The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...

PART VII. Of Systems of MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

SECT. I. Of the questions which ought to be exami|ned in a theory of moral sentiments.

IF we examine the most celebrated and re|markable of the different theories which have been given concerning the nature and origin of our moral sentiments, we shall find that almost all of them coincide with some part or other of that which I have been en|deavouring to give an account of; and that ••f every thing which has already been said be fully considered, we shall be at no loss to ex|plain what was the view or aspect of nature which led each particular author to form his particular system. From some one or other of those principles which I have been endea|vouring to unfold, every system of morality that ever had any reputation in the world has, perhaps, ultimately been derived. As they are all of them, in this respect founded

upon natural principles, they are all of them in some measure in the right. But as many of them are derived from a partial and imper|fect view of nature, there are many of them too in some respects in the wrong.

In treating of the principles of morals there are two questions to be considered. First, wherein does virtue consist; or what is the tone of temper, and tenor of conduct, which constitutes the excellent and praise-worthy character, the character which is the natural object of esteem, honour and approbation? and secondly, by what power or faculty i•• the mind is it, that this character whatever it be, is recommended to us? or in other words, how and by what means does it come to pass, that the mind prefers one tenor of conduct to another, denominates the one right and the other wrong; considers the one as the object of approbation, honour and re|ward, and the other of blame, censure and punishment?

We examine the first question when we consider whether virtue consists in benevo|lence, as Dr. Hutcheson imagines; or in act|ing suitably to the different relations we stand in, as Dr. Clark supposes; or in the wise and

••rudent pursuit of our own real and solid happiness, as has been the opinion of others?

We examine the second question, when we consider, whether the virtuous character, whatever it consists in, be recommended to ••s by self-love, which makes us perceive that his character, both in ourselves and others, ••ends most to promote our own private inter|••st; or by reason, which points out to us the ••ifference between one character and another, ••n the same manner as it does that between ••ruth and falshood; or by a peculiar power ••f perception, called a moral sense, which his virtuous character gratifies and pleases, ••s the contrary disgusts and displeases it; or ••ast of all, by some other principle in human ••ature, such as a modification of sympathy, ••r the like.

I shall begin with considering the systems which have been formed concerning the ••••rst of these questions, and shall proceed af|••erwards to examine those concerning the ••econd.

SECT. II. Of the different accounts which have been given of the nature of virtue.

INTRODUCTION.

THE different accounts which have been given of the nature of virtue, or of the temper of mind which constitutes the excellent and praise-worthy character, may be reduced to three different classes. Ac|cording to some, the virtuous temper of mind does not consist in any one species of affections, but in the proper government and direction of all our affections, which may be either virtuous or vitious according to the ob|jects which they pursue, and the degree of violence with which they pursue them. Ac|cording to these authors, therefore, virtue consists in propriety.

According to others, virtue consists in the judicious pursuit of our own private interest and happiness, or in the proper government and direction of those selfish affections which aim solely at this end. In the opinion of these

authors, therefore virtue consists in pru|dence.

Another set of authors make virtue consist in those affections only which aim at the happiness of others, not in those which aim at our own. According to them, therefore, disinterested benevolence is the only motive which can stamp upon any action the cha|racter of virtue.

The character of virtue, it is evident, must either be ascribed indifferently to all our af|fections when under proper government and direction, or it must be confined to some one class or division of them. The great divi|••ion of our affections is into the selfish and ••he benevolent. If the character of virtue ••herefore cannot be ascribed indifferently to ••ll our affections when under proper govern|••ent and direction, it must be confined either ••o those which aim directly at our own pri|••ate happiness, or to those which aim di|••ectly at that of others. If virtue, therefore, ••oes not consist in propriety, it must consist ••ither in prudence or in benevolence. Be|••••des these three, it is scarce possible to ima|••ine that any other account can be given of ••he nature of virtue. I shall endeavour to 〈◊〉〈◊〉 hereafter how all the other accounts,

which are seemingly different from any of these, coincide at bottom with some one or other of them.

CHAP. I. Of those systems which make virtue 〈◊〉〈◊〉 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 * 1.1 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

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.

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.

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

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

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

justice * 1.2, 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

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, * 1.3 according to Aristotle, con|sists

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.

According to Aristotle * 1.4, 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

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.

Aristotle too * 1.5, 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 * 1.6, 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

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

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

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

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 * 1.7, 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

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 〈◊〉〈◊〉

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

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••

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 * 1.8.

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

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

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

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 * 1.9 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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.

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••••

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,

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••••

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 * 1.10 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.

