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

PART II. Of MERIT and DEMERIT; or, of the Objects of REWARD and PU|NISHMENT.

SECTION I. Of the sense of merit and demerit.

INTRODUCTION.

THERE is another set of qualities ascribed to the actions and con|duct of mankind, distinct from their propriety or impropriety, their de|cency or ungracefulness, and which are the objects of a distinct species of approba|tion and disapprobation. These are me|rit and demerit, the qualities of deserving reward, and of deserving punishment.

It has already been observed, that the ••entiment or affection of the heart, from which any action proceeds, and upon which ••ts whole virtue or vice depends, may be

considered under two different aspects, or in two different relations: First, in re|lation to the cause or object which ex|cites it; and, secondly, in relation to the end which it proposes, or to the effect which it tends to produce: that upon the suitableness or unsuitableness, upon the proportion or disproportion, which the affection seems to bear to the cause or ob|ject which excites it, depends the proprie|ty or impropriety, the decency or ungrace|fulness of the consequent action; and that upon the beneficial or hurtful effects which the affection proposes or tends to produce, depends the merit or demerit, the good or ill desert of the action to which it gives occasion. Wherein consists our sense o•• the propriety or impropriety of actions, has been explained in the former part of thi•• discourse. We come now to consider, where|in consists that of their good or ill de|sert.

CHAP. I. That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appears to be the proper ob|ject of resentment, appears to deserve punishment.

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

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

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

To reward, is to recompense, to remu|nerate, to return good for good received. To punish, too, is to recompense, to re|munerate, though in a different manner; it is to return evil for evil that has been done.

There are some other passions, besides gratitude and resentment, which interest us in the happiness or misery of others; but there are none which so directly ex|cite us to be the instruments of either. The love and esteem which grow upon acquaintance and habitual approbation, necessarily lead us to be pleased with the good fortune of the man who is the ob|ject of such agreeable emotions, and con|sequently, to be willing to lend a hand to promote it. Our love, however, is fully satisfied, though his good fortune should be brought about without our assistance. All that this passion desires is to see him

••appy, without regarding who was the ••uthor of his prosperity. But gratitude is ••ot to be satisfied in this manner. If the person to whom we owe many obliga|••ions, is made happy without our assist|••nce, though it pleases our love, it does ••ot content our gratitude. Till we have ••ecompensed him, till we ourselves have ••een instrumental in promoting his hap|••iness, we feel ourselves still loaded with ••hat debt which his past services have laid ••pon us.

The hatred and dislike, in the same manner, which grow upon habitual dis|••pprobation, would often lead us to take •• malicious pleasure in the misfortune ••f the man whose conduct and character ••xcite so painful a passion. But though ••islike and hatred harden us against all ••ympathy, and sometimes dispose us even ••o rejoice at the distress of another, yet, ••f there is no resentment in the case, if ••either we nor our friends have received ••ny great personal provocation, these ••assions would not naturally lead us to wish to be instrumental in bringing it ••bout. Though we could fear no punish|ment in consequence of our having had

some hand in it, we would rather that it should happen by other means. To one under the dominion of violent hatred i•• would be agreeable, perhaps, to hear, th•••• the person whom he abhorred and detested was killed by some accident. But if he had the least spark of justice, which, tho' thi•• passion is not very favourable to virtue, he might still have, it would hurt him exces|sively to have been himself, even witho•••• design, the occasion of this misfortune. Much more would the very thought of vo|luntarily contributing to it shock him be|yond all measure. He would reject wi•••• horror even the imagination of so execra|ble a design; and if he could imagine him|self capable of such an enormity, he would begin to regard himself in the same odio•••• light in which he had considered the per|son who was the object of his dislike. Bu•• it is quite otherwise with resentment: i•• the person who had done us some great in|jury, who had murdered our father or ou•• brother, for example, should soon after|wards die of a fever, or even be brought 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the scaffold upon account of some othe•• crime, tho' it might sooth our hatred, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 would not fully gratify our resentment.

Resentment would prompt us to desire, not only that he should be punished, but that he should be punished by our means, and upon account of that particular injury which he had done to us. Resentment can|not be fully gratified, unless the offender is not only made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong which we have suffered from him. He must be made to repent and be sorry for this very action, that others, thro' fear of the like punish|ment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. The natural gratifi|cation of this passion tends, of its own ac|cord, to produce all the political ends of punishment; the correction of the crimi|nal, and the example to the public.

Gratitude and resentment, therefore, are ••he sentiments which most immediately and directly prompt to reward and to pu|nish. To us, therefore, he must appear to deserve reward, who appears to be the pro|per and approved object of gratitude; and he to deserve punishment, who appears to be that of resentment.

CHAP. II. Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment.

TO be the proper and approved object either of gratitude or resentment, can mean nothing but to be the object of that gratitude, and of that resentment, which naturally seems proper, and is ap|proved of.

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

He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or persons, is the na|tural object of a gratitude which every hu|man heart is disposed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and he, on the other hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the same manner is to some person or persons the natural object of a resentment which the breast of every reasonable man

is ready to adopt and sympathise with. To us, surely, that action must appear to deserve reward, which every body who knows of it would wish to reward, and therefore delights to see rewarded: and that action must as surely appear to deserve pu|nishment, which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that account re|joices to see punished.

1. As we sympathize with the joy of our companions when in prosperity, so we join with them in the complacency and sa|tisfaction with which they naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good for|tune. We enter into the love and affec|tion which they conceive for it, and begin to love it too. We should be sorry for their sakes if it was destroyed, or even if it was placed at too great a distance from them, and out of the reach of their care and protection, tho' they should lose no|thing by its absence except the pleasure of seeing it. If it is man who has thus been the fortunate instrument of the happiness of his brethren, this is still more peculiarly the case. When we see one man assisted, pro|tected, relieved by another, our sympathy with the joy of the person who receives the

benefit serves only to animate our fellow-feeling with his gratitude towards him who bestows it. When we look upon the per|son who is the cause of his pleasure with the eyes with which we imagine he must look upon him, his benefactor seems to stand before us in the most engaging and amiable light. We readily therefore sym|pathize with the grateful affection which he conceives for a person to whom he has been so much obliged; and consequently applaud the returns which he is disposed to make for the good offices conferred up|on him. As we intirely enter into the af|fection from which these returns proceed, they necessarily seem every way proper and suitable to their object.

2. In the same manner, as we sympa|thize with the sorrow of our fellow-creature whenever we see his distress, so we like|wise enter into his abhorrence and aver|sion for whatever has given occasion to it. Our heart, as it adopts and beats time to his grief, so is it likewise animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or destroy the cause of it. The indolent and passive fellow-feeling, by which we accompany him in his sufferings,

readily gives way to that more vigorous and active sentiment by which we go along with him in the effort he makes, either to repel them, or to gratify his aversion to what has given occasion to them. This is still more peculiarly the case, when it is man who has caused them. When we see one man oppressed or injured by another, the sympathy which we feel with the dis|tress of the sufferer seems to serve only to animate our fellow-feeling with his resent|ment against the offender. We are rejoic|ed to see him attack his adversary in his turn, and are eager and ready to assist him whenever he exerts himself for defence, or even for vengeance within a certain degree. If the injured should perish in the quarrel, we not only sympathize with the real re|sentment of his friends and relations, but with the imaginary resentment which in fancy we lend to the dead, who is no long|er capable of feeling that or any other hu|man sentiment. But as we put ourselves in his situation, as we enter, as it were, into his body, and in our imaginations, in some measure, animate anew the de|formed and mangled carcase of the slain, when we bring home in this manner his

case to our own bosoms, we feel upon this, as upon many other occasions, an emotion which the person principally concerned is incapable of feeling, and which yet we feel by an illusive sympathy with him. The sympathetic tears which we shed for that immense and irretrievable loss, which in our fancy he appears to have sustained, seem to be but a small part of the duty which we owe him. The injury which he has suffered demands, we think, a prin|cipal part of our attention. We feel that resentment which we imagine he ought to feel, and which he would feel, if in his cold and lifeless body there remained any consci|ousness of what passes upon earth. His blood, we think, calls aloud for vengeance. The ve|ry ashes of the dead seem to be disturbed at the thought that his injuries are to pass unre|venged. The horrors which are supposed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghosts which, superstition imagines, rise from their graves to demand vengeance up|on those who brought them to an untimely end, all take their origin from this natu|ral sympathy with the imaginary resent|ment of the slain. And with regard, at least, to this most dreadful of all crimes,

nature, antecedent to all reflexions upon the utility of punishment, has in this man|ner stamped upon the human heart, in the strongest and most indelible characters, an immediate and instinctive approbation of the sacred and necessary law of retaliation.

CHAP. III. That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person who confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of him who receives it: and that, on the contrary, where there is no disapprobation of the motives of the per|son who does the mischief, there is no sort of sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it.

IT is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial soever on the one hand, or how hurtful soever on the other, the actions or intentions of the person who acts may have been to the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon, yet if in the one case there appears to have been no propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot en|ter into the affections which influenced

his conduct, we have little sympathy with the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit: or if, in the other case, there appears to have been no impropriety in the motives of the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his con|duct are such as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no sort of sympathy with the resentment of the person who suffers. Little gratitude seems due in the one case, and all sort of resentment seems unjust in the other. The one action seems to merit little reward, the other to deserve no pu|nishment.

1. First, I say, That wherever we cannot sympathize with the affections of the agent, wherever there seems to be no propriety in the motives which influenced his conduct, we are less disposed to enter into the gra|titude of the person who received the bene|fit of his actions. A very small return seems due to that foolish and profuse ge|nerosity which confers the greatest benefits from the most trivial motives, and gives an estate to a man merely because his name and sirname happen to be the same with those of the giver. Such services do not seem to demand any proportionable recom|pense.

Our contempt for the folly of the agent hinders us from thoroughly entering into the gratitude of the person to whom the good office has been done. His bene|factor seems unworthy of it. As when we place ourselves in the situation of the person obliged, we feel that we could conceive no great reverence for such a benefactor, we ea|sily absolve him from a great deal of that submissive veneration and esteem which we should think due to a more respectable cha|racter; and provided he always treats his weak friend with kindness and humanity, we are willing to excuse him from many attentions and regards which we should de|mand to a worthier patron. Those Princes, who have heaped, with the greatest profu|sion, wealth, power, and honours, upon their favourites, have seldom excited that degree of attachment to their persons which has often been experienced by those who were more frugal of their favours. The well-natured, but injudicious prodigality, of James the First of Great Britain seems to have attached no body to his person; and that Prince, notwithstanding his social and harmless disposition, appears to have lived and died without a friend. The whole gentry

and nobility of England exposed their lives and fortunes in the cause of his more fru|gal and distinguishing son, notwithstand|ing the coldness and distant severity of his ordinary deportment.

