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

SECT. I. Of the beauty which the appearance of UTI|LITY bestows upon all the productions of art, and of the extensive influence of this species of beauty.

THAT utility is one of the principal sources of beauty has been observed by every body, who has considered with any attention what constitutes the nature of beau|ty. The conveniency of a house gives plea|sure to the spectator as well as its regularity, and he is as much hurt when he observes the contrary defect, as when he sees the cor|respondent windows of different forms, or the door not placed exactly in the middle of the building. That the fitness of any system or machine to produce the end for which it was intended, bestows a certain propriety and

beauty upon the whole, and renders the very thought and contemplation of it agreeable, is so very obvious that nobody has over|looked it.

The cause too, why utility pleases, has of late been assigned by an ingenious and agree|able philosopher, who joins the greatest depth of thought to the greatest elegance of ex|pression, and possesses the singular and happy talent of treating the abstrusest subjects not only with the most perfect perspicuity, but with the most lively eloquence. The utility of any object, according to him, pleases the master by perpetually suggesting to him the pleasure or conveniency which it is fitted to promote. Every time he looks at it, he is put in mind of this pleasure; and the object in this manner becomes a source of perpetual satisfaction and enjoyment. The spectator enters by sympathy into the sentiments of the master, and necessarily views the object un|der the same agreeable aspect. When we visit the palaces of the great, we cannot help conceiving the satisfaction we should enjoy if we ourselves were the masters, and were pos|sessed of so much artful and ingeniously con|trived accommodation. A similar account is given why the appearance of inconveniency

should render any object disagreeable both to the owner and to the spectator.

But that this fitness, this happy contri|vance of any production of art should often be more valued, than the very end for which it was intended; and that the exact adjust|ment of the means for attaining any conve|niency or pleasure, should frequently be more regarded, than that very conveniency or pleasure, in the attainment of which their whole merit would seem to consist, has not, so far as I know, been yet taken notice of by any body. That this however is very frequently the case, may be observed in a thousand instances, both in the most frivo|lous and in the most important concerns of human life.

When a person comes into his chamber, and finds the chairs all standing in the middle of the room, he is angry with his servant, and rather than see them continue in that disorder, perhaps takes the trouble himself to set them all in their places with their backs to the wall. The whole propriety of this new situation arises from its superior conveniency in leaving the floor free and disengaged. To attain this conveniency he voluntarily puts himself to more trouble than all he could

have suffered from the want of it; since no|thing was more easy, than to have set himself down upon one of them, which is probably what he does when his labour is over. What he wanted therefore, it seems, was not so much this conveniency, as that arangement of things which promotes it. Yet it is this conveniency which ultimately recommends that arrangement, and bestows upon it the whole of its propriety and beauty.

A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind above two minutes in a day, is de|spised by one curious in watches. He sells it perhaps for a couple of guineas, and pur|chases another at fifty, which will not lose above a minute in a fortnight. The sole use of watches however, is to tell us what o'clock it is, and to hinder us from breaking any en|gagement, or suffering any other inconveni|ency by our ignorance in that particular point. But the person so nice with regard to this machine, will not always be found ei|ther more scrupulously punctual than other men or more anxiously concerned upon any other account, to know precisely what time of day it is. What interests him is not so much the attainment of this piece of know|ledge

as the perfection of the machine that serves to attain it.

How many people ruin themselves by lay|ing out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the ma|chines that are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniencies. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the cloaths of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jews-box, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.

Nor is it only with regard to such frivo|lous objects that our conduct is influenced by this principle; it is often the secret motive of the most serious and important pursuits of both private and public life.

The poor man's son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition, when he be|gins to look around him admires the con|dition of the rich. He finds the cottage of his father too small for his accommodation,

and fancies he should be lodged more at his ease in a palace. He is displeased with be|ing obliged to walk a-foot, or to endure the fatigue of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in machines, and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less inconveniency. He feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve him|self with his own hands as little as possible; and judges, that a numerous retinue of ser|vants would save him from a great deal of trouble. He thinks if he had attained all these, he could sit still contentedly, and be quiet, enjoying himself in the thought of the happiness and tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy like the life of some superior rank of beings▪ and, in order to arrive at it, he devotes himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To obtain the conveniencies which these afford he submits in the first year, nay in the first month of his application, to more fa|tigue of body and more uneasiness of mind than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them. He studies to distinguish himself in some la|borious profession. With the most unrelent|ing

