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

SECT. I. Of the consciousness of merited praise or blame.

IN the two foregoing parts of this dis|course, I have chiefly considered the origin and foundation of our judgments concerning the sentiments and conduct of others. I come now to consider the ori|gin of those concerning our own.

The desire of the approbation and esteem of those we live with, which is of so much importance to our happiness, cannot be fully and intirely contented but by render|ing ourselves the just and proper objects of those sentiments, and by adjusting our own character and conduct according to those measures and rules by which esteem and approbation are naturally bestowed. It is

not sufficient, that from ignorance or mis|take, esteem and approbation should some way or other be bestowed upon us. If we are conscious that we do not deserve to be so favourably thought of, and that, if the truth was known, we should be regarded with very opposite sentiments, our satisfac|tion is far from being complete. The man who applauds us either for actions which we did not perform, or for motives which had no sort of influence upon our conduct, applauds not us, but another person. We can derive no sort of satisfaction from his praises. To us they should be more mor|tifying than any censure, and should per|petually call to our minds, the most hum|bling of all reflexions, the reflexion upon what we ought to be, but what we are not. A woman who paints to conceal her ugli|ness, could derive, one should imagine, but little vanity from the compliments that are paid to her beauty. These, we should ex|pect, ought rather to put her in mind of the sentiments which her real complexion would excite, and mortify her the more by the contrast. To be pleased with such ground|less applause is a proof of the most super|ficial levity and weakness. It is what is

properly called vanity, and is the founda|tion of the most ridiculous and contempti|ble vices, the vices of affectation and com|mon lying; follies which, if experience did not teach us how common they are, one should imagine the least spark of com|mon sense would save us from. The fool|ish lyar, who endeavours to excite the ad|miration of the company by the relation of adventures which never had any exis|tence, the important coxcomb who gives himself airs of rank and distinction which he well knows he has no just pretensions to, are both of them, no doubt, pleased with the applause which they fancy they meet with. But their vanity arises from so gross an illusion of the imagination, that it is diffi|cult to conceive how any rational creature should be imposed upon by it. When they place themselves in the situation of those whom they fancy they have deceived, they are struck with the highest admiration for their own persons. They look upon themselves, not in that light in which, they know, they ought to appear to their companions, but in that in which they believe their compa|nions actually look upon them. Their su|perficial weakness and trivial folly hinder

them from ever turning their eyes inwards, or from seeing themselves in that despi|cable point of view in which their own consciences should tell them that they would appear to every body, if the real truth should ever come to be known.

As ignorant and groundless praise can give no solid joy, no satisfaction that will bear any serious examination, so, on the contrary, it often gives real comfort to re|flect, that tho' no praise should actually be bestowed upon us, our conduct, however, has been such as to deserve it, and has been in every respect suitable to those mea|sures and rules by which praise and appro|bation are naturally and commonly bestow|ed. We are pleased not only with praise, but with having done what is praise-worthy. We are pleased to think that we have rendered ourselves the natural objects of approbation, though no approbation should ever actually be bestowed upon us: and we are mortified to reflect that we have justly incurred the blame of those we live with, though that sentiment should never actually be exerted against us. The man who is conscious to himself that he has exactly observed those measures of

conduct which experience informs him are generally agreeable, reflects with satisfac|tion on the propriety of his own behaviour; when he views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he thoroughly enters into all the motives which influenced it; he looks back upon every part of it with pleasure and approbation, and tho' mankind should never be acquaint|ed with what he has done, he regards him|self not so much according to the light in which they actually regard him, as accord|ing to that, in which they would regard him if they were better informed. He an|ticipates the applause and admiration which in this case would be bestowed upon him, and he applauds and admires himself by sympathy with sentiments which do not indeed actually take place, but which the ignorance of the public alone hinders from taking place, which he knows are the na|tural and ordinary effects of such conduct, which his imagination strongly connects with it, and which he has acquired a habit of conceiving as something that naturally and in propriety ought to flow from it. Men have often volun|tarily thrown away life to acquire after

death a renown which they could no longer enjoy. Their imagination, in the mean time, anticipated that fame which was thereafter to be bestowed upon them. Those applauses which they were never to hear rung in their ears. The thoughts of that admiration, whose effects they were never to feel, played about their hearts, banished from their breasts the strongest of all natu|ral fears, and transported them to perform actions which seem almost beyond the reach of human nature. But in point of reality there is surely no great difference between that approbation which is not to be be|stowed till we can no longer enjoy it, and that which indeed is never to be bestowed, but which would be bestowed if the world was ever made to understand properly the real circumstances of our behaviour. If the one often produces such violent effects, we cannot wonder that the other should always be highly regarded.

On the contrary, the man who has broke thro' all those measures of conduct, which can alone render him agreeable to man|kind, tho' he should have the most perfect assurance that what he had done was for|ever to be concealed from every human eye,

it is all to no purpose. When he looks back upon it, and views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he finds that he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. He is abashed and confounded at the thoughts of it, and ne|cessarily feels a very high degree of that shame which he would be exposed to, if his actions should ever come to be generally known. His imagination, in this case too, anticipates the contempt and derision from which nothing saves him but the ignorance of those he lives with. He still feels that he is the natural object of these sentiments, and still trembles at the thought of what he would suffer if they were ever actually exerted against him. But if what he had been guilty of was not meerly one of those improprieties which are the objects of sim|ple disapprobation, but one of those enor|mous crimes which excite detestation and resentment, he could never think of it, as long as he had any sensibility left, without feeling all the agony of horror and remorse; and tho' he could be assured that no man was ever to know it, and could even bring himself to believe that there was no God to

revenge it, he would still feel enough of both these sentiments to embitter the whole of his life: He would still regard himself as the natural object of the hatred and indig|nation of all his fellow-creatures; and if his heart was not grown callous by the ha|bit of crimes, he could not think without terror and astonishment even of the man|ner, in which mankind would look upon him, of what would be the expression of their countenance and of their eyes, if the dreadful truth should ever come to be known. These natural pangs of an afrighted conscience are the daemons, the avenging fu|ries which in this life haunt the guilty, which allow them neither quiet nor repose, which often drive them to despair and distraction, from which no assurance of secrecy can protect them, from which no principles of irreligion can entirely deliver them, and from which nothing can free them but the vilest and most abject of all states, a com|pleat insensibility to honour and infamy, to vice and virtue. Men of the most detest|able characters, who, in the execution of the most dreadful crimes, had taken their measures so coolly as to avoid even the sus|picion of guilt, have sometimes been driven

by the horror of their situation, to discover of their own accord, what no human saga|city could ever have investigated. By ac|knowledging their guilt, by submitting themselves to the resentment of their of|fended citizens, and by thus satiating that vengeance of which they were sensible that they were become the proper objects, they hoped by their death to reconcile themselves, at least in their own imagination, to the natural sentiments of mankind, to be able to consider themselves as less worthy of hatred and resentment, to attone in some measure for their crimes, and, if possible, to die in peace and with the forgiveness of all their fellow-creatures. Compared to what they felt before the discovery, even the thought of this, it seems, was happi|ness.