2. Secondly, I say, That wherever the conduct of the agent appears to have been intirely directed by motives and affections which we thoroughly enter into and ap|prove of▪ we can have no sort of sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, how great soevet the mischief which may have been done to him. When two people quarrel, if we take part with, and intirely adopt the resentment of one of them, it is impossible that we should enter into that of the other. Our sympathy with the person whose motives we go along with, and whom therefore we look upon as in the right, can|not but harden us against all fellow-feeling with the other, whom we necessarily re|gard as in the wrong. Whatever this last, therefore, may have suffered, while it is no more than what we ourselves should have wished him to suffer, while it is no more than what our own sympathetic indigna|tion would have prompted us to inflict upon him, it cannot either displease or pro|voke

us. When an inhuman murderer is brought to the scaffold, tho' we have some compassion for his misery, we can have no sort of fellow-feeling with his resentment, if he should be so absurd as to express any against either his prosecutor or his judge. The natural tendency of their just indig|nation against so vile a criminal is indeed the most fatal and ruinous to him. But it is impossible that we should be displeased with the tendency of a sentiment, which, when we bring the case home to ourselves, we feel that we cannot avoid adopting.

CHAP. IV. Recapitulation of the foregoing chapters.

1. WE do not, therefore, thoroughly and heartily sympathize with the gratitude of one man towards another, merely because this other has been the cause of his good fortune, unless he has been the cause of it from motives which we intirely go along with. Our heart must adopt the principles of the agent, and go along with all the affections which influ|enced his conduct, before it can intirely

sympathize with, and beat time to, the gra|titude of the person who has been benefited by his actions. If in the conduct of the benefactor there appears to have been no propriety, how beneficial soever its effects, it does not seem to demand, or necessarily to require, any proportionable recom|pence.

But when to the beneficent tendency of the action is joined the propriety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we intirely sympathize and go along with the motives of the agent, the love which we conceive for him upon his own account enhances and enlivens our fellow-feeling with the gratitude of those who owe their prosperity to his good conduct. His ac|tions seem then to demand, and, if I may say so, to call aloud for a proportionable recompense. We then intirely enter into that gratitude which prompts to bestow it. The benefactor seems then to be the proper object of reward, when we thus intirely sympathize with, and approve of, that sen|timent which prompts to reward him. When we approve of, and go along with, the affection from which the action pro|ceeds, we must necessarily approve of the

action, and regard the person towards whom it is directed as its proper and suit|able object.

2. In the same manner, we cannot at all sympathize with the resentment of one man against another, merely because this other has been the cause of his misfortune, un|less he has been the cause of it from mo|tives which we cannot enter into. Before we can adopt the resentment of the sufferer, we must disapprove of the motives of the agent, and feel that our heart renounces all sympathy with the affections which influ|enced his conduct. If there appears to have been no impropriety in these, how fa|tal soever the tendency of the action which proceeds from them to those against whom it is directed, it does not seem to deserve any punishment, or to be the proper object of any resentment.

But when to the hurtfulness of the action is joined the impropriety of the affection from whence it proceeds, when our heart rejects with abhorrence all fellow-feeling with the motives of the agent, we then heartily and intirely sympathize with the resentment of the sufferer. Such actions seem then to deserve, and, if I may say so,

to call aloud for, a proportionable punish|ment; and we intirely enter into, and there|by approve of, that resentment which prompts to inflict it. The offender neces|sarily seems then to be the proper object of punishment, when we thus intirely sympa|thize with, and thereby approve of, that sentiment which prompts to punish. In this case too, when we approve, and go along with, the affection from which the action proceeds, we must necessarily ap|prove of the action, and regard the person against whom it is directed, as its proper and suitable object.

CHAP. V. The analysis of the sense of merit and de|merit.

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

As we cannot indeed enter thoroughly into the gratitude of the person who re|ceives the benefit, unless we beforehand approve of the motives of the benefactor, so, upon this account, the sense of merit seems to be a compounded sentiment, and to be made up of two distinct emotions; a direct sympathy with the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of those who receive the bene|fit of his actions.

We may, upon many different occa|sions, plainly distinguish those two differ|ent emotions combining and uniting toge|ther in our sense of the good desert of a particular character or action. When we ••ead in history concerning actions of pro|per and beneficent greatness of mind, how ••agerly do we enter into such designs? How much are we animated by that high-spi|••ited generosity which directs them? How ••een are we for their success? How grieved at ••heir disappointment? In imagination we become the very person whose actions are ••epresented to us: we transport ourselves ••n fancy to the scenes of those distant and forgotten adventures, and imagine our|selves acting the part of a Scipio or a Ca|millus,

a Timoleon or an Aristides. So far our sentiments are founded upon the direct sympathy with the person who acts. Nor is the indirect sympathy with those who receive the benefit of such actions less sensibly felt. Whenever we place ourselves in the situation of these last, with what warm and affectionate fellow-feeling do we enter into their gratitude towards those who served them so essentially? We em|brace, as it were, their benefactor along with them. Our heart readily sympathi|zes with the highest transports of their grateful affection. No honours, no re|wards, we think, can be too great for them to bestow upon him. When they make this proper return for his services, we heartily applaud and go along with them; but are shocked beyond all measure, if by their conduct they appear to have little sense of the obligations conferred upon them. Our whole sense, in short, of the merit and good desert of such actions, of the propriety and fitness of recompensing them, and making the person who per|formed them rejoice in his turn, arises from the sympathetic emotions of grati|tude and love, with which, when we bring

home to our own breasts the situation of those principally concerned, we feel our|selves naturally transported towards the man who could act with such proper and noble beneficence.

2. In the same manner as our sense of the impropriety of conduct arises from a want of sympathy, or from a direct anti|pathy to the affections and motives of the agent, so our sense of its demerit arises from what I shall here too call an indirect sym|pathy with the resentment of the sufferer.

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

We may here too, upon many different ••ccasions, plainly distinguish those two ••ifferent emotions combining and uniting ••ogether in our sense of the ill desert of a ••articular character or action. When we

read in history concerning the perfidy and cruelty of a Borgia or a Nero, our heart rises up against the detestable sentiment•• which influenced their conduct, and re|nounces with horror and abomination all fellow-feeling with such execrable motives. So far our sentiments are founded upon the direct antipathy to the affections of the agent: and the indirect sympathy with the resentment of the sufferers is still more sensibly felt. When we bring home to ourselves the situation of the persons whom those scourges of mankind insulted, mur|dered, or betrayed, what indignation do we not feel against such insolent and inhu|man oppressors of the earth? Our sym|pathy with the unavoidable distress of the innocent sufferers is not more real nor more lively, than our fellow-feeling with their just and natural resentment. The former sentiment only heightens the latter, and the idea of their distress serves only to inflame and blow up our animosity against those who occasioned it. When we think of the anguish of the sufferers, we take part with them more earnestly against their oppressors; we enter with more eagerness into all their schemes of vengeance, and

feel ourselves every moment wreaking, in imagination, upon such violators of the laws of society, that punishment which our sympathetic indignation tells us is due to their crimes. Our sense of the horror and dreadful atrocity of such conduct, the delight which we take in hearing that it was properly punished, the indignation which we feel when it escapes this due re|taliation, our whole sense and feeling, in short, of its ill desert, of the propriety and fitness of inflicting evil upon the person who is guilty of i••, and of making him grieve in his turn, arises from the sympa|thetic indignation which naturally boils up in the breast of the spectator, whenever he thoroughly brings home to himself the case of the sufferer * 1.1.

SECTION II. Of justice and beneficence.

CHAP. I. Comparison of those two virtues.

ACTIONS of a beneficent tendency which proceed from proper motives seem alone to require reward; because such alone are the approved objects of gratitude, or excite the sympathetic grati|tude of the spectator.

Actions of a hurtful tendency, which proceed from improper motives, seem alone to deserve punishment; because such alone are the approved objects of re|sentment, or excite the sympathetic resent|ment of the spectator.

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force, the meer want of it ex|poses to no punishment: because the meer want of beneficence tends to do no real positive evil. It may disappoint of the good which might reasonably have been expected, and upon that account it may

justly excite dislike and disapprobation: it cannot, however, provoke any resentment which mankind will go along with. The man who does not recompence his bene|factor, when he has it in his power, and when his benefactor needs his assistance, is, no doubt, guilty of the blackest in|gratitude. The heart of every impartial spectator rejects all fellow-feeling with the selfishness of his motives, and he is the pro|per object of the highest disapprobation. But still he does no posiive hurt to anybody; he only does not do that good which in pro|priety he ought to have done. He is the ob|ject of hatred, a passion which is naturally excited by impropriety of sentiment and behaviour; not of resentment, a passion which is never properly called forth but by actions which tend to do real and posi|tive hurt to some particular persons. His want of gratitude, therefore, cannot be punished. To oblige him by force to per|form what ingratitude he ought to per|form, and what every impartial spectator would approve of him for performing, would, if possible, be still more improper than his neglecting to perform it. His benefactor would dishonour himself if he

attempted by violence to constrain him to gratitude, and it would be impertinent for any third person, who was not the superior of either, to intermeddle. But of all the duties of beneficence, those which gratitude recommends to us approach near|est to what is called a perfect and compleat obligation. What friendship, what gene|rosity, what charity, would prompt us to do with universal approbation, is still more free, and can still less be extorted by force than the duties of gratitude. We talk of the debt of gratitude, not of charity, or generosity, nor even of friendship, when friendship is meer esteem, and has not been enhanced and complicated with gratitude for good offices.

Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for defence, and for defence only. It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence. It prompts us to beat off the mischief which is attempted to be done to us, and to retaliate that which is already done; that the offender may be made to repent of his injustice; and that others, through fear of the like punishment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. It must be reserved therefore

for these purposes, nor can the spectator ever go along with it when it is exerted for any other. But the meer want of the be|neficent virtues, though it may disappoint us of the good which might reasonably be expected, neither does, nor attempts to do, any mischief from whch we can have oc|casion to defend ourselves.

