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

SECT. III. Of the influence and authority of the ge|neral rules of morality, and that they are justly regarded as the laws of the Deity.

THE regard to those general rules of conduct, is what is properly called a sense of duty, a principle of the greatest consequence in human life, and the only principle by which the bulk of mankind ••re capable of directing their actions. Many men behave very decently, and thro' ••he whole of their lives avoid any consi|••erable degree of blame, who yet, per|••aps, never felt the sentiment upon the ••ropriety of which we found our appro|••ation of their conduct, but acted merely ••rom a regard to what they saw were the ••stablished rules of behaviour. The man ••ho has received great benefits from ano|••her person, may, by the natural coldness ••f his temper, feel but a very small degree ••f the sentiment of gratitude. If he has

been virtuously educated, however, he will often have been made to observe how odi|ous those actions appear which denote a want of this sentiment, and how amiable the contrary. Tho' his heart therefore is not warmed with any grateful affection, he will strive to act as if it was, and will endeavour to pay all those regards and at|tentions to his patron which the liveliest gratitude could suggest. He will visit him regularly; he will behave to him respect|fully; he will never talk of him but with expressions of the highest esteem, and of the many obligations which he owes to him. And what is more, he will chearfully em|brace every opportunity of making a pro|per return for past services. He may do all this too without any hypocrisy or blame|able dissimulation, without any selfish in|tention of obtaining new favours, and without any design of imposing either up|on his benefactor or the public. The mo|tive of his actions may be no other tha•• a reverence for the established rule of duty a serious and earnest desire of acting, i•• every respect, according to the law of gra••titude. A wife, in the same manner, ma•• sometimes not feel that tender regard 〈◊〉〈◊〉

her husband which is suitable to the rela|tion that subsists between them. If she has been virtuously educated, however, she will endeavour to act as if she felt it, to be careful, officious, faithful▪ and sincere, and to be deficient in none of those attentions which the sentiment of conjugal affection could have prompted her to perform. Such a friend, and such a wife, are neither of them, undoubtedly, the very best of their kinds; and tho' both of them may have the most serious and earnest desire to fulfil every part of their duty, yet they will fail ••n many nice and delicate regards, they will miss many opportunities of obliging, which they could never have overlooked if ••hey had possessed the sentiment that is pro|••••er to their situation. Tho' not the very first of their kinds, however, they are per|haps the second; and if the regard to the general rules of conduct has been very ••trongly impressed upon them, neither of ••hem will fail in any very essential part of ••heir duty. None but those of the hap|••iest mold are capable of suiting with ••xact justness, their sentiments and beha|••iour to the smallest difference of situation, ••nd of acting upon all occasions with the

most delicate and accurate propriety. The coarse clay of which the bulk of mankind are formed, cannot be wrought up to such perfection. There is scarce any man, how|ever, who by discipline, education, and example, may not be so impressed with a regard to general rules, as to act upon al|most every occasion with tolerable decency, and thro' the whole of his life avoid any considerable degree of blame.

Without this sacred regard to general rules, there is no man whose conduct can be much depended upon. It is this which constitutes the most essential difference be|tween a man of principle and honour and a worthless fellow. The one adheres, up|on all occasions, steadily and resolutely to his maxims, and preserves thro' the whole of his life one even tenor of conduct. The other, acts variously and accidentally, as humour, inclination, or interest chance to be uppermost. Nay, such are the ine|qualities of humour to which all men ar•• subject, that without this principle, th•• man who, in all his cool hours, had th•• most delicate sensibility to the propriety o•• conduct, might often be led to act ab••surdly

upon the most frivolous occasions, and when it was scarce possible to assign any serious motive for his behaving in this manner. Your friend makes you a visit when you happen to be in a humour which makes it disagreeable to receive him: in your present mood his civility is very apt to appear an impertinent intrusion; and if you was to give way to the views of things which at this time occur, tho' civil in your temper, you would behave to him with coldness and contempt. What ren|ders you incapable of such a rudeness, is nothing but a regard to the general rules of civility and hospitality, which prohibit it. That habitual reverence which your former experience has taught you for these, enables you to act, upon all such occasions, with nearly equal propriety, and hinders those inequalities of temper, to which all men are subject, from influencing your conduct in any very sensible degree. But if without regard to these general rules, even the duties of politeness, which are so easily observed, and which one can scarce have any serious motive to violate, would yet be so frequently violated, what would become of the duties of justice, of truth,

of chastity, of fidelity, which it is often so difficult to observe, and which there may be so many strong motives to violate? But upon the tolerable observance of these duties, depends the very existence of hu|man society, which would crumble into nothing if mankind were not generally im|pressed with a reverence for those impor|tant rules of conduct.