industry he labours night and day to ac|quire talents superior to all his competitors. He endeavours next to bring those talents into public view, and with equal assiduity so|licits every opportunity of employment. For this purpose he makes his court to all man|kind; he serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to those whom he despises. Through the whole of his life he pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquillity that is at all times in his power, and which, if in the extremity of old age he should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no respect preferable to that humble security and contentment which he had abandoned for it. It is then, in the last dregs of life, his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind gauled and ruffled by the memory of a thousand injuries and disap|pointments which he imagines he has met with from the injustice of his enemies, or from the perfidy and ingratitude of his friends, that he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for pro|curing ease of body or tranquillity of mind than the tweezer-cases of the lover of toys;

and like them too more troublesome to the person who carries them about with him than all the advantages they can afford him are commodious. There is no other real differ|ence between them, except that the conve|niencies of the one are somewhat more ob|servable than those of the other. The pa|laces, the gardens, the equipage, the re|tinue of the great are objects of which the obvious conveniency strikes every body. They do not require that their masters should point out to us wherein consists their utility. Of our own accord we readily enter into it, and by sympathy enjoy and thereby applaud the satisfaction which they are fitted to afford him. But the curiosity of a tooth-pick, of an ear-picker, of a machine for cutting the nails, or of any other trinket of the same kind, is not so obvious. Their conveniency may perhaps be equally great, but it is not so striking, and we do not so readily enter into the satisfaction of the man who possesses them. They are therefore less reasonable subjects of vanity than the magnificence of wealth and greatness; and in this consists the sole advantage of these last. They more effectually gratify that love of distinction so natural to man. To one who was to live

alone in a desolate island it might be a matter of doubt perhaps whether a palace or a collec|tion of such small conveniencies as are com|monly contained in a tweezer-case, would con|tribute most to his happiness and enjoyment. If he is to live in society, indeed, there can be no comparison, because in this, as in all other cases, we constantly pay more re|gard to the sentiments of the spectator, than to those of the person principally concern'd, and consider rather how his situation will appear to other people, than how it will appear to himself. If we examine, however, why the spectator distinguishes with such admira|tion the condition of the rich and the great, we shall find that it is not so much upon ac|count of the superior ease or pleasure which they are supposed to enjoy, as of the num|berless artificial and elegant contrivances for promoting this ease or pleasure. He does not even imagine that they are really happier than other people: but he imagines that they possess more means of happiness. And it is the ingenious and artful adjustment of those means to the end for which they were intend|ed, that is the principal source of his admi|ration.

But in the languor of disease, and the wea|riness of old age, the pleasures of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one in this situation they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pur|suits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled forever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction.

In this miserable aspect does greatness ap|pear to every man when reduced either by spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation, and to consider what it is that is really wanting to his happiness. Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and operose machines, contrived to produce a few triffling conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which in spite of all our care are ready every mo|ment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics, which it requires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten every

moment to overwhelm the person who dwells in them, and which while they stand, though they may save him from some small|er inconveniencies, can protect him from none of the severer inclemencies of the sea|son. They keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much, and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to death.

But tho' this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those great objects of human desire, when in bet|ter health and in better humour, we never fail to regard them under a more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that accomodation which reigns in the palaces and oeconomy of the great; and admire how every ••hing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their most frivo|••ous desires. If we consider the real satis|faction which all these things are capable of

affording, by itself and seperated from the beauty of that arangement which is fitted to promote it, it will always appear in the high|est degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely view it in this abstract and philosophi|cal light. We naturally confound it in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or oeconomy by means of which it is produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered in this complex view, strike the imagination as something grand and beautiful and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the to•••• and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it.

And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the in|dustry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and common|wealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embel|lish human life; which have entirely chang|ed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and bar|ren

ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the dif|ferent nations of the earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of inhabitants. It is to no purpose, that the proud and unfeeling land|lord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren, in ima|gination consumes himself the whole harvest that grows upon them. The homely and vulgar proverb, that the eye is larger than the belly, never was more fully verified than with regard to him. The capacity of his sto|mach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires, and will receive no more than that of the meanest peasant. The rest he is obliged to distribute among those, who pre|pare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be con|sumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the different baubles and trinkets, which are employed in the oeconomy of great|ness; all of whom thus derive from his luxu|ry and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have ex|pected from his humanity or his justice. The

produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants, which it is ca|pable of maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more tha•• the poor, and in spite of their natural selfish|ness and rapacity, tho' they mean only their own conveniency, tho' the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thou|sands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multi|plication of the species. When providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition▪ These last too enjoy their share of all that i•• produces. In what constitutes the real hap|piness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much

••bove them. In ease of body and peace of ••ind, all the different ranks of life are nearly ••pon a level, and the beggar, who suns him|••elf by the side of the highway, possesses that ••ecurity which kings are fighting for.