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,

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

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

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

they show a want of sufficient attention to the happiness of our neighbour.

Besides all this Dr. Hutcheson * 1.11 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

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

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

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 * 1.12 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

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,

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

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▪

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 * 1.13 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

to hurt the individual, and neither disturb nor offend the society.

It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book * 1.14to 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

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.

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

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

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.

SECTION III. Of the different systems which have been formed concerning the principle of appro|bation.

INTRODUCTION.

AFTER the inquiry concerning the na|ture of virtue, the next question of importance in Moral Philosophy, is concern|ing the principle of approbation, concerning the power or faculty of the mind which ren|ders certain characters agreeable or disagree|able to us, makes us prefer one tenor of con|duct to another, denominate the one right and the other wrong, and consider the one as the object of approbation, honour and re|ward; the other as that of blame, censure and punishment.

Three different accounts have been give•• of this principle of approbation. Accord|ing to some, we approve and disapprove 〈◊〉〈◊〉 of our own actions and of those of others from self-love only, or from some view 〈◊〉〈◊〉 their tendency to our own happiness or d••••|advantage: according to others▪ reason, 〈◊〉〈◊〉

same faculty by which we distinguish be|tween truth and falshood, enables us to di|stinguish between what is fit and unfit both in actions and affections: according to others this distinction is altogether the effect of im|mediate sentiment and feeling, and arises from the satisfaction or disgust with which the view of certain actions or affections in|spires us. Self-love, reason and sentiment, therefore, are the three different sources which have been assigned for the principle of approbation.

Before I proceed to give an account of those different systems, I must observe, that the determination of this second question, though of the greatest importance in specu|lation, is of none in practice. The question concerning the nature of virtue necessarily has some influence upon our notions of right and wrong in many particular cases. That concerning the principle of approbation can possibly have no such effect. To examine from what contrivance or mechanism within, those different notions or sentiments arise, is a meer matter of philosophical curiosity.

CHAP. I. Of those systems which deduce the principle of approbation from self-love.

THOSE who account for the principle of approbation from self-love, do not all account for it in the same manner, and there is a good deal of confusion and inac|curacy in all their different systems. Accord|ing to Mr. Hobbs, and many of his follow|ers * 1.15, 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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 * 1.16, 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••••

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

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

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.

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

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

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 * 1.17 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

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 * 1.18, 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

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,

that will, perhaps, be regarded by many as a sufficient confutation of it. The qualities, he allows * 1.19, 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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▪

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

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.

SECTION IV. Of the manner in which different authors have treated of the practical rules of morality.

IT was observed in the third part of this discourse, that the rules of justice are ••he only rules of morality which are precise ••nd accurate; that those of all the other vir|••ues are loose, vague, and indeterminate; ••hat the first may be compared to the rules ••f grammar; the others to those which ••ritics lay down for the attainment of what 〈◊〉〈◊〉 sublime and elegant in composition, and which present us rather with a general idea ••f the perfection we ought to aim at than ••fford us any certain and infallible directions 〈◊〉〈◊〉 acquiring it.

As the different rules of morality admit ••uch different degrees of accuracy, those ••uthors who have endeavoured to collect and ••igest them into systems have done it in two ••ifferent manners, and one set has followed ••••rough the whole that loose method to which ••••ey were naturally directed by the considera|tion

of one species of virtues; while another has as universally endeavoured to introduce into their precepts that sort of accuracy of which only some of them are susceptible. The first have wrote like critics, the second like gram|marians.

I. The first, among whom we may count all the antient moralists, have contented them|selves with describing in a general manner the different vices and virtues, and with point|ing out the deformity and misery of the one disposition as well as the propriety and hap|piness of the other, but have not affected to lay down many precise rules that are to hold good unexceptionably in all particular cases. They have only endeavoured to ascertain, as far as language is capable of ascertaining, first, wherein consists the sentiment of the heart, upon which each particular virtue is found|ed, what sort of internal feeling or emotion it is which constitutes the essence of friend|ship, of humanity, of generosity, of justice, of magnanimity, and of all the other virtues as well as of the vices which are opposed to them: and, secondly, What is the general way of acting, the ordinary tone and tenor of conduct to which each of those sentiments would direct us, or how it is that a friendly,

a generous, a brave, a just, and a humane man, would, upon ordinary occasions, chuse to act.

