted with the thoughts of what they should be, with the consciousness that tho' he may neither be honoured nor ap⯑plauded, he is still the proper object of ho⯑nour and applause, and that if mankind were cool and candid and consistent with them⯑selves, and properly informed of the motives and circumstances of his conduct, they would not fail to honour and applaud him. Tho' he despises the opinions which are actu⯑ally entertained of him, yet 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 [481] highest idea of it himself, was the great and [...]xalted motive of his conduct. As even in [...]he love of virtue, therefore, there is still some [...]eference; tho' not to what is, yet to what in [...]eason and propriety ought to be, the opinion of others, there is even in this respect some [...]ffinity 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 [...]nd fit to be done, from a regard to what is [...]he proper object of esteem and approbation, [...]ho' these sentiments should never be bestowed [...]pon him, acts from the most sublime and godlike motive which human nature is even [...]apable of conceiving. The man, on the other [...]and, who while he desires to merit appro⯑ [...]ation, is at the same time anxious to obtain [...]t, tho' he too is laudable in the main, yet [...]is motives have a greater mixture of human [...]nfirmity. He is in danger of being morti⯑ [...]ied by the ignorance and injustice of man⯑ [...]ind, and his happiness is exposed to the envy [...]f his rivals, and the folly of the publick. The happiness of the other, on the contrary, is [...]ltogether secure and independent of fortune, [...]nd of the caprice of those he lives with. [482] The contempt and hatred which may be thrown upon him by the ignorance of man⯑kind, 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. Tho' none b [...]t 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 repre⯑senting the frivolous motive of vanity, as the source of all those actions which are com⯑monly accounted virtuous. He endeavours to point out the imperfection of human vir⯑tue [483] in many other respects. In every case, he pretends, it falls short of that compleat self-denial which it pretends to, and, instead of a conquest, is commonly no more than a con⯑cealed 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, ac⯑cording to him, is luxury which exceeds what is absolutely necessary for the support of hu⯑man nature, so that there is vice even in the use of a clean shirt, or of a convenient habi⯑tation. The indulgence of the inclination to sex, in the most lawful union, he considers as the same sensuality with the most hurtful gratifi⯑cation of that passion, and derides that tem⯑perance and that chastity which can be prac⯑tised at so cheap a rate. The ingenious so⯑phistry of his reasoning, is here, as upon many other occasions, covered by the ambi⯑guity of language. There are some of our passions which have no other names except those which mark the disagreeable and offen⯑sive 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 at⯑tend [484] 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 ^a love of pleasure, and of the ^b love of sex denote a vitious and offensive degree of those passions. The words temperance and chastity on the other hand, seem to mark rather the restraint and subjec⯑tion which they are kept under than the de⯑gree 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 virtue [...] of temperance and chastity, and shown them to be meer impositions upon the inattenti [...] and simplicity of mankind. Those virtues, however, do not require an entire insensibi⯑lity to the objects of the passions which they mean to govern. They only aim at restrain⯑ing the violence of those passions so far as not [485] to hurt the individual, and neither disturb nor offend the society.

It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book ^ato represent every passion as wholly vi⯑tious which is so in any degree and in any di⯑rection. 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 senti⯑ments of others: and it is by means of this sophistry that he establishes his favourite con⯑clusion, 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, paint⯑ [...]ng 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 [...]anguish for want of employment. Some popular ascetic doctrines which had been cur⯑rent [486] 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 en⯑tire 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 bu⯑siness 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 meer cheat and imposition upon mankind; and by the second, that pri⯑vate vices were public benefits, since with⯑out them no society could prosper or flourish.

Such is the system of Dr. Mandeville, which once made so much noise in the world, and which, tho' perhaps it never gave occa⯑sion 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 heared of before.

[487]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 inge⯑nious nation, for near a century together, as a most satisfactory account of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Yet it has been de⯑monstrated to the conviction of all mankind that these pretended causes of those wonder⯑ful 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 pre⯑tends 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 us an account of some distant country, he may impose upon our credulity the most groundless and absurd [488] as the most certain matters of fact. But when a person pretends to inform us of what passes in our own neighbourhood, and of the affairs of the very parish which we live in, tho' 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 falshoods 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 na⯑tural philosophy, and pretends to assign the causes of the great phaenomena of the uni⯑verse, pretends to give an account of the af⯑fairs 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 appro⯑bation 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 do⯑mestic concerns. Tho' here too, like indo⯑lent masters who put their trust in a steward who deceives them, we are very liable to be imposed upon, yet we are incapable of pas⯑sing [489] 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 [...]e detected even by that careless inspection which we are disposed to give. The author who should assign, as the cause of any natu⯑ [...]al sentiment, some principle which neither [...]ad any connection with it, nor resembled [...]ny other principle which had some such [...]onnection, would appear absurd and ridicu⯑ [...]ous to the most injudicious and unexperi⯑ [...]nced reader.