There is, however, another virtue, of which the observance is not left to the freedom of our own wills, which may be extorted by force, and of which the viola|tion exposes to resentment, and consequent|ly to punishment. This virtue is justice: the violation of justice is injury: it does real and positive hurt to some particular persons, from motives which are naturally disapproved of. It is, therefore, the pro|per object of resentment, and of punish|ment, which is the natural consequence of resentment. As mankind go along with, and approve of, the violence employed to avenge the hurt which is done by injustice, so they much more go along with, and ap|prove of, that which is employed to pre|vent and beat off the injury, and to re|strain the offender from hurting his neigh|bours. The person himself who meditates

an injustice is sensible of this, and feels that force may, with the utmost propriety, be made use of both by the person whom he is about to injure, and by others, either to obstruct the execution of his crime, or to punish him when he has executed it. And upon this is founded that remarkable dis|tinction between justice and all the other social virtues, which has of late been par|ticularly insisted upon by an author of very great and original genius, that we feel ourselves to be under a stricter obliga|tion to act according to justice, than agreeably to friendship, charity, or gene|rosity; that the practice of these last men|tioned virtues seems to be left in some measure to our own choice, but that, some|how or other, we feel ourselves to be in a peculiar manner tyed, bound, and obliged to the observation of justice. We feel, that is to say, that force may, with the utmost propriety, and with the approbation of all mankind, be made use of to constrain us to observe the rules of the one, but not to follow the precepts of the other.

We must always, however, carefully distinguish what is only blameable, or the proper object of disapprobation, from what

force may be employed either to punish or to prevent. That seems blameable which falls short of that ordinary degree of proper be|neficence which experience teaches us to expect of every body; and on the contrary, that seems praise-worthy which goes beyond it. The ordinary degree itself seems neither blameable nor praise-worthy. A father, a son, a brother, who behaves to the corres|pondent relation neither better nor worse than the greater part of men commonly do, seems properly to deserve neither praise nor blame. He who surprises us by ex|traordinary and unexpected, though still proper, and suitable kindness, or on the contrary, by extraordinary and unexpected, as well as unsuitable unkindness, seems praise-worthy in the one case, and blame|able in the other.

Even the most ordinary degree of kind|ness or beneficence, however, cannot, among equals, be extorted by force. Among equals each individual is naturally, and an|tecedent to the institution of civil govern|ment, regarded as having a right both to defend himself from injuries, and to exact a certain degree of punishment for those which have been done to him. Every ge|nerous

spectator not only approves of his conduct when he does this, but enters so far into his sentiments as often to be will|ing to assist him. When one man attacks, or robs, or attempts to murder another, all the neighbours take the alarm, and think that they do right when they run, either to revenge the person who has been injured, or to defend him who is in danger of being so. But when a father fails in the ordinary degree of parental affection towards a son; when a son seems to want that filial reve|rence which might be expected to his father; when brothers are without the usual de|gree of brotherly affection; when a man shuts his▪ breast against compassion, and refuses to relieve the misery of his fellow-creatures, when he can with the greatest ease; in all these cases, though every body blames the conduct, nobody imagines that those who might have reason, perhaps, to expect more kindness, have any right to extort it by force. The sufferer can only complain, and the spectator can intermeddle no other way than by advice and persua|sion. Upon all such occasions for equals to use force against one another, would

be thought the highest degree of insolence and presumption.

A superior may, indeed, sometimes, with universal approbation, oblige those under his jurisdiction to behave, in this respect, with a certain degree of propriety to one another. The laws of all civilized nations oblige parents to maintain their children, and children to maintain their parents, and impose upon men many other duties of beneficence. The civil magistrate is en|trusted with the power not only of preserv|ing the public peace by restraining injustice, but of promoting the prosperity of the com|monwealth, by establishing good disci|pline, and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety; he may prescribe rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual injuries among fellow-citizens, but com|mand mutual good offices to a certain de|gree. When the sovereign commands what is meerly indifferent, and what antecedent to his orders might have been omitted with|out any blame, it becomes not only blame|able but punishable to disobey him. When he commands, therefore, what, antecedent to any such order, could not have been o|mitted without the greatest blame, it surely

becomes much more punishable to be want|ing in obedience. Of all the duties of a law|giver, however, this, perhaps, is what it requires the greatest delicacy and reserve to execute with propriety and judgment. To neglect it altogether exposes the common|wealth to many gross disorders and shock|ing enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice.

Though the meer want of beneficence seems to merit no punishment from equals, the greater exertions of that virtue appear to deserve the highest reward. By being productive of the greatest good, they are the natural and approved objects of the liveliest gratitude. Though the breach of justice, on the contrary, exposes to punishment, the observation of the rules of that virtue seems scarce to deserve any reward. There is, no doubt, a propriety in the practice of justice, and it merits, upon that account, all the approbation which is due to propriety. But as it does no real positive good, it is entitled to very little gratitude. Meer justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neigh|bour.

The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He ful|fils, however, all the rules of what is pe|culiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.

As every man doth, so shall it be done to him, and retaliation seems to be the great law which is dictated to us by nature. Beneficence and generosity we think due to the generous and benificent. Those whose hearts never open to the feel|ings of humanity, should, we think, be shut out, in the same manner, from the affec|tions of all their fellow-creatures, and be allowed to live in the midst of society, as in a great desart where there is no-body to care for them, or to enquire after them. The violator of the laws of justice ought to be made to feel himself that evil which he has done to another; and since no re|gard to the sufferings of his brethren is capable of restraining him, he ought to

be over-awed by the fear of his own. The man who is barely innocent, who only ob|serves the laws of justice with regard to others, and meerly abstains from hurting his neighbours, can merit only that his neighbours in their turn should respect his innocence, and that the same laws should be religiously observed with regard to him.

CHAP. II. Of the sense of justice, of remorse, and of the consciousness of merit.

THERE can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbour, there can be no incitement to do evil to another, which mankind will go along with, except just in|dignation for evil which that other has done to us. To disturb his happiness meerly because it stands in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real use to him meerly because it may be of equal or of more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expence of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own happiness above that of

other people, is what no impartial specta|tor can go along with. Every man, is no doubt, by nature first, and principally re|commended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so. Every man, therefore, is much more deeply interested in whatever immediately concerns himself, than in what concerns any other man: and to hear, perhaps, of the death of another person, with whom we have no particular connection, will give us less concern, will spoil our stomach, or break our rest much less than a very insignificant disaster which has befallen ourselves. But tho' the ruin of our neighbour may affect us much less than a very small misfortune of our own, we must not ruin him to prevent that small misfortune, nor even to prevent our own ruin. We must, here, as in all other cases, view ourselves not so much according to that light in which we may naturally appear to ourselves, as according to that in which we naturally appear to others. Tho' every man may, according to the proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the rest of mankind he is a most insignificant part of

it. Tho' his own happiness may be of more importance to him than that of all the world besides, to every other person it is of no more consequence than that of any other man. Tho' it may be true, therefore, that every individual, in his own breast, na|turally prefers himself to all mankind, yet he dares not look mankind in the face, and avow that he acts according to this princi|ple. He feels that in this preference they can never go along with him, and that how natural soever it may be to him, it must always appear excessive and extrava|gant to them. When he views himself in the light in which he is conscious that others will view him, he sees that to them he is but one of the multitude in no respect bet|ter than any other in it. If he would act so as that the impartial spectator may en|ter into the principles of his conduct, which is what of all things he has the greatest desire to do, he must, upon this, as upon all other occasions, humble the arrogance of his self-love, and bring it down to some|thing which other men can go along with. They will indulge it so far as to allow him to be more anxious about, and to pursue with more earnest assiduity, his own happi|ness

than that of any other person. Thus far, whenever they place themselves in his situation, they will readily go along with him. In the race for wealth, and honours, and preferments, he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his compe|titors. But if he should justle, or throw down any of them, the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a vio|lation of fair play, which they cannot ad|mit of. This man is to them, in every re|spect, as good as he: they do not enter into that self-love by which he prefers him|self so much to this other, and cannot go along with the motive from which he hurt him. They readily, therefore, sympathize with the natural resentment of the injur|ed, and the offender becomes the object of their hatred and indignation. He is sen|sible that he becomes so, and feels that those sentiments are ready to burst out from all sides against him.

As the greater and more irreparable the evil that is done, the resentment of the sufferers runs naturally the higher, so does likewise the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, as well as the sense of guilt in the

agent. Death is the greatest evil which one man can inflict upon another, and excites the highest degree of resentment in those who are immediately connected with the slain. Murder, therefore, is the most atrocious of all crimes which affect indivi|duals only, in the sight both of mankind, and of the person who has committed it. To be deprived of that which we are pos|sessed of, is a greater evil than to be disap|pointed of what we have only the expecta|tion. Breach of property, therefore, theft and robbery, which take from us what we are possessed of, are greater crimes than breach of contract, which only disappoints us of what we expected. The most sacred laws of justice, therefore, those whose vio|lation seems to call loudest for vengeance and punishment, are the laws which guard the life and person of our neighbour; the next are those which guard his property and possessions; and last of all come those which guard what are called his personal rights, or what is due to him from the pro|mi••es of others.

The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on the sentiments which mankind must entertain with re|gard

to him, without feeling all the ago|nies of shame and horror, and consterna|tion. When his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to reflect on his past con|duct, he can enter into none of the mo|tives which influenced it. They appear now as detestable to him as they did always to other people. By sympathizing with the hatred and abhorrence which other men must entertain for him, he becomes in some measure the object of his own ha|tred and abhorrence. The situation of the person, who suffered by his injustice, now calls upon his pity. He is grieved at the thought of it; regrets the unhappy effects of his own conduct, and feels at the same time that they have rendered him the pro|per object of the resentment and indigna|tion of mankind, and of what is the na|tural consequence of resentment, venge|ance and punishment. The thought of this perpetually haunts him, and fills him with terror and amazement. He dares no longer look society in the face, but ima|gines himself as it were rejected, and thrown out from the affections of all mankind. He cannot hope for the consolation of sym|pathy in this his greatest, and most dread|ful

distress. The remembrance of his crimes has shut out all fellow-feeling with him from the hearts of his fellow-creatures. The sentiments which they entertain with regard to him, are the very thing which he is most afraid of. Every thing seems hos|tile, and he would be glad to fly to some inhospitable desert, where he might never more behold the face of a human creature, nor read in the countenance of mankind the condemnation of his crimes. But soli|tude is still more dreadful than society. His own thoughts can present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate, and disastrous, the melancholy forebod|ings of incomprehensible misery and ruin. The horror of solitude drives him back in|to society, and he comes again into the presence of mankind, astonished to appear before them, loaded with shame and dis|tracted with fear, in order to supplicate some little protection from the countenance of those very judges, who he knows have already all unanimously condemned him. Such is the nature of that sentiment, which is properly called remorse; of all the sen|timents which can enter the human breast the most dreadful. It is made up of shame

from the sense of the impropriety of past conduct; of grief for the effects of it; of pity for those who suffer by it; and of the dread and terror of punishment from the consciousness of the justly provoked resent|ment of all rational creatures.