To characterize the sentiment of the heart, upon which each particular virtue is found|ed, tho' it requires both a delicate and an ac|curate pencil, is a task, however, which may be executed with some degree of exactness. It is impossible, indeed, to express all the variations which each sentiment either does or ought to undergo, according to every possible variation of circumstances. They are endless, and language wants names to mark them by. The sentiment of friend|ship, for example, which we feel for an old man is different from that which we feel for a young: that which we entertain for an austere man different from that which we feel for one of softer and gentler manners: and that again from what we feel for one of gay vivacity and spirit. The friendship which we conceive for a man is different from that with which a woman affects us, even where there is no mixture of any grosser passion. Who could enumerate and ascertain these and all the other infinite varieties which this sentiment is capable of undergoing? But still the general sentiment of friendship and fa|miliar

attachment that is common to them all, may be ascertained with a sufficient de|gree of accuracy. The picture that is drawn of it, tho' it will always be in many respects incompleat, may, however, have such a re|semblance as to make us know the original when we meet with it, and even distinguish it from other sentiments to which it has a considerable resemblance, such as good-will, respect, esteem, admiration.

To describe, in a general manner, what is the ordinary way of acting to which each virtue would prompt us, is still more easy. It is indeed scarce possible to describe the in|ternal sentiment or emotion upon which it is founded without doing something of this kind. It is impossible by language to express, if I may say so, the invisible features of all the dif|ferent modifications of passion as they show themselves within. There is no other way of marking and distinguishing them from one another, but by describing the effects which they produce without, the alterations which they occasion in the countenance, in the air and external behaviour, the resolutions they suggest, the actions they prompt to. It is thus that Cicero, in the first book of his offices, endeavours to direct us to the practice of the four cardinal virtues, and that Ari|stotle

in the practical parts of his ethics, points out to us the different habits by which he would have us regulate our behaviour, such as liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, and even jocularity and good humour, qualities, which that indulgent philosopher has thought worthy of a place in the catalogue of the virtues, tho' the lightness of that approbation which we naturally bestow upon them, should not seem to entitle them to so venerable a name.

Such works present us with agreeable and lively pictures of manners. By the vivacity of their descriptions they inflame our natural love of virtue, and increase our abhorrence of vice: by the justness as well as delicacy of their observations they may often help both to correct and to ascertain our natural sentiments with regard to the propriety of conduct, and suggesting many nice and de|licate attentions, form us to a more exact justness of behaviour, than what, without such instruction, we should have been apt to think of. In treating of the rules of mo|rality, in this manner, consists the science which is properly called ethics, a science, which tho' like criticism, it does not admit of the most accurate precision, is, however, both highly useful and agreeable. It is of

all others the most susceptible of the embel|lishments of eloquence, and by means of them of bestowing, if that be possible, a new importance upon the smallest rules of duty. Its precepts when thus dressed and adorned are capable of producing upon the flexibility of youth the noblest and most last|ing impressions, and as they fall in with the natural magnanimity of that generous age, they are able to inspire, for a time at least, the most heroic resolutions, and thus tend both to establish and confirm the best and most useful habits of which the mind of man is susceptible. Whatever precept and exhortation can do to animate us to the prac|tice of virtue, is done by this science de|livered in this manner.

II. The second set of moralists, among whom we may count all the casuists of the middle and latter ages of the christian church as well as all those who in this and in the preceeding century have treated of what is called natural jurisprudence, do not content themselves with characterizing in this gene|ral manner that tenor of conduct which they would recommend to us, but endeavour to lay down exact and precise rules for the di|rection of every circumstance of our beha|viour. As justice is the only virtue with re|gard

to which such exact rules can properly be given; it is this virtue, that has chiefly fallen under the consideration of those two different sets of writers. They treat of it, however, in a very different manner.

Those who write upon the principles of Jurisprudence consider only what the person to whom the obligation is due ought to think himself entitled to exact by force, what every impartial spectator would approve of him for exacting, or what a judge or arbiter to whom he had submitted his case, and who had un|dertaken to do him justice, ought to oblige the other person to suffer or to perform. The casuists on the other hand do not so much examine what it is that might properly be exacted by force, as what it is that the per|son who owes the obligation ought to think himself bound to perform from the most sa|cred and scrupulous regard to the general rules of justice, and from the most conscien|tious dread, either of wronging his neighbour, or of violating the integrity of his own cha|racter. It is the end of jurisprudence to pre|scribe rules for the decisions of judges and arbiters. It is the end of casuistry to prescribe rules for the conduct of a good man. By observing all the rules of jurisprudence, sup|posing

them ever so perfect, we should deserve nothing but to be free from external punish|ment. By observing those of casuistry, sup|posing them such as they ought to be, we should be entitled to considerable praise by the exact and scrupulous delicacy of our be|haviour.