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 inac⯑curacy in all their different systems. Accord⯑ing to Mr. Hobbs, and many of his follow⯑ers ^a, man is driven to taken refuge in so⯑ciety, not by any natural love which he bears to his own kind, but because without the assistance of others he is incapable of subsist⯑ing 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 [493] 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 ne⯑cessary for the comfort and security of his existence.

That the tendency of virtue to promote, and of vice to disturb the order of society, when we consider it coolly and philosophi⯑cally, 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. Hu⯑man society, when we contemplate it in a certain abstract and philosophical light, ap⯑pears 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 ten⯑ded to obstruct them would displease upon that account: so virtue, which is, as it were, [...]he fine polish to the wheels of society, ne⯑cessarily pleases; while vice, like the vile [...]ust, which makes them jarr and grate upon one another, is as necessarily offensive. This [494] account, therefore, of the origin of appro⯑bation 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 pro⯑bability 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 maintainance of the one, and demonstrate how infallibly the prevalence of vice and dis⯑obedience to the laws tend to bring back the other, the reader is charmed with the no⯑velty 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.

[495]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 de⯑test 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 vir⯑tuous, 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 [496] the gratitude or resentment of those who re⯑ceived the benefit or suffered the damage re⯑sulting from such opposite characters: and it was this which they were indistinctly point⯑ing 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 indig⯑nation, it may be pretended, indeed, that my emotion is founded in self-love, because it arises from bringing your case home to my⯑self, from putting myself in your situation, and thence conceiving what I should feel in the like circumstances. But tho' sympathy is very properly said to arise from an imagi⯑nary 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 cha⯑racter [497] 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 cir⯑cumstances with you, but I change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is en⯑tirely 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 con⯑ceive 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, [...]eems to me to have arisen from some con⯑ [...]used misapprehension of the system of sym⯑ [...]athy.

CHAP. II. Of those systems which make reason the prin⯑ciple of approbation.

IT is well known to have been the doc⯑trine of Mr. Hobbs, 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 dis⯑troy civil government was the same thing as to put an end to society. But the existence of civil government depends upon the obe⯑dience that is paid to the supreme magistrate. The moment he loses his authority, all go⯑vernment 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 ma⯑gistrate, and to blame all disobedience and re⯑bellion. [499] 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. Hobbs, by propagating these notions, to subject the consciences of men immediately to the civil, [...]nd not to the ecclesiastical powers, whose [...]urbulence and ambition, he had been taught, by the example of his own times, to regard [...]s the principal source of the disorders of [...]ociety. His doctrine, upon this account, was peculiarly offensive to Theologians, who [...]ccordingly did not fail to vent their indigna⯑ [...]ion against him with great asperity and [...]itterness. It was likewise offensive to all [...]ound moralists, as it supposed that there was [...]o natural distinction between right and wrong, that these were mutable and change⯑ [...]ble and depended upon the meer arbitrary will of the civil magistrate. This account [...]f things, therefore, was attacked from all [...]uarters and by all sorts of weapons, by sober [...]eason as well as by furious declamation.

[500]In order to confute so odious a doctrine it was necessary to prove, that antecedent to all law or positive institution, the mind was na⯑turally indowed 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 vitious.

Law, it was justly observed by Dr. Cud⯑worth ^a, could not be the original source of those distinctions; since upon the supposi⯑tion of such a law, it must either be right to obey it, and wrong to disobey it, or indiffe⯑rent 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 [...] 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.

Since the mind, therefore, had a notion [...] those distinctions antecedent to all law, [...] seemed necessarily to follow, that it deriv [...] [501] 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 tho' 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 fa⯑culties of the human mind had been carefully examined and distinguished from one another. When this controversy with Mr. Hobbs was carried on with the greatest warmth and keenness, no other faculty had been thought of from which any such ideas could possibly [...]e 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 [...]heir conformity or disagreement with reason, which was thus considered as the original [...]ource and principle of approbation and dis⯑ [...]pprobation.