The same principle, the same love of sys|••em, the same regard to the beauty of order, ••f art and contrivance, frequently serves to ••ecommend those institutions, which tend to ••romote the public welfare. When a patriot ••xerts himself for the improvement of any ••art of the public police, his conduct does not ••lways arise from pure sympathy with the ••appiness of those, who are to reap the bene|••••t of it. It is not commonly from a fellow-••eeling with carriers and waggoners that a ••ublic spirited man encourages the mending ••f high roads. When the legislature estab|••••shes praemiums and other encouragements ••o advance the linnen or woollen manufactu|••es, its conduct seldom proceeds from pure ••••mpathy with the wearer of cheap or fine ••loth, and much less from that with the ma|••ufacturer, or merchant. The perfection of ••olice, the extension of trade and manufac|••ures, are noble and magnificent objects. The contemplation of them pleases us, and we are interested in whatever can tend to ad|vance

them. They make part of the great system of government, and the wheels of the political machine seem to move with more harmony and ease by means of them. We take pleasure in beholding the perfection of so beautiful and grand a system, and we are uneasy till we remove any obstruction that can in the least disturb or incumber the regu|larity of its motions. All constitutions of government, however, are valued only in proportion, as they tend to promote the hap|piness of those who live under them. This is their sole use and end. From a certain spi|rit of system, however, from a certain love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fel|low-creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any immediate sense o•• feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy▪ There have been men of the greatest public spirit, who have shown themselves in othe•• respects not very sensible to the feelings o•• humanity. And on the contrary, there have been men of the greatest humanity, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 seem to bave been entirely devoid of publi•• spirit. Every man may find in the circle 〈◊〉〈◊〉

his acquaintance instances both of the one kind and the other. Who had ever less hu|manity, or more public spirit than the cele|brated legislator of Muscovy? The social and well natured James the first of Great-Britain seems on the contrary to have had scarce any passion, either for the glory, or the interest of his country. Would you awaken the indu|stry of the man, who seems almost dead to ambition, it will often be to no purpose to describe to him the happiness of the rich and the great; to tell him that they are gene|rally sheltered from the sun and the rain, that they are seldom hungry, that they are seldom cold, and that they are rarely ex|posed to weariness, or to want of any kind. The most eloquent exhortation of this kind will have little effect upon him. If you would hope to succeed, you must describe to him the conveniency and arrangement of the different apartments in their palaces; you must explain to him the propriety of their equipages, and point out to him the number, the order, and the different of|fices of all their attendants. If any thing is capable of making impression upon him this will. Yet all these things tend only to keep off the sun and the rain, to save them from hunger and cold, from want and wea|riness.

In the same manner, if you would implant public virtue in the breast of him, who seems heedless of the interest of his coun|try, it will often be to no purpose to tell him, what superior advantages the subjects of a well-governed state enjoy; that they are bet|ter lodged, that they are better cloathed, that they are better fed. These conside|rations will commonly make no great impres|sion. You will be more likely to persuade, if you describe the great system of public po|lice which procures these advantages, if you explain the connections and dependencies of its several parts, their mutual subordination to one another, and their general subservi|ency to the happiness of the society; if you show how this system might be introduced into his own country, what it is that hinders it from taking place there at present, how those obstructions might be removed, and all the several wheels of the machine of govern|ment be made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without grating upon one another, or mutually retarding one another's motions. It is scarce possible that a man should listen to a discourse of this kind, and not feel himself animated to some degree of public spirit. He will, at least for the mo|ment, feel some desire to remove those ob|structions,

and to put into motion so beautiful and so orderly a machine. Nothing tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of politics, of the several systems of civil go|vernment, their advantages and disadvan|tages, of the constitution of our own coun|try, its situation, and interest with regard to foreign nations, its commerce, its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the dan|gers to which it may be exposed, how to re|move the one, and how to guard against the other. Upon this account political disquisi|tions, if just, and reasonable, and practicable, are of all the works of speculation the most useful. Even the weakest and the worst of them are not altogether without their utility. They serve at least to animate the public pas|sions of men, and rouze them to seek out the means of promoting the happiness of the so|ciety.