It may frequently happen that a good man ought to think himself bound, from a sacred and conscientious regard to the general rules of justice, to perform many things which it would be the highest injustice to extort from him, or for any judge or arbiter to impose up|on him by force. To give a trite example; a highway-man, by the fear of death, ob|liges a traveller to promise him a certain sum of money. Whether such a promise, extort|ed in this manner by unjust force, ought to be regarded as obligatory, is a question that has been very much debated.

If we consider it meerly as a question of jurisprudence, the decision can admit of no doubt. It would be absurd to suppose that the highway-man can be entitled to use force to constrain the other to perform. To ex|tort the promise was a crime that deserved the highest punishment, and to extort the per|formance would only be adding a new crime

to the former. He can complain of no inju|ry who has only been deceived by the person by whom he might justly have been killed. To suppose that a judge ought to enforce the obligation of such promises, or that the ma|gistrate ought to allow them to sustain action at law, would be the most ridiculous of all ab|surdities. If we consider this question, there|fore, as a question of jurisprudence we can be at no loss about the decision.

But if we consider it as a question of casu|istry, it will not be so easily determined. Whether a good man from a conscientious regard to that most sacred rule of justice, which commands the observance of all seri|ous promises, would not think himself bound to perform, is at least much more doubtful. That no regard is due to the disappointment of the wretch who brings him into this situa|tion, that no injury is done to the robber, and consequently that nothing can be extorted by force, will admit of no sort of dispute. But whether some regard is not, in this case, due to his own dignity and honour, to the inviolable sacredness of that part of his cha|racter which makes him reverence the law of truth and abhor every thing that ap|proaches to treachery and falsehood, may,

perhaps, more reasonably be made a question. The casuists accordingly are greatly divided about it. One party, with whom we may count Cicero among the antients, among the moderns, Puffendorf, Barbeyrac his commen|tator, and above all the late Dr. Hutcheson, one who in most cases was by no means a loose casuist, determine, without any hesita|tion, that no sort of regard is due to any such promise, and that to think otherwise is meer weakness and superstition. Another party, among whom we may reckon * 1.20 some of the antient fathers of the church, as well as some very eminent modern casuists, have been of another opinion, and have judged all such promises obligatory.

If we consider the matter according to the common sentiments of mankind, we shall find that some regard would be thought due even to a promise of this kind; but that it is impossible to determine how much, by any general rule that will apply to all cases with|out exception. The man who was quite frank and easy in making promises of this kind, and who violated them with as little ceremony, we should not chuse for our friend and com|panion.

A gentleman who should promise a highway-man five pounds and not perform would incur some blame. If the sum pro|mised, however, was very great, it might be more doubtful, what was proper to be done. If it was such, for example, that the payment of it would entirely ruin the family of the promiser, if it was so great as to be sufficient for promoting the most useful pur|poses, it would appear in some measure cri|minal, at least extremely improper, to throw it, for the sake of a punctilio, into such worth|less hands. The man who should beggar himself, or who should throw away a hun|dred thousand pounds, tho' he could af|ford that vast sum, for the sake of observ|ing such a parole with a thief, would appear to the common sense of mankind absurd and extravagant in the highest degree. Such pro|fusion would seem inconsistent with his duty, with what he owed both to himself and others, and what, therefore, regard to a pro|mise extorted in this manner, could by no means authorize. To fix, however, by any precise rule, what degree of regard ought to be paid to it, or what might be the greatest sum which could be due from it, is evident|ly impossible. This would vary according to

the characters of the persons, according to their circumstances, according to the solem|nity of the promise, and even according to the incidents of the rencounter: and if the promiser had been treated with a great deal of that sort of gallantry, which is sometimes to be met with in persons of the most aban|doned characters, more would seem due than upon other occasions. It may be said in ge|neral, that exact propriety requires the obser|vance of all such promises, wherever it is not inconsistent with some other duties that are more sacred; such as regard to the public interest, to those whom gratitude, whom natural affection, or whom the laws of proper beneficence should prompt us to provide for. But, as was formerly taken notice of, we have no precise rules to determine what ex|ternal actions are due from a regard to such motives, nor, consequently, when it is that those virtues are inconsistent with the obser|vance of such promises.

It is to be observed, however, that when|ever such promises are violated, tho' for the most necessary reasons, it is always with some degree of dishonour to the person who made them. After they are made, we may be con|vinced of the impropriety of observing them.