The opposite behaviour naturally inspires the opposite sentiment. The man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has performed a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he has served, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and gratitude, and by sympathy with them, of the esteem and approbation of all mankind. And when he looks backward to the motive from which he acted, and surveys it in the light in which the indifferent spectator will sur|vey it, he still continues to enter into it, and applauds himself by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed impartial judge. In both these points of view his own conduct appears to him every way agreeable. His mind, at the thought of it, is filled with chearfulness, serenity, and composure. He is in friendship and har|mony with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with confidence and

benevolent satisfaction, secure that he has rendered himself worthy of their most fa|vourable regards. In the combination of all these sentiments consists the conscious|ness of merit, or of deserved reward.

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

IT is thus that man, who can subsist on|ly in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for which he was made. All the members of human society stand in need of each others assistance, and are like|wise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally af|forded from love, from gratitude, from friendship and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mu|tual good offices.

But tho' the necessary assistance should not be afforded from such generous and dis|interested

motives, tho' among the different members of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, the society, tho' less happy and agreeable, will not necessa|rily be dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among different mer|chants, from a sense of its utility, with|out any mutual love or affection; and tho' no one man in it should owe any obliga|tion, or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary ex|change of good offices according to an agreed valuation.

Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that in|jury begins, the moment that mutual re|sentment and animosity take place, all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the dif|ferent members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their dis|cordant affections. If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another. Beneficence, therefore, is less essential to the existence of society than

justice. Society may subsist, tho' not in the most comfortable state, without benefi|cence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it.

Tho' nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing con|sciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought it necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the build|ing, and which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend, but by no means necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edi|fice. If it is removed, the great, the im|mense fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and to support seems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care of nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms. To en|force the observation of justice, therefore, nature has implanted in the human breast that consciousness of ill-desert, those ter|rors of merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safe-guards of the association of mankind, to protect

the weak, to curb the violent, and to chas|tize the guilty. Men, tho' naturally sym|pathetic, feel so little for another, with whom they have no particular connection, in comparison of what they feel for them|selves; the misery of one, who is merely their fellow-creature, is of so little impor|tance to them in comparison even of a small conveniency of their own; they have it so much in their power to hurt him, and may have so many temptations to do so, that if this principle did not stand up within them in his defence, and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would, like wild beasts, be at all times ready to fly up|on him; and a man would enter an assem|bly of men as he enters a den of lions.

In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to pro|duce; and in the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for advancing the two great pur|poses of nature, the support of the indivi|dual, and the propogation of the species. But in these, and in all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause of their several motions and organi|zations.

The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to account for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or intention to the pur|poses of circulation or digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably ad|justed to the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their vari|ous motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they were endow|ed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we ne|ver ascribe any such desire or intention to them, but to the watch-maker, and we know that they are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But tho', in account|ing for the operations of bodies, we never fail to distinguish in this manner the effi|cient from the final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with

one another. When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason would re|commend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view this cause seems sufficient to produce the effects which are ascribed to it; and the system of human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its different operations are in this manner deduced from a single principle.

As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably observed, as no so|cial intercourse can take place among men who do not generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this ne|cessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved of the enforce|ment of the laws of justice by the punish|ment of those who violated them. Man, it has been said, has a natural love for so|ciety, and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own sake, and tho' he himself was to derive no benefit from

it. The orderly and flourishing state of society is agreeable to him, and he takes delight in contemplating it. It's disorder and confusion, on the contrary, is the ob|ject of his aversion, and he is chagrined at whatever tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own interest is con|nected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness, perhaps the preserva|tion of his existence, depends upon its pre|servation. Upon every account, therefore, he has an abhorrence at whatever can tend to destroy society, and is willing to make use of every means, which can hinder so hated, and so dreadful an event. Injustice necessarily tends to destroy it. Every ap|pearance of injustice, therefore, alarms him, and he runs, if I may say so, to stop the progress of what, if allowed to go on, would quickly put an end to every thing that is dear to him. If he cannot restrain it by gentle and fair means, he must beat it down by force and violence, and at any rate must put a stop to its further progress. Hence it is, they say, that he often ap|proves of the enforcement of the laws of justice even by the capital punishment of those who viola••e them. The disturber of

the public peace is hereby removed out of the world, and others are terrified by his fate from imitating his example.

Such is the account commonly given of our approbation of the punishment of in|justice. And so far this account is un|doubtedly true that we frequently have oc|casion to confirm our natural sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment by re|flecting how necessary it is for preserving the order of society. When the guilty is about to suffer that just retaliation, which the natural indignation of mankind tells them is due to his crimes; when the inso|lence of his injustice is broken and hum|bled by the terror of his approaching pu|nishment; when he ceases to be an object of fear, with the generous and humane he begins to be an object of pity. The thought of what he is about to suffer extinguishes their resentment for the sufferings of others to which he has given occasion. They are disposed to pardon and forgive him, and to save him from that punishment which in all their cool hours they had considered as the retribution due to such crimes. Here, therefore, they have occasion to call to their assistance the consideration of the

general interest of society. They counter|balance the impulse of this weak and par|tial humanity, by the dictates of a hu|manity that is more generous and com|prehensive. They reflect that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent, and oppose to the emotions of compassion which they feel for a particular person, a more enlarged compassion, which they feel for mankind.

Sometimes too we have occasion to de|fend the propriety of observing the general rules of justice by the consideration of their necessity to the support of society. We frequently hear the young and the licenti|ous ridiculing the most sacred rules of mo|rality, and professing, sometimes from the corruption, but more frequently from the vanity of their hearts, the most abomi|nable maxims of conduct. Our indigna|tion rouses, and we are eager to refute and expose such detestable principles. But tho' it is their intrinsic hatefulness and detest|ableness, which originally inflames us against them, we are unwilling to assign this as the sole reason why we condemn them, or to pretend that it is merely be|cause we ourselves hate and detest them.

The reason, we think, would not appear to be conclusive. Yet why should it not; if we hate and detest them because they are the natural and proper objects of ha|tred and detestation? But when we are asked why we should not act in such or such a manner, the very question seems to sup|pose that, to those who ask it, this manner of acting does not appear to be for its own sake the natural and proper object of those sentiments. We must show them, there|fore, that it ought to be so for the sake of something else. Upon this account we ge|nerally cast about for other arguments, and the consideration which first occurs to us is the disorder and confusion of society which would result from the universal prevalence of such practices. We seldom fail, there|fore, to insist upon this topic.

But tho' it commonly requires no great discernment to see the destructive tendency of all licentious practices to the welfare of society, it is seldom this consideration which first animates us against them. All men, even the most stupid and unthink|ing, abhor fraud, perfidy, and injustice, and delight to see them punished. But few men have reflected upon the necessity

of justice to the existence of society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be.

That it is not a regard to the preserva|tion of society, which originally interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against individuals, may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations. The con|cern which we take in the fortune and hap|piness of individuals does not, in common cases, arise from that which we take in the fortune and happiness of society. We are no more concerned for the destruction or loss of a single man, because this man is a member or part of society, and because we should be concerned for the destruction of society, than we are concerned for the loss of a single guinea, because this guinea is a part of a thousand guineas, and be|cause we should be concerned for the loss of the whole sum. In neither case does our regard for the individuals arise from our regard for the multitude; but in both cases our regard for the multitude is com|pounded and made up of the particular regards which we feel for the different in|dividuals of which it is composed. As when a small sum is unjustly taken from

us we do not so much prosecute the injury from a regard to the preservation of our whole fortune, as from a regard to that particular sum which we have lost; so when a single man is injured or destroyed we demand the punishment of the wrong that has been done to him, not so much from a concern for the general interest of society, as from a concern for that very in|dividual who has been injured. It is to be observed, however, that this concern does not necessarily include in it any de|gree of those exquisite sentiments which are commonly called love, esteem and af|fection, and by which we distinguish our particular friends and acquaintance. The concern which is requisite for this is no more than the general fellow-feeling which we have with every man merely because he is our fellow-creature. We enter into the resentment even of an odious person, when he is injured by those to whom he has given no provocation. Our disapprobation of his ordinary character and conduct does not in this case altogether prevent our fel|low-feeling with his natural indignation; tho' with those who are not either extreme|ly candid, or who have not been accus|tomed

to correct and regulate their natu|ral sentiments by general rules, it is very apt to damp it.

Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment, mere|ly from a view to the general interest of society, which, we imagine, cannot other|wise be secured. Of this kind are all the punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil police, or military dis|cipline. Such crimes do not immediately or directly hurt any particular person; but their remote consequences, it is supposed, do produce, or might produce, either a considerable inconveniency, or a great dis|order in the society. A centinel, for ex|ample, who falls asleep upon his watch, suffers death by the laws of war, because such carelessness might endanger the whole army. This severity may, upon many oc|casions, appear necessary, and, for that reason, just and proper. When the pre|servation of an individual is inconsistent with the safety of a multitude, nothing can be more just than that the many should be preferred to the one. Yet this punishment, how necessary soever, always appears to be excessively severe. The natural atrocity of

the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment so great, that it is with diffi|culty that our heart can reconcile itself to it. Though such carelessness appears very blameable, yet the thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resent|ment, as would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must recollect himself, must make an ef|fort, and exert his whole firmness and re|solution, before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go along with it when it is inflicted by others. It is not, how|ever, in this manner, that he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful mur|derer or parricide. His heart, in this case, applauds with ardour, and even with trans|port, the just retaliation which seems due to such detestable crimes, and which, if, by any accident, they should happen to escape, he would be highly enraged and disappointed. The very different senti|ments with which the spectator views those different punishments, is a proof that his approbation of the one is far from being founded upon the same principles with that of the other. He looks upon the centinel as an unfortunate victim, who, indeed,

must, and ought to be, devoted to the safety of numbers, but whom still, in his heart, he would be glad to save; and he is only sorry, that the interest of the many should oppose it. But if the murderer should escape from punishment, it would excite his highest indignation, and he would call upon God to avenge, in an|other world, that crime which the injus|tice of mankind had neglected to chastise upon earth.