This reverence is still further enhanced by an opinion which is first impressed by nature, and afterwards confirmed by rea|soning and philosophy, that those impor|tant rules of morality, are the commands and laws of the Deity, who will finally re|ward the obedient, and punish the trans|gressors of their duty.

This opinion or apprehension, I say, seems first to be impressed by nature. Men are naturally led to ascribe to those myste|rious beings, whatever they are, which happen in any country, to be the object of religious fear, all their own sentiments and passions. They have no other, they can conceive no other to ascribe to them. Those unknown intelligences which they imagine but see not, must necessarily be formed with some sort of resemblance to

those intelligences of which they have ex|perience. During the ignorance and dark|ness of pagan superstition, mankind seem to have formed the ideas of their divinities with so little delicacy, that they ascribed to them, indiscriminately, all the passi|ons of human nature, those not excepted which do the least honour to our species, such as lust, hunger, avarice, envy, re|venge. They could not fail, therefore, to ascribe to those beings, for the excellence of whose nature they still conceived the highest admiration, those sentiments and qualities which are the great ornaments of humanity, and which seem to raise it to a resemblance to divine perfection, the love of virtue and beneficence, and the abhor|rence of vice and injustice. The man who was injured, called upon Jupiter to be wit|ness of the wrong that was done to him, and could not doubt, but that divine be|ing would behold it with the same indig|nation which would animate the meanest of mankind, who looked on when injus|tice was committed. The man who did the injury, felt himself to be the proper object of the detestation and resentment of mankind; and his natural fears led

him to impute the same sentiments to those awful beings, whose presence he could not avoid, and whose power he could not re|sist. These natural hopes and fears, and suspicions, were propagated by sympathy, and confirmed by education; and the Gods were universally represented and believed to be the rewarders of humanity and mer|cy, and the avengers of perfidy and in|justice. And thus religion, even in its rudest form, gave a sanction to the rules of morality, long before the age of artifi|cial reasoning and philosophy. That the terrors of religion should thus enforce the natural sense of duty, was of too much importance to the happiness of mankind, for nature to leave it dependent upon the slowness and uncertainty of philosophical researches.

These researches, however, when they came to take place, confirmed those ori|ginal anticipations of nature. Upon what|ever we suppose that our moral faculties are founded, whether upon a certain mo|dification of reason, upon an original in|stinct, called a moral sense, or upon some other principle of our nature, it cannot

be doubted, that they were given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They carry along with them the most evident badges of this authority, which denote that they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions, to su|perintend all our senses, passions, and ap|petites, and to judge how far each of them was either to be indulged or restrained. Our moral faculties are by no means, as some have pretended, upon a level in this respect with the other faculties and appe|tites of our nature, endowed with no more right to restrain these last, than these last are to restrain them. No other faculty or principle of action judges of any other. Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment of love. Those two passions may be opposite to one another, but can|not, with any propriety, be said to approve or disapprove of one another. But it is the peculiar office of those faculties now under our consideration to judge, to be|stow censure or applause upon all the other principles of our nature. They may be considered as a sort of senses of which those principles are the objects. Every sense is supreme over its own objects.