But still there is some fault in having made them. It is at least a departure from the highest and noblest maxims of magnanimity and ho|nour. A brave man ought to die, rather than make a promise which he can neither keep without folly nor violate without Ignominy. For some degree of ignominy always attends a situation of this kind. Treachery and false|hood, are vices so dangerous, so dreadful, and at the same time, such as may so easily, and, upon many occasions, so safely be indulg|ed, that we are more jealous of them than of almost any other. Our imagination there|fore attaches the idea of shame to all violati|ons of faith, in every circumstance and in every situation. They resemble, in this respect, the violations of chastity in the fair sex, a virtue of which, for the like reasons, we are excessively jealous; and our sentiments are not more delicate with regard to the one, than with regard to the other. Breach of chasti|ty dishonours irretriveably. No circumstances, no sollicitation can excuse it; no sorrow, no repentance atone for it. We are so nice in this respect that even a rape dishonours, and the innocence of the mind cannot, in our imagination, wash out the pollution of the body. It is the same case with the violation

of faith, when it has been solemnly pledged, even to the most worthless of mankind. Fi|delity is so necessary a virtue, that we appre|hend it in general to be due even to those to whom nothing else is due, and whom we think it lawful to kill and destroy. It is to no purpose that the person who has been guilty of the breach of it, urges that he pro|mised in order to save his life, and that he broke his promise because it was inconsistent with some other respectable duty to keep it. These circumstances may alleviate, but can|not entirely wipe out his dishonour. He ap|pears to have been guilty of an action with which, in the imaginations of men, some de|gree of shame is inseparably connected. He has broke a promise which he had solemnly averred he would maintain; and his charac|ter, if not irretrievably stained and polluted, has at least a ridicule affixed to it, which it will be very difficult entirely to efface; and no man, I imagine, who had gone thro' an ad|venture of this kind, would be fond of telling the story.

This instance may serve to show wherein consists the difference between casuistry, and jurisprudence, even when both of them con|sider

the obligations of the general rules of justice.

But tho' this difference be real and essenti|al, tho' those two sciences propose quite dif|ferent ends, the sameness of the subject has made such a similarity between them, that the greater part of authors whose professed design was to treat of jurisprudence, have determined the different questions they ex|amine, sometimes according to the principles of that science, and sometimes according to those of casuistry, without distinguishing and perhaps without being themselves aware when they did the one, and when the other.

The doctrine of the casuists, however, is by no means confined to the consideration of what a conscientious regard to the general rules of justice, would demand of us. It embraces many other parts of christian and moral duty. What seems principally to have given occasion to the cultivation of this species of science was the custom of auricular con|fession, introduced by the Roman Catholic su|perstition, in times of barbarism and igno|rance. By that institution, the most secret actions, and even the thoughts of every per|son, which could be suspected of receeding in the smallest degree from the rules of christi|an

purity were to be revealed to the confes|sor. The confessor informed his penitents whether, and in what respect they had vio|lated their duty, and what pennance it be|hooved them to undergo, before he could ab|solve them in the name of the offended deity.

The consciousness, or even the suspicion of having done wrong, is a load upon every mind, and is accompanied with anxiety and terror in all those who are not hardened by long habits of iniquity. Men, in this, as in all other distresses, are naturally eager to dis|burden themselves of the oppression which they feel upon their thoughts, by unbosom|ing the agony of their mind to some person whose secrecy and discretion they can confide in. The shame, which they suffer from this acknowledgment, is fully compensated by that alleviation of their uneasiness which the sympathy of their confident seldom fails to occasion. It relieves them to find that they are not altogether unworthy of regard, and that however their past conduct may be cen|sured, their present disposition is at least ap|proved of, and is perhaps sufficient to com|pensate the other, at least to maintain them in some degree of esteem with their friend. A numerous and artful clergy had, in those

times of superstition, insinuated themselves into the confidence of almost every private family, They possessed all the little learning which the times could afford, and their man|ners, tho' in many respects rude and disor|derly, were polished and regular compared with those of the age they lived in. They were regarded, therefore, not only as the great directors of all religious, but of all mo|ral duties. Their familiarity gave reputation to whoever was so happy as to possess it, and every mark of their disapprobation stamped the deepest ignominy upon all who had the misfortune to fall under it. Being consi|dered as the great judges of right and wrong, they were naturally consulted about all scru|ples that occurred, and it was reputable for any person to have it known that he made those holy men the confidents of all such secrets, and took no important or delicate step in his conduct without their advice and approbation. It was not difficult for the clergy, therefore, to get it established as a ge|neral rule, that they should be entrusted with what it had already become fashionable to entrust them, and with what they generally would have been entrusted, tho' no such rule

had been established. To qualify themselves for confessors became thus a necessary part of the study of churchmen and divines, and they were thence led to collect what are called cases of conscience, nice and delicate situations in which it is hard to determine whereabouts the propriety of conduct may lie. Such works, they imagined, might be of use both to the directors of consciences and to those who were to be directed; and hence the origin of books of casuistry.