For it well deserves to be taken notice of, that we are so far from imagining that injustice ought to be punished in this life, merely on account of the order of society, which cannot otherwise be maintained, that nature teaches us to hope, and reli|gion authorises us to expect, that it will be punished, even in a life to come. Our sense of its ill desert pursues it, if I may say so, even beyond the grave, though the example of its punishment there cannot serve to deter the rest of mankind, who see it not, who know it not, from being guil|ty of the like practices here. The justice of God, however, we think, still requires, that he should hereafter avenge the inju|ries

of the widow and the fatherless, who are here so often insulted with impunity.

That the Deity loves virtue and hates vice, as a voluptuous man loves riches and hates poverty, not for their own sakes, but for the effects which they tend to pro|duce; that he loves the one, only because it promotes the happiness of society, which his benevolence prompts him to desire; and that he hates the other, only because it oc|casions the misery of mankind, which the same divine quality renders the object of his aversion; is not the doctrine of nature, but of an artificial, though ingenious, re|finement of philosophy. All our natural sentiments prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is supposed necessarily to ap|pear to the Deity, as it does to us, for its own sake, and without any further view, the natural and proper object of love and reward, so must vice, of hatred and pu|nishment. That the gods neither resent nor hurt, was the general maxim of all the different sects of the ancient philoso|phy: and if, by resenting, be understood, that violent and disorderly perturbation, which often distracts and confounds the human breast; or if, by hurting, be un|derstood,

the doing mischief wantonly, and without regard to propriety or justice, such weakness is undoubtedly unworthy of the divine perfection. But if it be meant, that vice does not appear to the Deity to be, for its own sake, the object of abhor|rence and aversion, and what, for its own sake, it is fit and right should be punished, the truth of this maxim can, by no means, be so easily admitted. If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt to fear, lest before the holiness of God, vice should appear to be more worthy of punishment than the weakness and imperfection of hu|man virtue can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a be|ing of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, or in the im|perfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence of his fellow-creatures, he may often justly elevate himself, and may of|ten have reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, compared to the still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is quite different when about to appear before his infinite Creator. To such a being, he can scarce imagine, that his littleness and weakness should ever seem

to be the proper object, either of esteem or of reward. But he can easily conceive▪ how the numberless violations of duty, of which he has been guilty, should render him the proper object of aversion and pu|nishment; neither can he see any reason why the divine indignation should not be let loose without any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as he is sensible that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for happiness, he is conscious that he can|not demand it from the justice, but that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow, humiliation, contri|tion at the thought of his past conduct, are, upon this account, the sentiments which become him, and seem to be the only means which he has left for appeasing that wrath which, he knows, he has just|ly provoked. He even distrusts the effi|cacy of all these, and naturally fears, lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime, by the most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, some other atonement, he imagines, must be made for him, beyond what he himself is ca|pable

of making, before the purity of the divine justice can be reconciled to his ma|nifold offences. The doctrines of revela|tion coincide, in every respect, with those original anticipations of nature; and, as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own virtue, so they show us, at the same time, that the most powerful intercession has been made, and that the most dreadful atone|ment has been paid for our manifold trans|gressions and iniquities.

SECT. III. Of the influence of fortune upon the sen|timents of mankind, with regard to the merit or demerit of actions.

INTRODUCTION.

WHATEVER praise or blame can be due to any action, must be|long either, first, to the intention or af|fection of the heart, from which it pro|ceeds; or, secondly, to the external action or movement of the body, which this affec|tion gives occasion to; or last, to all the good or bad consequences, which actually, and in fact, proceed from it. These three different things constitute the whole na|ture and circumstances of the action, and must be the foundation of whatever qua|lity can belong to it.

That the two last of these three cir|cumstances cannot be the foundation of any praise or blame, is abundantly evident; nor has the contrary ever been asserted by

any body. The external action or move|ment of the body is often the same in the most innocent, and in the most blameable actions. He who shoots a bird, and he who shoots a man, both of them perform the same external movement: each of them draws the tricker of a gun. The conse|quences which actually, and in fact, hap|pen to proceed from any action, are, if possible, still more indifferent either to praise or blame, than even the external movement of the body. As they depend, not upon the agent, but upon fortune, they cannot be the proper foundation for any sentiment, of which his character and conduct are the objects.

The only consequences for which he can be answerable, or by which he can deserve either approbation or disapprobation of any kind, are those which were some way or other intended, or those which, at least, show some agreeable or disagreeable qua|lity in the intention of the heart, from which he acted. To the intention or af|fection of the heart, therefore, to the pro|priety or impropriety, to the beneficence or hurtfulness of the design, all praise or blame, all approbation or disapprobation,

of any kind, which can justly be bestowed upon any action must ultimately belong.

When this maxim is thus proposed, in abstract and general terms, there is no body who does not agree to it. It's self-evident justice is acknowledged by all the world, and there is not a dissenting voice among all mankind. Every body allows, that, how different soever the accidental, the unintended and unforeseen consequen|ces of different actions, yet, if the in|tentions or affections from which they arose were, on the one hand, equally proper and equally beneficent, or, on the other, equally improper and equally male|volent, the merit or demerit of the actions is still the same, and the agent is equally the suitable object either of gratitude or of resentment.

But how well soever we may seem to be persuaded of the truth of this equitable maxim, when we consider it after this manner, in abstract, yet when we come to particular cases, the actual consequen|ces which happen to proceed from any action, have a very great effect upon our ••entiments concerning its merit or demerit, ••nd almost always either enhance or di|minish

our sense of both. Scarce, in any one instance, perhaps, will our sentiments be found, after examination, to be en|tirely regulated by this rule, which we all acknowledge ought entirely to regulate them.

This irregularity of sentiment, which every body feels, which scarce any body is suf|ficiently aware of, and which no body is willing to acknowledge, I proceed now to explain; and I shall consider, first, the cause which gives occasion to it, or the me|chanism by which nature produces it; se|condly, the extent of its influence; and, last of all, the end which it answers, or the purpose which the author of nature seems to have intended by it.

CHAP. I. Of the causes of this influence of fortune.

THE causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they are, or however they operate, seem to be the ob|jects, which, in all animals, immediately excite those two passions of gratitude and

resentment. They are excited by inani|mated, as well as by animated objects. We are angry, for a moment, even at the stone that hurts us. A child beats it, a dog barks at it, a choleric man is apt to curse it. The least reflection, indeed, cor|rects this sentiment, and we soon become sensible, that what has no feeling is a very improper object of revenge. When the mischief, however, is very great, the ob|ject which caused it becomes disagreeable to us ever after, and we take pleasure to burn or destroy it. We should treat, in this manner, the instrument which had accidentally been the cause of the death of a friend, and we should often think ourselves guilty of a sort of inhumanity, if we neglected to vent this absurd sort of vengeance upon it.

We conceive, in the same manner, a sort of gratitude for those inanimated ob|jects, which have been the causes of great, or frequent pleasure to us. The sailor, who, as soon as he got ashore, should mend his fire with the plank upon which he had just escaped from a shipwreck, would seem to be guilty of an unnatural action. We should expect that he would

rather preserve it with care and affection, as a monument that was, in some mea|sure, dear to him. A man grows fond of a snuff-box, of a pen-knife, of a staff which he has long made use of, and con|ceives something like a real love and af|fection for them. If he breaks or loses them, he is vexed out of all proportion to the value of the damage. The house which we have long lived in, the tree, whose verdure and shade we have long enjoyed, are both looked upon with a sort of re|spect that seems due to such benefactors. The decay of the one, or the ruin of the other, affects us with a kind of melancho|ly, though we should sustain no loss by it. The Dryads and the Lares of the ancients, a sort of genii of trees and houses, were probably first suggested by this sort of af|fection, which the authors of those super|stitions felt for such objects, and which seemed unreasonable, if there was nothing animated about them.

But, before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude or resentment, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain, it must likewise be capable of feeling them. Without this other quality, those passions

cannot vent themselves with any sort of sa|tisfaction upon it. As they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain, so their gra|tification consists in retaliating those sensati|ons upon what gave occasion to them; which it is to no purpose to attempt upon what has no sensibility. Animals, therefore, are less improper objects of gratitude and re|sentment than inanimated objects. The dog that bites, the ox that gores, are both of them punished. If they have been the causes of the death of any person, neither the public, nor the relations of the slain, can be satisfied, unless they are put to death in their turn: nor is this merely for the security of the living, but, in some measure, to revenge the injury of the dead. Those animals, on the contrary, that have been remark|ably serviceable to their masters, become the objects of a very lively gratitude. We are shocked at the brutality of that officer mentioned in the Turkish Spy, who stab|bed he horse that had carried him a-cross an arm of the sea, lest that animal should afterwards distinguish some other person by a similar adventure.

But, though animals are not only the causes of pleasure and pain, but are also ca|pable of feeling those sensations, they are

still far from being compleat and perfect objects, either of gratitude or resentment; and those passions still feel, that there is something wanting to their entire gratifi|cation. What gratitude chiefly desires, is not only to make the benefactor feel plea|sure in his turn, but to make him conscious that he meets with this reward on account of his past conduct, to make him pleased with that conduct, and to satisfy him, that the person upon whom he bestowed his good offices was not unworthy of them. What most of all charms us in our bene|factor, is the concord between his senti|ments and our own, with regard to what interests us so nearly as the worth of our own character, and the esteem that is due to us. We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves. To main|tain in him these agreeable and flattering sentiments, is one of the chief ends pro|posed by the returns we are disposed to make to him. A generous mind often dis|dains the interested thought of extorting new favours from its benefactor, by what

may be called the importunities of its gra|titude. But to preserve and to increase his esteem, is an interest which the greatest mind does not think unworthy of its at|tention. And this is the foundation of what I formerly observed, that when we cannot enter into the motives of our bene|factor, when his conduct and character appear unworthy of our approbation, let his services have been ever so great, our gratitude is always sensibly diminished. We are less flattered by the distinction; and to preserve the esteem of so weak, or so worthless a patron, seems to be an ob|ject which does not deserve to be pursued for its own sake.