There is no appeal from the eye with re|gard to the beauty of colours, nor from the ear with regard to the harmony of sounds, nor from the taste with regard to the agreeableness of flavours. Each of those senses judges in the last resort of its own objects. Whatever gratifies the taste is sweet, whatever pleases the eye is beau|tiful, whatever sooths the ear is harmoni|ous. The very essence of each of those qualities consists in its being fitted to please the sense to which it is addressed. It be|longs to our moral faculties, in the same manner to determine when the ear ought to be soothed, when the eye ought to be indulged, when the taste ought to be gra|tified, when and how far every other prin|ciple of our nature ought either to be in|dulged or restrained. What is agreeable to our moral faculties, is fit and right, and proper to be done; the contrary, wrong, unfit and improper. The sentiments which they approve of, are graceful and becom|ing: the contrary, ungraceful and unbe|coming. The very words right, wrong, fit, improper, graceful, unbecoming, mean only what pleases or displeases those fa|culties.

Since these, therefore, were plainly in|tended to be the governing principles of human nature, the rules which they pre|scribe, are to be regarded as the commands and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those vicegerents which he has thus set up within us. All general rules are common|ly denominated laws: thus the general rules which bodies observe in the commu|nication of motion, are called the laws of motion. But those general rules which our moral faculties observe in approving or condemning whatever sentiment or ac|tion is subjected to their examination, may much more justly be denominated such. They have a much greater resemblance to what are properly called laws, those gene|ral rules which the sovereign lays down to direct the conduct of his subjects. Like ••hem they are rules to direct the free ac|••ions of men; they are prescribed most ••urely by a lawful superior, and are at|••ended too with the sanction of rewards ••nd punishments. Those vicegerents of God within us, never fail to punish the ••iolation of them, by the torments of in|ward shame, and self-condemnation; and ••n the contrary always reward obedience

with tranquility of mind, with content|ment, and self-satisfaction.

There are innumerable other considera|tions which serve to confirm the same con|clusion. The happiness of mankind, as well as of all other rational creatures, seems to have been the original purpose intended by the Author of Nature, when he brought them into existence. No other end seems worthy of that supreme wisdom and di|vine benignity which we necessarily ascribe to him; and this opinion, which we are led to by the abstract consideration of his infinite perfections, is still more confirmed by the examination of the works of na|ture, which seem all intended to promote happiness, and to guard against misery. But by acting according to the dictates of our moral faculties, we necessarily pursue the most effectual means for promoting the happiness of mankind, and may therefore be said, in some sense, to co-operate with the Deity, and to advance as far as in our power the plan of Providence. By acting otherways, on the contrary, we seem to obstruct, in some measure, the scheme which the Author of Nature has establish|ed for the happiness and perfection of the

world, and to declare ourselves, if I may say so, in some measure the enemies of God. Hence we are naturally encouraged to hope for his extraordinary favour and reward in the one case, and to dread his vengeance and punishment in the other.

There are besides many other reasons, and many other natural principles, which all tend to confirm and inculcate the same salutary doctrine. If we consider the ge|neral rules by which external prosperity and adversity are commonly distributed in this life, we shall find, that notwithstand|ing the disorder in which all things appear to be in this world, yet even here every virtue naturally meets with its proper re|ward, with the recompense which is most fit to encourage and promote it; and this too so surely, that it requires a very extra|ordinary concurrence of circumstances en|tirely to disappoint it. What is the reward most proper for encouraging industry, pru|dence, and circumspection? Success in every sort of business. And is it possible that in the whole of life these virtues should fail of attaining it? Wealth and external honours are their proper recompence, and

the recompence which they can seldom fail of acquiring. What reward is most pro|per for promoting the practice of truth, justice, and humanity? The confidence, the esteem, and love of those we live with. Humanity does not desire to be great, but to be beloved. It is not in being rich that truth and justice would rejoice, but in be|ing trusted and believed, recompences which those virtues must almost always acquire. By some very extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to be suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and upon that account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part of his life to the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident of this kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his integrity and justice; in the same manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his utmost circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake or an in|undation. Accidents of the first kind, however, are perhaps still more rare, and still more contrary to the common course of things than those of the second; and it still remains true, that the practice of truth, justice, and humanity, is a certain

and almost infallible method of acquiring what those virtues chiefly aim at, the con|fidence and love of those we live with. A person may be very easily misrepresented with regard to a particular action; but it is scarce possible that he should be so with regard to the general tenor of his conduct. An innocent man may be believed to have done wrong: this, however, will rarely happen. On the contrary, the established opinion of the innocence of his manners, will often lead us to absolve him where he has really been in the fault, notwithstand|ing very strong presumptions. A knave, in the same manner may escape censure, or even meet with applause, for a particular knave|ry, in which his conduct is not under|stood. But no man was ever habitually such, without being almost universally known to be so, and without being even frequently suspected of guilt, when he was in reality perfectly innocent. And so far as vice and virtue can be either punished or rewarded by the sentiments and opinions of mankind, they both, according to the common course of things, meet even here with something more than exact and im|partial justice.