That virtue consists in conformity to rea⯑son is true in some respects, and this faculty may very justly be considered, as in some [...]ense, the source and principle of approbation [502] 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 con⯑stantly about with us, and according to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the tenor of our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like all other general maxims, from experience and induc⯑tion. We observe in a great variety of par⯑ticular cases what pleases or displeases our moral faculties, what these approve or disap⯑prove of, and, by induction from this expe⯑rience, 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 [503] and humour are capable of altering so essen⯑tially. As our most solid judgments, there⯑fore, with regard to right and wrong are re⯑gulated 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 tho' 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 unintelli⯑gible to suppose that the first perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason, even in those particular cases upon the expe⯑rience of which the general rules are formed. These first perceptions, as well as 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 find⯑ing in a vast variety of instances that one tenor of conduct constantly pleases in a cer⯑tain 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 dis⯑agreeable to the mind for its own sake. [504] Reason may show that this object is the means of obtaining some other which is naturally either pleasing or displeasing, and in this man⯑ner may render it either agreeable or disagree⯑able for the sake of something else. But no⯑thing can be agreeable or disagreeable for its own sake which is not rendered such by im⯑mediate sense and feeling. If virtue, there⯑fore, in every particular instance, necessarily pleases for its own sake, and if vice as cer⯑tainly 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 distinguish⯑ed not by reason but by immediate sense and feeling. If virtue, therefore, is desireable for its own sake, and if vice is, in the same man⯑ner the object of aversion, it cannot be rea⯑son which originally distinguishes those diffe⯑rent qualities, but immediate sense and feel⯑ing.

As reason, however, in a certain sense, may justly be considered as the principle of approbation and disapprobation, these senti⯑ments were thro' inattention, long regarded as originally flowing from the operations of [505] 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 illustra⯑tions upon the moral sense he has explained this so fully, and, in my opinion, so unan⯑swerably that, if any controversy is still kept up about this subject, I can impute it to no⯑thing, but either to inattention to what that gentleman has written, or to a superstitious attachment for certain forms of expression, a weakness not very uncommon among the [...]earned, especially in subjects so deeply inter⯑esting as the present, in which a man of virtue is often loath to abandon, even the propriety of a single phrase which he has been accus⯑tomed 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 ap⯑probation 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 first are stampt with the characters of right, laudable, and virtuous; the last with those of wrong, blameable and vitious. This sentiment be⯑ing 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 ac⯑count for the principle of approbation, there is no occasion for supposing any new power of perception which had never been heard of [507] before: nature, they imagine, acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest oeconomy, 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 ^a had been at great pains to prove that the principle of approbation was not founded on self-love. He had de⯑monstrated 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 endow⯑ed 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.

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 cer⯑ [...]ain manner appear to possess the different qualities of sound, taste, odour, colour; so [508] the various affections of the human mind by touching this particular faculty in a certain manner, appear to possess the different qua⯑lities of amiable and odious, of virtuous and vitious, of right and wrong.

The various senses or powers of percep⯑tion ^a, 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 de⯑rived 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 per⯑ceive the harmony of a sound, or the beauty of a colour, we must first perceive the sound [509] or the colour. The moral sense was con⯑sidered as a faculty of this kind. That fa⯑culty, 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. Hutche⯑son, a direct internal sense. That faculty again by which we perceived the beauty or deformity, the virtue or vice of those dif⯑ferent passions and emotions was a reflex in⯑ternal sense.

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 deform⯑ity 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 sen⯑ses, there are some consequences, which he acknowledges to follow from this doctrine, [510] that will, perhaps, be regarded by many as a sufficient confutation of it. The qualities, he allows ^a, which belong to the objects of any sense cannot without the greatest absur⯑dity 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 inconveni⯑ent both to the individual and to the society, and likewise as strange, surprising and un⯑natural in itself; but it could not, without the greatest absurdity, be denominated vi⯑cious or morally evil.

Yet surely if we saw any man shouting with admiration and applause at a barbarous and unmerited execution, which some insolent ty⯑rant [511] had ordered, we should not think we were guilty of any great absurdity in denominating [...]his behaviour vicious and morally evil in the highest degree, tho' it expressed nothing but depraved moral faculties, or an absurd appro⯑bation of this horrid action, as of what was [...]oble, magnanimous and great. Our heart, [...] imagine, at the sight of such a spectator, would forget for a while its sympathy with [...]he sufferer, and feel nothing but horror and [...]etestation, at the thought of so execrable a wretch. We should abominate him even more than the tyrant who might be goaded [...]n by the strong passions of jealousy, fear and [...]esentment, and upon that account be more [...]xcusable. But the sentiments of the spec⯑ [...]ator would appear altogether without cause [...]r motive, and therefore most perfectly and [...]ompleatly detestable. There is no perver⯑ [...]on of sentiment or affection which our heart would be more averse to enter into, or which [...] would reject with greater hatred and indig⯑ [...]ation than one of this kind, and so far from [...]egarding such a constitution of mind as being [...]eerly something strange or inconvenient, and [...]ot in any respect vitious or morally evil, we [512] 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 de⯑licate precision of his moral sentiments: they lead our own judgments, and upon account of their uncommon and surprizing 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 some⯑times wanting, where the latter is in the great⯑est perfection. This disposition of mind, however, tho' it may sometimes be attended with imperfections is incompatible with any thing that is grosly criminal, and is the hap⯑piest foundation upon which the superstruc⯑ture of perfect virtue can be built. There are many men who mean very well and seri⯑ously [513] propose to do what they think their duty, who notwithstanding are disagreeable on ac⯑count of the coarseness of their moral senti⯑ments.