The moral duties which fell under the consideration of the casuists were chiefly those which can, in some measure at least, be circumscribed within general rules, and of which the violation is naturally attended with some degree of remorse and some dread of suffering punishment. The design of that institution which gave occasion to their works, was to appease those terrors of con|science which attend upon the infringement of such duties. But it is not every virtue of which the defect is accompanied with any very severe compunctions of this kind, and no man applies to his confessor for absolu|tion, because he did not perform the most generous, the most friendly or the most

magnanimous action which, in his circum|stances, it was possible to perform. In fai|lures of this kind, the rule that is violated is commonly not very determinate, and is ge|nerally of such a nature too that tho' the observance of it might entitle to honour and reward, the violation seems to expose to no positive blame, censure or punishment. The exercise of such virtues the casuists seem to have regarded as a sort of works of superero|gation, which could not be very strictly ex|acted, and which it was, therefore, unneces|sary for them to treat of.

The breaches of moral duty, therefore, which came before the tribunal of the con|fessor, and upon that account fell under the cognizance of the casuists, were chiefly of three different kinds.

First and principally breaches of the rules of justice. The rules here are all express and positive, and the violation of them is na|turally attended with the consciousness of de|serving, and the dread of suffering, punish|ment both from God and man.

Secondly, breaches of the rules of chastity. These in all grosser instances are real breaches of the rules of justice, and no person can be

guilty of them without doing the most un|pardonable injury to some other. In smaller instances, when they amount only to a vio|lation of those exact decorums which ought to be observed in the conversation of the two sexes, they cannot indeed justly be con|sidered as violations of the rules of justice. They are generally, however, violations of a pretty plain rule, and, at least in one of the sexes, tend to bring ignominy upon the per|son who has been guilty of them, and con|sequently to be attended in the scrupulous with some degree of shame and contrition of mind.

Thirdly, breaches of the rules of veracity. The violation of truth, it is to be observed, is not always a breach of justice, tho' it is so upon many occasions, and consequently can not always expose to any external punish|ment. The vice of common lying, tho' a most miserable meanness, may frequently do hurt to no person, and in this case no claim of vengeance or satisfaction can be due either to the persons imposed upon or to others. But though the violation of truth is not al|ways a breach of justice, it is always a breach of a very plain rule, and what naturally tends

to cover with shame the person who has been guilty of it. The great pleasure of conver|sation, and indeed of society, arises from a certain correspondence of sentiments and opi|nions, from a certain harmony of minds, which like so many musical instruments co|incide and keep time with one another. But this most delightful harmony cannot be ob|tained unless there is a free communication of sentiments and opinions. We all desire, upon this account, to feel how each other is affected, to penetrate into each others bosoms and to observe the sentiments and affections which really subsist there. The man who indulges us in this natural passion, who in|vites us into his heart, who, as it were, sets open the gates of his breast to us, seems to exercise a species of hospitality more delight|ful than any other. No man, who is in or|dinary good temper, can fail of pleasing if he has the courage to utter his real sentiments as he feels them, and because he feels them. It is this unreserved sincerity which renders even the prattle of a child agreeable. How weak and imperfect soever the views of the open-hearted, we take pleasure to enter into them, and endeavour, as much as we can,

to bring down our own understanding, to the level of their capacities, and to regard every subject in the particular light in which they appear to have considered it. This passion to discover the real sentiments of others is naturally so strong, that it often degenerates into a troublesome and impertinent curiosity to pry into those secrets of our neighbours which they have very justifiable reasons for concealing, and, upon many occasions, it re|quires prudence and a strong sense of pro|priety to govern this, as well as all the other passions of human nature, and to reduce it to that pitch which any impartial spectator can approve of. To disappoint this curiosity, however, when it is kept within proper bounds, and aims at nothing which there can be any just reason for concealing, is equally disagreeable in its turn. The man who eludes our most innocent questions, who gives no satisfaction to our most inoffensive inquiries, who plainly wraps himself up in impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a wall about his breast. We run for|ward to get within it, with all the eagerness of harmless curiosity, and feel ourselves all at once pushed back with the rudest and most