The object, on the contrary, which re|sentment is chiefly intent upon, is not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his turn, as to make him conscious that he feels it upon account of his past conduct, to make him repent of that conduct, and to make him sensible, that the person whom he injured did not deserve to be treated in that manner. What chiefly enrages us against the man who injures or insults us, is the little account which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which

he gives to himself above us, and that ab|surd self-love, by which he seems to ima|gine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to his conveniency or his humour. The glaring impropriety of this conduct, the gross insolence and in|justice which it seems to involve in it, often shock and exasperate us more than all the mischief which we have suffered. To bring him back to a more just sense of what is due to other people, to make him sen|sible of what he owes us, and of the wrong that he has done to us, is frequently the principal end proposed in our revenge, which is always imperfect when it cannot accomplish this. When our enemy ap|pears to have done us no injury, when we are sensible that he acted quite properly, that, in his situation, we should have done the same thing, and that we deserved from him all the mischief we met with; in that case, if we have the least spark either of candour or justice, we can entertain no sort of resentment.

Before any thing, therefore, can be the compleat and proper object, either of gra|titude or resentment, it must possess three different qualifications. First, it must be the cause of pleasure in the one case,

and of pain in the other. Secondly, it must be capable of feeling those sensations. And, thirdly, it must not only have produced those sensations, but it must have produced them from design, and from a design that is approved or in the one case, and dis|approved of in the other. It is by the first qualification, that any object is ca|pable of exciting those passions: it is by the second, that it is in any respect capable of gratifying them: the third qualification is both necessary for their compleat satisfac|tion, and as it gives a pleasure or pain that is both exquisite and peculiar, it is likewise an additional exciting cause of those passions.

As what gives pleasure or pain, there|fore, either in one way or another, is the sole exciting cause of gratitude and resent|ment; though the intentions of any per|son should be ever so proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so improper and malevolent on the other; yet, if he has failed in producing either the good or the evil which he intended, as one of the ex|citing causes is wanting in both cases, less gratitude seems due to him in the one, and less resentment in the other. And, on the contrary, though in the intentions of any

person, there was either no laudable de|gree of benevolence, on the one hand, or no blameable degree of malice on the o|ther, yet, if his actions should produce either great good or great evil, as one of the exciting causes takes place upon both these occasions, some gratitude is apt to arise towards him in the one, and some resentment in the other. A shadow of merit seems to fall upon him in the first, a shadow of demerit in the second. And, as the consequences of actions are alto|gether under the empire of fortune, hence arises her influence upon the sentiments of mankind, with regard to merit and demerit.

CHAP. II. Of the extent of this influence of fortune.

THE effect of this influence of for|tune is, first, to diminish our sense of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the most laudable or blameable intentions, when they fail of producing their proposed effects: and, se|condly, to increase our sense of the merit

or demerit of actions, beyond what is due to the motives or affections from which they proceed, when they accidentally give occasion either to extraordinary pleasure or pain.

I. First, I say, though the intentions of any person should be ever so proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so improper and malevolent, on the other, yet, if they fail in producing their effects, his merit seems imperfect in the one case, and his demerit incompleat in the other. Nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who are immediately affec|ted by the consequence of any action. It is felt, in some measure, even by the im|partial spectator. The man who solicits an office for another, without obtaining it, is regarded as his friend, and seems to deserve his love and affection. But the man who not only solicits, but procures it, is more peculiarly considered as his pa|tron and benefactor, and as intitled to his respect and gratitude. The person obliged, we are apt to think, may, with some jus|tice, imagine himself on a level with the first; but we cannot enter in his senti|ments, if he does not feel himself inferior

to the second. It is common indeed to say, that we are equally obliged to the man who has endeavoured to serve us, as to him who actually did so. It is the speech which we constantly make upon every un|successful attempt of this kind; but which, like all other fine speeches, must be under|stood with a grain of allowance. The senti|ments which a man of generosity entertains for the friend who fails, may often indeed be nearly the same with those which he conceives for him who succeeds: and the more generous he is, the more nearly will those sentiments approach to an exact level. With the truly generous, to be beloved, to be esteemed by those whom they them|selves think worthy of esteem, gives more pleasure, and thereby excites more gratitude, than all the advantages which they can ever expect from those sentiments. When they lose those advantages therefore, they seem to lose but a trifle, which is scarce worth regarding. They still however lose something. Their pleasure therefore, and consequently their gratitude, is not perfect|ly compleat: and accordingly if, between the friend who fails and the friend who succeeds, all other circumstances are equal,

there will, even in the noblest and the best mind, be some little difference of affec|tion in favour of him who succeeds. Nay, so unjust are mankind in this respect, that though the intended benefit should be pro|cured, yet if it is not procured by the means of a particular benefactor, they are apt to think that less gratitude is due to the man, who with the best intentions in the world could do no more than help it a little forward. As their gratitude is in this case divided among the different per|sons who contributed to their pleasure, a smaller share of it seems due to any one. Such a person, we hear men commonly say, intended no doubt to serve us; and we really believe exerted himself to the utmost of his abilities for that purpose. We are not, however, obliged to him for this be|nefit; since had it not been for the con|currence of others, all that he could have done would never have brought it about. This consideration, they imagine, should, even in the eyes of the impartial specta|tor, diminish the debt which they owe to him. The person himself who has unsuc|cessfully endeavoured to confer a benefit, has by no means the same dependency up|on

the gratitude of the man whom he meant to oblige, nor the same sense of his own merit towards him which he would have had in the case of success.

Even the merit of talents and abilities which some accident has hindered from producing their effects, seems in some mea|sure imperfect, even to those who are ful|ly convinced of their capacity to produce them. The general who has been hinder|ed by the envy of ministers from gaining some great advantage over the enemies of his country, regrets the loss of the oppor|tunity for ever after. Nor is it only upon account of the public that he regrets it. He laments that he was hindered from per|forming an action which would have ad|ded a new lustre to his character in his own eyes, as well as in those of every o|ther person. It satisfies neither himself nor others to reflect that the plan or design was all that depended on him, that no greater capacity was required to execute it than what was necessary to concert it: that he was allowed to be every way ca|pable of executing it, and that had he been permitted to go on, success was infal|lible. He still did not execute it; and

though he might deserve all the approba|tion which is due to a magnanimous and great design, he still wanted the actual me|rit of having performed a great action. To take the management of any affair of public concern from the man who has al|most brought it to a conclusion, is regard|ed as the most invidious injustice. As he had done so much, he should, we think, have been allowed to acquire the compleat merit of putting an end to it. It was ob|jected to Pompey, that he came in upon the victories of Lucullus, and gathered those laurels which were due to the fortune and valour of another. The glory of Lu|cullus, it seems, was less compleat even in the opinion of his own friends, when he was not permitted to finish that conquest which his conduct and courage had put in the power of almost any man to finish. It mortifies an architect when his plans are either not executed at all, or when they are so far altered as to spoil the effect of the building. The plan, however, is all that depends upon the architect. The whole of his genius is, to good judges, as compleatly discovered in that as in the ac|tual execution. But a plan does not, even

to the most intelligent, give the same plea|sure as a noble and magnificent building. They may discover as much both of taste and genius in the one as in the other. But their effects are still vastly different, and the amusement derived from the first, ne|ver approaches to the wonder and admi|ration which are sometimes excited by the second. We may believe of many men, that their talents are superior to those of Caesar and Alexander; and that in the same situations they would perform still greater actions. In the mean time, however, we do not behold them with that astonish|ment and admiration with which those two heroes have been regarded in all ages and na|tions. The calm judgments of the mind may approve of them more, but they want the splendor of great actions to dazzle and trans|port it. The superiority of virtues and talents have not, even upon those who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect with the superiority of atchievements.

As the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to do good seems thus, in the eyes of un|grateful mankind, to be diminished by the miscarriage, so does likewise the demerit of an unsuccessful attempt to do evil. The

design to commit a crime, how clearly so|ever it may be proved, is scarce ever pu|nished with the same severity as the actual commission of it. The case of treason is perhaps the only exception. That crime immediately affecting the being of the government itself, the government is naturally more jealous of it than of any other. In the punishment of treason, the sovereign resents the injuries which are immediately done to himself: in the pu|nishment of other crimes, he resents those which are done to other men. It is his own resentment which he indulges in the one case: it is that of his subjects which by sympathy he enters into in the other. In the first case, therefore, as he judges in his own cause, he is very apt to be more violent and sanguinary in his punishments than the impartial spectator can approve of. His resentment too rises here upon smaller occasions, and does not always, as in other cases, wait for the perpetration of the crime, or even for the attempt to com|mit it. A treasonable concert, tho' nothing has been done, or even attempted in con|sequence of it, nay, a treasonable conver|••ation, is in many countries punished in

the same manner as the actual commission of treason. With regard to all other crimes, the mere design, upon which no attempt has followed, is seldom punished at all, and is never punished severely. A criminal design, and a criminal action, it may be said indeed, do not necessarily sup|pose the same degree of depravity, and ought not therefore to be subjected to the same punishment. We are capable, it may be said, of resolving, and even of taking measures to execute, many things which, when it comes to the point, we feel ourselves altogether incapable of execu|ting. But this reason can have no place when the design has been carried the length of the last attempt. The man, however, who fires a pistol at his enemy, but misses him, is punished with death by the laws of scarce any country. By the old law of Scotland, tho' he should wound him, yet, unless death ensues within a cer|tain time, the assassine is not liable to the last punishment. The resentment of man|kind, however, runs so high against thi•• crime, their terror for the man who show himself capable of committing it is s•• great, that the mere attempt to commit i••

ought in all countries to be capital. The attempt to commit smaller crimes is almost always punished very lightly, and some|times is not punished at all. The thief, whose hand has been caught in his neigh|bour's pocket before he had taken any thing out of it, is punished with ignominy only. If he had got time to take away an handkerchief, he would have been put to death. The house-breaker, who has been found setting a ladder to his neighbour's window, but had not got into it, is not exposed to the capital punishment. The at|tempt to ravish is not punished as a rape. The attempt to seduce a married woman is not punished at all, tho' seduction is pu|nished severely. Our resentment against the person who only attempted to do a mis|chief is seldom so strong as to bear us out in inflicting the same punishment upon him which we should have thought due if he had actually done it. In the one case, the joy of our deliverance alleviates our sense of the atrocity of his conduct; in the other, the grief for our misfortune in|creases it. His real demerit, however, is undoubtedly the same in both cases, since his intentions were equally criminal; and

there is in this respect, therefore, an irre|gularity in the sentiments of all men, and a consequent relaxation of discipline in the laws of, I believe, all nations, of the most civilized, as well as of the most barbarous. The humanity of a civilized people dis|poses them either to dispense with, or to mi|tigate punishments wherever their natural indignation is not goaded on by the conse|quences of the crime. Barbarians, on the other hand, when no actual consequence has happened from any action, are not apt to be very delicate or inquisitive about the motives.