It may be said perhaps that tho' the prin⯑ciple of approbation is not founded upon any power of perception that is in any respect an⯑alogous to the external senses, it may still be founded upon a peculiar sentiment which an⯑swers 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 re⯑sentment 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, tho' it may not [...]e liable to the same objections with the fore⯑going, is exposed to others which are equally [...]nanswerable.

First of all, whatever variations any par⯑ [...]cular emotion may undergo, it still preserves [...] general features which distinguish it to be [...] emotion of such a kind, and these general [...] are always more striking and remark⯑ [...]ble than any variation which it may undergo [514] in particular cases. Thus anger is an emo⯑tion of a particular kind: and accordingly its general features are always more distinguish⯑able than all the variations it undergoes in particular cases. Anger against a man, i [...], 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 diffe⯑rent modification from the particular charac⯑ter of its object, as may easily be observed by the attentive. But still the general fea⯑tures 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 variati⯑ons: every body takes notice of the former▪ scarce any body observes the latter. If ap⯑probation 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 [...] retain the general features which mark it [...] be an emotion of such a particular [...] clear, plain and easily distinguishable. [...] in fact it happens quite otherwise. If [...] attend to what we really feel when upon [...]ferent [515] occasions we either approve or disap⯑prove, we shall find that our emotion in one case is often totally different from that in an⯑other, and that no common features can pos⯑sibly be discovered between them. Thus the approbation with which we view a tender, delicate and humane sentiment, is quite dif⯑ferent from that with which we are struck by one that appears great, daring and mag⯑nanimous. Our approbation of both may upon different occasions be perfect and intire; [...]ut we are softened by the one, and we are [...]levated by the other, and there is no sort of [...]esemblance between the emotions which [...]hey excite in us. But, according to that [...]ystem which I have been endeavouring to [...]stablish, this must necessarily be the case. [...]s the emotions of the person whom we ap⯑ [...]rove of are quite opposite to one another [...]nd as our approbation arises from sympathy [...]ith those opposite emotions, what we feel [...]pon the one occasion, can have no sort of [...]semblance to what we feel upon the other. [...]ut this could not happen if approbation [...]onsisted in a peculiar emotion which had no⯑ [...]ing in common with the sentiments we ap⯑ [...]oved of, but which arose at the view of those [...]ntiments, like any other passion at the view [516] of its proper object. The same thing holds true with regard to disapprobation. Our hor⯑ror 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 own 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 that are approved or disap⯑proved 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, I imagine there is but one reasonable answer, which can possibly be given. It must be said th [...] when the approbation with which our neigh⯑bour regards the conduct of a third [...] coincides with our own, we approve of his approbation and consider it as in some me [...] ⯑sure morally good, and that on the contra [...] when it does not coincide with our own [...] ⯑timents, we disapprove of it, and consider [517] as in some measure morally evil. It must be allowed, therefore, that, at least in this one case, the coincidence or opposition of senti⯑ments 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? or to what purpose imagine a new power of perception in order to account for those senti⯑ments?

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 sen⯑timent, which providence undoubtedly in⯑tended to be the governing principle of hu⯑man 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 [...]et be considered as making part of the En⯑glish tongue. The word approbation has but within these few years been appropriated to [...]enote peculiarly any thing of this kind. In [...]ropriety of language we approve of what⯑ [...]ver is entirely to our satisfaction, of the form [...]f a building, of the contrivance of a ma⯑ [...]hine, of the flavour of a dish of meat. The [518] 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, resent⯑ment, with so many other passions which are all supposed to be the subjects of this prin⯑ciple, have made themselves considerable enough to get titles to know them by, is it not surprizing 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 ac⯑tion, the sentiments which we feel, are, ac⯑cording to the foregoing system, derived from four sources, which are in some respects dif⯑ferent from one another. First, we sympa⯑thize with the motives of the agent; second⯑ly, we enter into the gratitude of those [...] receive the benefit of his actions; thirdly, we observe that his conduct has been agree⯑able to the general rules by which those [...] sympathies generally act; and, last of [...] when we consider such actions as making▪ [519] 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 fa⯑culty, provided any body will ascertain pre⯑cisely what this overplus is. It might be ex⯑pected, perhaps, that if there was any such peculiar principle, such as this moral sense is supposed to be, we should feel it, in some par⯑ticular 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 alledged in which this principle could be said to exert itself alone and [...]nmixed with sympathy or antipathy, with gratitude or resentment, with the perception [...]f the agreement or disagreement of any ac⯑ [...]ion to an established rule, or last of all with [520] that general taste for beauty and order which is excited by inanimated as well as by animat⯑ed objects.

II. There is another system which attempts to account for the origin of our moral senti⯑ments 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 spec⯑tator 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 per⯑sons 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.