offensive violence. If to conceal is so dis|agreeable, to attempt to deceive us is still more disgusting, even tho' we could possibly suffer nothing by the success of the fraud. If we see that our companion wants to im|pose upon us, if the sentiments and opinions which he utters appear evidently not to be his own, let them be ever so fine, we can derive no sort of entertainment from them; and if something of human nature did not now and then transpire through all the covers which falshood and affectation are capable of wraping around it, a puppet of wood would be altogether as pleasant a companion as a person who never spoke as he was affected. No man ever deceives, with regard to the most insignificant matters, who is not con|scious of doing something like an injury to those he converses with; and who does not inwardly blush and shrink back with shame and confusion even at the secret thought of a detection. Breach of veracity, therefore, be|ing always attended with some degree of re|morse and self-condemnation, naturally fell under the cognizance of the casuists.

The chief subjects of the works of the casuists, therefore, were the conscientious

regard that is due to the rules of justice; how far we ought to respect the life and property of our neighbour; the duty of re|stitution; the laws of chastity and modesty, and wherein consisted what, in their lan|guage are called the sins of concupiscence: the rules of veracity and the obligation of oaths, promises and contracts of all kinds.

It may be said in general of the works of the casuists that they attempted, to no purpose, to direct by precise Rules what it belongs to feeling and sentiment only to judge of. How is it possible to ascertain by rules the exact point at which, in every case, a delicate sense of justice begins to run into a frivolous and weak scrupulosity of consci|ence? When it is that secrecy and reserve begin to grow into dissimulation? How far an agreeable irony may be carried, and at what precise point it begins to degenerate into a detestable lie? What is the highest pitch of freedom and ease of behaviour which can be regarded as graceful and be|coming, and when it is that it first begins to run into a negligent and thoughtless licen|tiousness? With regard to all such matters, what would hold good in any one case

would scarce do so exactly in any other, and what constitutes the propriety and happiness of behaviour varies in every case with the smallest variety of situation. Books of ca|suistry, therefore, are generally as useless as they are commonly tiresome. They could be of little use to one who should consult them upon occasion, even supposing their de|cisions to be just; because, notwithstanding the multitude of cases collected in them, yet upon account of the still greater variety of possible circumstances, it is a chance, if among all those cases there be found one ex|actly parallel to that under consideration. One, who is really anxious to do his duty, must be very weak, if he can imagine that he has much occasion for them; and with regard to one who is negligent of it, the stile of those writings is not such as is likely to awaken him to more attention. None of them tend to animate us to what is generous and noble. None of them tend to soften us to what is gentle and humane. Many of them, on the contrary, tend rather to teach us to chicane with our own consciences, and by their vain subtilties serve to authorise in|numerable evasive refinements with regard

to the most essential articles of our duty. That frivolous accuracy which they at|tempted to introduce into subjects which do not admit of it, almost necessarily betrayed them into those dangerous errors, and at the same time rendered their works dry and dis|agree••ble, abounding in abstruse and meta|physical distinctions, but incapable of ex|citing in the heart any of those emotions which it is the principal use of books of morality to excite.

The two useful parts of moral philosophy, therefore, are Ethics and Jurisprudence: casuistry ought to be rejected altogether, and the ancient moralists appear to have judged much better, who, in treating of the same subjects, did not affect any such nice exact|ness, but contented themselves with describ|ing in a general manner, what is the senti|ment upon which justice, modesty and vera|sity are founded, and what is the ordinary way of acting to which those virtues would commonly prompt us.

Something, indeed, not unlike the doctrine of the casuists, seems to have been attempted by several philosophers. There is something of this kind in the third book of Cicero's of|fices,

where he endeavours like a casuist to give rules for our conduct in many nice cases, in which it is difficult to determine where|abouts the point of propriety may lie. It appears too, from many passages in the same book, that several other philosophers had at|tempted something of the same kind before him. Neither he nor they, however, ap|pear to have aimed at giving a compleat system of this sort, but only meant to show how situations may occur, in which it is doubtful, whether the highest propriety of conduct consists in observing or in receeding from what, in ordinary cases, are the rules of duty.

Every system of positive law may be regarded as a more or less imperfect attempt towards a system of natural jurisprudence, or towards an enumeration of the particular rules of justice. As the violation of justice is what men will never submit to from one another, the publick magistrate is under a necessity of employing the power of the commonwealth to enforce the practice of this virtue. With|out this precaution, civil society would be|come a scene of bloodshed and disorder, every man revenging himself at his own hand whenever he fancied he was injured.