The person himself who either from passion, or from the influence of bad com|pany, has resolved, and perhaps taken measures to perpetrate some crime, but who has fortunately been prevented by an acci|dent which put it out of his power, is sure, if he has any remains of conscience, to re|gard this event all his life after as a great and signal deliverance. He can never think of it without returning thanks to Heaven for having been thus graciously pleased to save him from the guilt into which he was just ready to plunge himself, and to hinder him from rendering all the rest of his life a

s••ene of horror, remorse, and repentance. But tho' his hands are innocent, he is con|scious that his heart is equally guilty as if he had actually executed what he was so fully resolved upon. It gives great ease to his conscience, however, to consider that the crime was not executed, tho' he knows that the failure arose from no virtue in him. He still considers himself as less de|serving of punishment and resentment; and this good fortune either diminishes, or takes away altogether, all sense of guilt. To remember how much he was resolved upon it, has no other effect than to make him regard his escape as the greater and more miraculous: for he still fancies that he has escaped, and he looks back upon the danger to which his peace of mind was exposed, with that terror, with which one who is in safety may sometimes remem|ber the hazard he was in of falling over a precipice, and shudder with horror at the thought.

2. The second effect of this influence of fortune, is to increase our sense of the me|rit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the motives or affection from which ••hey proceed, when they happen to give

occasion to extraordinary pleasure or pain. The agreeable or disagreeable effects of the action often throw a shadow of merit or demerit upon the agent, tho' in his inten|tion there was nothing that deserved either praise or blame, or at least that deserved them in the degree in which we are apt to bestow them. Thus, even the messenger of bad news is disagreeable to us, and, on the contrary, we feel a sort of gratitude for the man who brings us good tidings. For a moment we look upon them both as the authors, the one of our good, the other of our bad fortune, and regard them in some measure as if they had really brought about the events which they only give an account of. The first author of our joy is natural|ly the object of a transitory gratitude: we embrace him with warmth and affection, and should be glad, during the instant of our prosperity, to reward him as for some signal service. By the custom of all courts, the officer, who brings the news of a vic|tory, is intitled to considerable preferments, and the general always chuses one of his principal favourites to go upon so agree|able an errand. The first author of our sorrow is, on the contrary, just as natural|ly

the object of a transitory resentment. We can scarce avoid looking upon him with chagrine and uneasiness; and the rude and brutal are apt to vent upon him that spleen which his intelligence gives oc|casion to. Tigranes, King of Armenia, struck off the head of the man who brought him the first account of the approach of a formidable enemy. To punish in this manner the author of bad tidings, seems barbarous and inhuman: yet, to reward the messenger of good news, is not disagree|able to us; we think it suitable to the bounty of kings. But why do we make this difference, since, if there is no fault in the one, neither is there any merit in the other? It is because any sort of reason seems sufficient to authorize the ex|ertion of the social and benevolent affec|tions; but it requires the most solid and substantial to make us enter into that of the unsocial and malevolent.

But tho' in general we are averse to enter into the unsocial and malevolent affections, tho' we lay it down for a rule that we ought never to approve of their gratifica|tion unless so far as the malicious and un|just intention of the person, against whom

they are directed, renders him their proper object; yet, upon some occasions, we relax of this severity. When the negligence of one man has occasioned some unintended damage to another, we generally enter so far into the resentment of the sufferer, as to approve of his inflicting a punishment upon the offender much beyond what the offence would have appeared to deserve, had no such unlucky consequence followed from it.

There is a degree of negligence, which would appear to deserve some chastise|ment tho' it should occasion no damage to any body. Thus, if a person should throw a large stone over a wall into a public street without giving warning to those who might be passing by, and without regard|ing where it was likely to fall, he would undoubtedly deserve some chastisement. A very accurate police would punish so ab|surd an action, even tho' it had done no mischief. The person who has been guilty of it, shows an insolent contempt of the happiness and safety of others. There is real injustice in his conduct. He wanton|ly exposes his neighbour to what no man in his senses would chuse to expose himself,

and evidently wants that sense of what is due to his fellow creatures which is the ba|sis of justice and of society. Gross negli|gence therefore is, in the law, said to be al|most equal to malicious design * 1.2. When any unlucky consequences happen from such carelessness, the person who has been guilty of it is often punished as if he had really intended those consequences; and his conduct, which was only thoughtless and insolent, and what deserved some chastisement, is considered as atrocious, and as liable to the severest punishment. Thus if, by the imprudent action above mentioned, he should accidentally kill a man, he is, by the laws of many coun|tries, particularly by the old law of Scot|land, liable to the last punishment. And tho' this is no doubt excessively severe, it is not altogether inconsistent with our natu|ral sentiments. Our just indignation a|gainst the folly and inhumanity of his conduct is exasperated by our sympathy with the unfortunate sufferer. Nothing however would appear more shocking to our natural sense of equity, than to bring a man to the scaffold merely for having

thrown a stone carelessly into the street without hurting any body. The folly and inhumanity of his conduct, however, would in this case be the same; but still our sen|timents would be very different. The con|sideration of this difference may satisfy us how much the indignation, even of the spectator, is apt to be animated by the actual consequences of the action. In cases of this kind there will, if I am not mis|taken, be found a great degree of severity in the laws of almost all nations; as I have already observed that in those of an op|posite kind there was a very general re|laxation of discipline.

There is another degree of negligence which does not involve in it any sort of in|justice. The person who is guilty of it treats his neighbour as he treats himself, means no harm to any body, and is far from entertaining any insolent contempt for the safety and happiness of others. He is not, however, so careful and circumspect in his conduct as he ought to be, and de|serves upon this account some degree of blame and censure, but no sort of punish|ment. Yet if by a negligence * 1.3 of this kind

he should occasion some damage to an|other person, he is by the laws of, I be|lieve, all countries, obliged to compensate it. And though this is no doubt a real punishment, and what no mortal would have thought of inflicting upon him, had it not been for the unlucky accident which his conduct gave occasion to; yet this de|cision of the law is approved of by the na|tural sentiments of all mankind. Nothing, we think, can be more just than that one man should not suffer by the carelessness of another; and that the damage occasioned by blameable negligence should be made up by the person who was guilty of it.

There is another species of negligence * 1.4, which consists merely in a want of the most anxious timidity and circumspection, with regard to all the possible consequences of our actions. The want of this painful at|tention, when no bad consequences follow from it, is so far from being regarded as blameable, that the contrary quality is ra|ther considered as such. That timid circum|spection which is afraid of every thing, is never regarded as a virtue, but as a qua|lity which more than any other incapacitates

for action and business. Yet when, from a want of this excessive care, a person hap|pens to occasion some damage to another, he is often by the law obliged to compen|sate it. Thus, by the Aquilian law, the man, who not being able to manage a horse that had accidentally taken fright, should happen to ride down his neighbour's slave, is obliged to compensate the damage. When an accident of this kind happens, we are apt to think that he ought not to have rode such a horse, and to regard his attempting it as an unpardonable levity; though without this accident we should not only have made no such reflection, but should have regarded his refusing it as the effect of timid weakness, and of an an|xiety about merely possible effects, which it is to no purpose to be aware of. The person himself, who by an accident even of this kind has involuntarily hurt another, seems to have some sense of his own ill de|sert, with regard to him. He naturally runs up to the sufferer to express his con|cern for what has happened, and to make every acknowledgment in his power. If he has any sensibility, he necessarily desires to compensate the damage, and to do every

thing he can to appease that animal resent|ment, which he is sensible will be apt to arise in the breast of the sufferer. To make no apology, to offer no atonement, is re|garded as the highest brutality. Yet why should he make an apology more than any other person? Why should he, since he was equally innocent with any other by|stander, be thus singled out from among all mankind, to make up for the bad for|tune of another? This task would surely never be imposed upon him, did not even the impartial spectator feel some indul|gence for what may be regarded as the un|just resentment of that other.

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

SUCH is the effect of the good or bad consequences of actions upon the sen|timents both of the person who performs them, and of others; and thus, fortune, which governs the world, has some influ|ence where we should be least willing to allow her any, and directs in some mea|sure

the sentiments of mankind, with re|gard to the character and conduct both of themselves and others. That the world judges by the event, and not by the design, has been in all ages the complaint, and is the great discouragement of virtue. Every body agrees to the general maxim, that as the event does not depend on the agent, it ought to have no influence upon our sentiments, with regard to the merit or propriety of his conduct. But when we come to particulars, we find that our sen|timents are scarce in any one instance ex|actly conformable to what this equitable maxim would direct. The happy or un|prosperous event of any action, is not on|ly apt to give us a good or bad opinion of the prudence with which it was conduct|ed, but almost always too animates our gratitude or resentment, our sense of the merit or demerit of the design.

Nature, however, when she implanted the seeds of this irregularity in the human breast, seems, as upon all other occasions, to have intended the happiness and perfec|tion of the species. If the hurtfulness of the design, if the malevolence of the affec|tion, were alone the causes which excit|ed

our resentment, we should feel all the furies of that passion against any person in whose breast we suspected or believed such designs or affections were haboured, though they had never broke out into any action. Sentiments, thoughts, intentions, would become the objects of punishment; and if the indignation of mankind run as high against them as against actions; if the baseness of the thought which had given birth to no action, seemed in the eyes of the world as much to call aloud for vengeance as the baseness of the action, every court of judicature would become a real inquisition. There would be no safety for the most innocent and circum|spect conduct. Bad wishes, bad views, bad designs, might still be suspected; and while these excited the same indignation with bad conduct, while bad intentions were as much resented as bad actions, they would equally expose the person to punish|ment and resentment. Actions therefore which either produce actual evil, or at|tempt to produce it, and thereby put us in the immediate fear of it, are by the au|thor of nature rendered the only proper and approved objects of human punish|ment

and resentment. Sentiments, designs, affections, though it is from these that ac|cording to cool reason human actions derive their whole merit or demerit, are placed by the great Judge of hearts beyond the li|mits of every human jurisdiction, and are reserved for the cognizance of his own un|erring tribunal. That necessary rule of justice, therefore, that men in this life are liable to punishment for their actions on|ly, not for their designs and intentions, is founded upon this salutary and useful ir|regularity in human sentiments concern|ing merit or demerit, which at first sight appears so absurd and unaccountable. But every part of nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the provi|dential care of its author, and we may ad|mire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of men.