But tho' the general rules by which pros|perity and adversity are commonly distri|buted, when considered in this cool and philosophical light, appear to be perfectly suited to the situation of mankind in this life, yet they are by no means suited to some of our natural sentiments. Our na|tural love and admiration for some virtues is such, that we should wish to bestow on them all sorts of honours and rewards, even those which we must acknowledge to be the proper recompences of other quali|ties with which those virtues are not al|ways accompanied. Our detestation, on the contrary, for some vices is such, that we should desire to heap upon them every sort of disgrace and disaster, those not ex|cepted which are the natural consequences of very different qualities. Magnanimity, generosity, and justice command so high a degree of admiration, that we desire to see them crowned with wealth, and power, and honours of every kind, the natural consequences of prudence, industry, and application; qualities with which those virtues are not inseparably connected. Fraud, falsehood, brutality, and violence,

on the other hand, excite in every human breast such scorn and abhorrence, that our indignation rouzes to see them possess those advantages which they may in some sense be said to have merited, by the diligence and industry with which they are some|times attended. The industrious knave cultivates the soil; the indolent good man leaves it uncultivated. Who ought to reap the harvest? who starve, and who live in plenty? The natural course of things de|cides it in favour of the knave: the natu|ral sentiments of mankind in favour of the man of virtue. Man judges, that the good qualities of the one are greatly over-re|compensed by those advantages which they tend to procure him, and that the omissions of the other are by far too severely punish|ed by the distress which they naturally bring upon him; and human laws, the consequences of human sentiments, for|feit the life and the estate of the industri|ous and cautious traitour, and reward, by extraordinary recompenses, the fidelity and public spirit of the improvident and care|less good citizen. Thus man is by nature directed to correct, in some measure, that distribution of things which she herself

would otherwise have made. The rules which for this purpose she prompts him to follow, are different from those which she herself observes. She bestows upon every virtue, and upon every vice, that precise reward or punishment which is best fitted to encourage the one, or to restrain the other. She is directed by this sole consi|deration, and pays little regard to the dif|ferent degrees of merit and demerit, which they may seem to possess in the sentiments and passions of man. Man, on the con|trary, pays regard to this only, and would endeavour to render the state of every vir|tue precisely proportioned to that degree of love and esteem, and of every vice to that degree of contempt and abhorrence which he himself conceives for it. The rules which she follows are fit for her, those which he follows for him: but both are calculated to promote the same great end, the order of the world, and the perfection and happiness of human nature.

But tho' man is thus employed to alter that distribution of things which natural events would make, if left to themselves; tho', like the Gods of the poets, he is per|petually interposing, by extraordinary

means, in favour of virtue, and in oppo|sition to vice, and like them, endeavours to turn away the arrow that is aimed at the head of the righteous, but accelerates the sword of destruction that is lifted up against the wicked; yet he is by no means able to render the fortune of either quite suitable to his own sentiments and wishes. The natural course of things cannot be entirely controuled by the impotent endea|vours of man: the current is too rapid and too strong for him to stop it; and tho' the rules which direct it appear to have been established for the wisest and best purposes, they sometimes produce ef|fects which shock all his natural senti|ments. That a great combination of men, should prevail over a small one; that those who engage in an enterprize with fore|thought and all necessary preparation, should prevail over such as oppose them without any; and that every end should be acquired by those means only which na|ture has established for acquiring it, seems to be a rule not only necessary and una|voidable in itself, but even useful and pro|per for rouzing the industry and attention of mankind. Yet, when in consequence