To prevent the confusion which would at|tend upon every man's doing justice to him|self, the magistrate, in all governments that have acquired any considerable authority, undertakes to do justice to all, and promises to hear and to redress every complaint of in|jury. In all well-governed states too not only judges are appointed for determining the controversies of individuals, but rules are prescribed for regulating the decisions of those judges; and these rules are, in gene|ral, intended to coincide with those of natu|ral justice. It does not, indeed, always hap|pen that they do so in every instance. Some|times what is called the constitution of the state, that is, the interest of the government; sometimes the interest of particular orders of men who tyrannize the government, warp the positive laws of the country from what na|tural justice would prescribe. In some countries, the rudeness and barbarism of the people hinder the natural sentiments of justice from arriving at that accuracy and precision which, in more civi|lised nations, they naturally attain to. Their laws are like their manners gross and rude and undistinguishing. In other countries the unfortunate constitution of their courts of judicature hinders any regular system of juris|prudence

from ever establishing itself among them, tho' the improved manners of the people may be such as would admit of the most accurate. In no country do the deci|sions of positive law coincide exactly in every case with the rules which the natural sense of justice would dictate. Systems of positive law, therefore, tho' they deserve the greatest authority as the records of the sentiments of mankind in different ages and nations, yet can never be regarded as accurate systems of the rules of natural justice.

It might have been expected that the rea|sonings of lawyers upon the different imper|fections and improvements of the laws of dif|ferent countries, should have given occasion to an enquiry into what were the natural rules of justice, independent of all positive in|stitution. It might have been expected that these reasonings should have led them to aim at establishing a system of what might pro|perly be called natural jurisprudence, or a theory of the general principles which ought to run through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations. But tho' the reasonings of lawyers did produce something of this

kind, and though no man has treated systema|tically of the laws of any particular country, without intermixing in his work many ob|servations of this sort; it was very late in the world before any such general system was thought of, or before the philosophy of law was treated of by itself, and without re|gard to the particular institutions of any one nation. In none of the ancient moralists, do we find any attempt towards a particular enu|meration of the rules of justice. Cicero in his offices, and Aristotle in his ethics, treat of justice in the same general manner in which they treat of all the other virtues. In the laws of Cicero and Plato, where we might naturally have expected some attempts to|wards an enumeration of those rules of natu|ral equity, which ought to be enforced by the positive laws of every country, there is, however, nothing of this kind. Their laws are laws of police not of justice. Grotius seems to have been the first who attempted to give the world any thing like a system of those principles which ought to run thro', and be the foundation of the laws of all na|tions; and his treatise of the laws of war and peace, with all its imperfections, is per|haps

at this day the most compleat work that has yet been given upon this subject. I shall in another discourse endeavour to give an ac|count of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolu|tions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in what concerns justice but in what concerns po|lice, revenue and arms, and whatever else is the object of law. I shall not, therefore, at present enter into any further detail con|cerning the history of jurisprudence.

FINIS.

Notes

• * 1.1

  See Plato de rep. lib 4.
• * 1.2

  The distributive justice of Aristotle is somewhat differe•••• It consists in the proper distribution of rewards from the pub|lick stock of a community. see Aristotle Ethic. Nic. l. 5. c. 2.
• * 1.3

  See Aristotle Ethic. Nic. l. 2. c. 5. et seq. et l. 3. c. 5. et seq.
• * 1.4

  See Aristotle Ethic. Nic. lib. ii. ch. 1.2.3 and 4.
• * 1.5

  See Aristotle Mag. Mor. lib. i. ch. 1.
• * 1.6

  See Cicero de finibus, lib. iii. also Diogenes Laertius in Zenone, lib. vii. segment. 84.
• * 1.7

  Some of these expressions sound a little aukward in the ••••glish language: they are literal translations of the technical 〈◊〉〈◊〉 of the stoics.
• * 1.8

  Arrian. lib. ii. c. 5.
• * 1.9

  See Cicero de finibus, lib. i. Diogenes Laert. l. x.
• * 1.10

  Prima naturae.
• * 1.11

  See enquiry concerning virtue sect. 1. and 2.
• * 1.12

  Inquiry concerning virtue, sect. 2. art. 4, also illustra|tions on the moral sense, sect. 5. last paragraph.
• * 1.13

  Luxury and lust.
• * 1.14

  Fable of the Bees.
• * 1.15

  Puffendorf. Mandeville.
• * 1.16

  Immutable morality. l. 1.
• * 1.17

  Enquiry concerning virtue.
• * 1.18

  Treatise of the passions.
• * 1.19

  Illustrations upon the moral sense. Sect. 1. page 237, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 seq. Third Edition.
• * 1.20

  St. Augustine, la Placette.