Nor is that irregularity of sentiments altogether without its utility, by which the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to serve, and much more that of meer good inclinations and kind wishes, appears to be imperfect. Man was made for action, and to promote by the exertion of his faculties such changes in the external circumstances

both of himself and others, as may seem most favourable to the happiness of all. He must not be satisfied with indolent be|nevolence, nor fancy himself the friend of mankind, because in his heart he wishes well to the prosperity of the world. That he may call forth the whole vigour of his soul, and strain every nerve, in order to produce those ends which it is the purpose of his being to advance, nature has taught him, that neither himself nor mankind can be fully satisfied with his conduct, nor be|stow upon it the full measure of applause, unless he has actually produced them. He is made to know, that the praise of good intentions, without the merit of good of|fices, will be but of little avail to excite either the loudest acclamations of the world, or even the highest degree of self-••pplause. The man who has performed ••o single action of importance, but whose whole conversation and deportment express ••he justest, the noblest, and most generous ••entiments, can be intitled to demand no ••ery high reward, even tho' his inutility ••hould be owing to nothing but the want ••f an opportunity to serve. We can still ••efuse it him without blame. We can

still ask him, What have you done? What actual service can you produce, to intitle you to so great a recompence? We esteem you, and love you; but we owe you no|thing. To reward indeed that latent vir|tue which has been useless only for want of an opportunity to serve, to bestow upon it those honours and preferments which, tho' in some measure it may be said to deserve them, it could not with propriety have in|sisted upon, is the effect of the most divine benevolence. To punish, on the contrary, for the affections of the heart only, where no crime has been committed, is the most insolent and barbarous tyranny. The be|nevolent affections seem to deserve most praise, when they do not wait till it be|comes almost a crime for them not to exert themselves. The malevolent, on the con|trary, can scarce be too tardy, too slow or deliberate.

It is even of use that the evil which is done without design should be regarded as a misfortune to the doer as well as to the sufferer. Man is thereby taught to reve|rence the happiness of his brethren, to tremble lest he should, even unknowingly, do any thing that can hurt them, and to

dread that animal resentment which he feels is ready to burst out against him, if he should without design be the unhappy ins|trument of their calamity.

Notwithstanding, however, all these seeming irregularities of sentiment, if man should unfortunately either give occasion to those evils which he did not intend, or fail in producing that good which he intended, nature has not left his innocence altogether without consolation, nor his virtue alto|gether without reward. He then calls to his assistance that just and equitable ma|xim, that those events which did not de|pend upon our conduct ought not to di|minish the esteem that is due to us. He summons up his whole magnanimity and firmness of soul, and strives to regard him|self, not in the light in which he at present appears, but in that in which he ought to appear, in which he would have appeared had his generous designs been crowned with success, and in which he would still appear notwithstanding their miscarriage, ••f the sentiments of mankind were either altogether candid and equitable, or even perfectly consistent with themselves. The more candid and humane part of mankind

intirely go along with the effort which he thus makes to support himself in his own opinion. They exert their whole genero|sity and greatness of mind, to correct in themselves this irregularity of human na|ture, and endeavour to regard his unfor|tunate magnanimity in the same light in which, had it been successful, they would, without any such generous exertion, have naturally been disposed to consider it.

Notes

• * 1.1

  To ascribe in this manner our natural sense of the ill desert of human actions to a sympathy with the re|sentment of the sufferer, may seem, to the greater part of people, to be a degradation of that sentiment. Re|sentment is commonly regarded as so odious a passion, that they will be apt to think it impossible that so laudable a principle, as the sense of the ill desert of vice, should in any respect be founded upon it. They will be more willing, perhaps, to admit that our sense of the merit of good actions is founded upon a sympathy with the gratitude of the persons who receive the benefit of them; because gratitude, as well as all the other bene|volent passions, is regarded as an amiable principle,

  

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  which can take nothing from the worth of whatever is founded upon it. Gratitude and resentment, however, are in every respect, it is evident, counterparts of one another; and if our sense of merit arises from a sympa|thy with the one, our sense of demerit can scarce miss to proceed from a fellow-feeling with the other.

  Let it be considered too that resentment, tho', in the degrees in which we too often see it, the most odious, perhaps, of all the passions, is not disapproved of when properly humbled and intirely brought down to the le|vel of the sympathetic indignation of the spectator. When we, who are the bystanders, feel that our own animosity intirely corresponds with that of the sufferer, when the resentment of this last does not in any respect go beyond our own, when no word, no gesture, escapes him that denotes an emotion more violent than what we can keep time to, and when he never aims at inflict|ing any punishment beyond what we should rejoice to see inflicted, or what we ourselves would upon his ac|count even desire to be the instruments of inflicting, it is impossible, that we should not intirely approve of his sentiments. Our own emotion in this case must, in our eyes, undoubtedly justify his. And as experience teach|es us how much the greater part of mankind are inca|pable of his moderation, and how great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and undisci|plined impulse of resentment to this suitable temper, we cannot avoid conceiving a considerable degree of esteem and admiration for one who appears capable of exerting so much self-command over one of the most ungovern|able passions of his nature. When indeed the animosity of the sufferer exceeds, as it almost always does, what we can go along with, as we cannot enter into it, we necessarily disapprove of it. We even disapprove of it more than we should of an equal excess of almost any other passion derived from the imagination. And this too violent resentment, instead of carrying us along with it, becomes itself the object of our resentment and indignation. We enter into the opposite resent|ment of the person who is the object of this unjust emo|tion,

  

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  and who is in danger of suffering from it. Re|venge, therefore, the excess of resentment, appears to be the most detestable of all the passions, and is the object of the horror and indignation of every body. And as in the way in which this passion commonly discovers it|self among mankind, it is excessive a hundred times for once that it is moderate, we are very apt to consider it as a••together odious and detestable, because in its most ordinary appearances it is so. Nature, however, even in the present depraved state of mankind, does not seem to have dealt so unkindly with us, as to have endowed us with any principle which is wholly and in every re|spect evil, or which, in no degree and in no direction, can be the proper object of praise and approbation. Upon some occasions we are sensible that this passion, which is generally too strong, may likewise be too weak. We sometimes complain that a particular person shows too little spirit, and has too little sense of the in|juries that have been done to him; and we are as ready to despise him for the defect, as to hate him for the ex|cess of this passion.

  The inspired writers would not surely have talked so frequently or so strongly of the wrath and anger of God, if they had regarded every degree of those passions as vicious and evil, even in so weak and imperfect a creature as man.

  Let it be considered too, that the present inquiry is not concerning a matter of right, if I may say so, but concerning a matter of fact. We are not at present ex|amining upon what principles a perfect being would ap|prove of the punishment of bad actions; but upon what principles so weak and imperfect a creature as man actually and in fact approves of it. The principles which I have just now mentioned, it is evident, have a very great effect upon his sentiments; and it seems wisely ordered that it should be so. The very existence of society requires that unmerited and unprovoked ma|lice should be restrained by proper punishments; and consequently, that to inflict those punishments should be regarded as a proper and laudable action. Though

  

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  man, therefore, be naturally endowed with a desire of the welfare and preservation of society, yet the author of nature has not intrusted it to his reason to find out that a certain application of punishments is the proper means of attaining this end; but has endowed him with an immediate and instinctive approbation of that very application which is most proper to attain it. The oeconomy of nature is in this respect exactly of a piece with what it is upon many other occasions. With re|gard to all those ends which, upon account of their pe|culiar importance, may be regarded, if such an expres|sion is allowable, as the favourite ends of nature, she has constantly in this manner not only endowed man|kind with an appetite for the end which she proposes, but likewise with an appetite for the means by which alone this end can be brought about, for their own sakes, and independent of their tendency to produce it. Thus self-preservation, and the propagation of the spe|cies, are the great ends which nature seems to have pro|posed in the formation of all animals. Mankind are endowed with a desire of those ends, and an aversion to the contrary; with a love of life, and a dread of disso|lution; with a desire of the continuance and perpetuity of the species, and with an aversion to the thoughts of its intire extinction. But tho' we are in this manner endowed with a very strong desire of those ends, it has not been intrusted to the slow and uncertain determina|tions of our reason, to find out the proper means of bringing them about. Nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts. Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great director of nature intended to produce by them.

  Before I conclude this note, I must take notice of a difference between the approbation of propriety and that of merit or beneficence. Before we approve of the sentiments of any person as proper and suitable to their

  

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  objects, we must not only be affected in the same man|ner as he is, but we must perceive this harmony and correspondence of sentiments between him and our|selves. Thus, tho' upon hearing of a misfortune that had befallen my friend, I should conceive precisely that degree of concern which he gives way to; yet till I am informed of the manner in which he behaves, till I per|ceive the harmony between his emotions and mine, I cannot be said to approve of the sentiments which in|fluence his behaviour. The approbation of propriety therefore requires, not only that we should intirely sym|pathize with the person who acts, but that we should perceive this perfect concord between his sentiments and our own. On the contrary, when I hear of a benefit that has been bestowed upon another person, let him who has received it be affected in what manner he pleases, if, by bringing his case home to myself, I feel gratitude arise in my own breast, I necessarily approve of the conduct of his benefactor, and regard it as me|ritorious, and the proper object of reward. Whether the person who has received the benefit conceives grati|tude or not, cannot, it is evident, in any degree alter our sentiments with regard to the merit of him who has bestowed it. No actual correspondence of sentiments, therefore, is here required. It is sufficient that, if he was grateful, they would correspond; and our sense of merit is often founded upon one of those illusive sympa|thies, by which, when we bring home to ourselves the case of another, we are often affected in a manner in which the person principally concerned is incapable of being affected. There is a similar difference between our d••sapprobation of demerit, and that of impro|priety.
• * 1.2

  Lata culpa prope dolum est.
• * 1.3

  Culpa levis.
• * 1.4

  Culpa levissima.