of this rule, violence and artifice prevail over sincerity and justice, What indig|nation does it not excite in the breast of every human spectator? What sorrow and compassion for the sufferings of the innocent, and what furious resentment against the success of the oppressor? We are equally grieved and enraged, at the wrong that is done, but often find it al|together out of our power to redress it▪ When we thus despair of finding any force upon earth which can check the triumph of injustice, we naturally appeal to hea|ven, and hope, that the great author of our nature will himself execute hereafter, what all the principles which he has given us, for the direction of our conduct, prompt us to attempt even here; that he will compleat the plan which he himself has thus taught us to begin; and will, in a life to come, render to every one accord|ing to the works which he has performed in this world. And thus we are led to the belief of a future state, not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and fears of hu|man nature, but by the noblest and best principles which belong to it, by the love

of virtue, and by the abhorrence of vice and injustice.

"Does it suit the greatness of God," says the eloquent and philosophical bishop of Clermont, with that passionate and ex|aggerating force of imagination, which seems sometimes to exceed the bounds of decorum;

does it suit the greatness of God, to leave the world which he has created in so universal a disorder? To see the wicked prevail almost always over the just; the innocent dethroned by the usurper; the father become the victim of the ambition of an unnatural son; the husband expiring under the stroak of a barbarous and faithless wife? From the height of his greatness ought God to behold those melancholy events as a fantastical amusement, without taking any share in them? Because he is great, should he be weak, or unjust, or barbarous? Because men are little, ought they to be allowed either to be dissolute without punishment, or vir|tuous without reward? O God! if this is the character of your Supreme Being; if it is you whom we adore un|der such dreadful ideas; can I 〈◊〉〈◊〉

longer acknowledge you for my father, for my protector, for the comforter of my sorrow, the support of my weak|ness, the rewarder of my fidelity? You would then be no more but an indolent and fantastical tyrant, who sacrifices mankind to his insolent vanity, and who has brought them out of nothing, only to make them serve for the sport of his leisure, and of his caprice.

When the general rules which deter|mine the merit and demerit of actions, come thus to be regarded, as the laws of an All-powerful Being, who watches over our conduct, and who, in a life to come, will reward the observance, and punish the breach of them; they necessarily ac|quire a new sacredness from this consi|deration. That our regard to the will of the Deity, ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct, can be doubted of by no body who believes his existence. The very thought of disobedience appears to involve in it the most shocking impro|priety. How vain, how absurd would it be for man, either to oppose or to neglect the commands that were laid upon him

by Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power! How unnatural, how impiously ungrate|ful not to reverence the precepts that were prescribed to him by the infinite goodness of his Creator, even tho' no punishment was to follow their violation. The sense of propriety too is here well supported by the strongest motives of self-interest. The idea that, however, we may escape the observation of man, or be placed above the reach of human punishment, yet we are always acting under the eye, and ex|posed to the punishment of God, the great avenger of injustice, is a motive capable of restraining the most headstrong passions, with those at least who, by constant re|flection, have rendered it familiar to them.

It is in this manner that religion en|forces the natural sense of duty: and hence it is, that mankind are generally disposed to place great confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impress|ed with religious sentiments. Such persons, they imagine, act under an additional tye, besides those which regulate the conduct of other men. The regard to the propriety of action as well as to reputation, the

regard to the applause of his own breast, as well as to that of others, are motives which they suppose have the same influ|ence over the religious man, as over the man of the world. But the former lies under another restraint, and never acts deliberately but as in the presence of that Great Superior who is finally to recom|pense him according to his deeds. A greater trust is reposed, upon this account, in the regularity and exactness of his con|duct. And wherever the natural princi|ples of religion are not corrupted by the factious and party zeal of some worthless cabal; wherever the first duty which it re|quires, is to fulfil all the obligations of morality; wherever men are not taught to regard frivolous observances, as more immediate duties of religion, than acts of justice and beneficence; and to imagine, that by sacrifices and ceremonies, and vain supplications, they can bargain with the Deity for fraud, and perfidy, and violence, the world undoubtedly judges right in this respect, and justly places a double confi|dence in the rectitude of the religious man's behaviour.