Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo

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

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
/ 545
Pages

Actions

file_download Download Options Download this page Image - Page 225 Plain Text - Page 225

About this Item

Title
The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...
Author
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.
Canvas
Page 225
Publication
London :: printed for A. Millar; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh,
1759.

Technical Details

Link to this Item
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k111361.0001.001
Link to this scan
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k111361.0001.001/238

Rights and Permissions

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Eighteenth Century Collections Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading ECCO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eccotcp-info.edu for further information or permissions.

Related Links

Manifest
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/api/manifest/eccodemo:k111361.0001.001

Cite this Item

Full citation
"The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ..." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k111361.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 12, 2025.
Do you have questions about this content? Need to report a problem? Please contact us.