others, that magnanimity amidst great distress appears always so
divinely graceful. His behaviour is genteel and agreeable who can
maintain his cheerfulness amidst a number of frivolous disasters. But
he appears to be more than mortal who can support in the same manner
the most dreadful calamities. We feel what an immense effort is
requisite to silence those violent emotions which naturally agitate
and distract those in his situation. We are amazed to find that he can
command himself so entirely. His firmness at the same time, perfectly
{46} coincides with our insensibility. He makes no demand upon us for
that more exquisite degree of sensibility which we find, and which we
are mortified to find, that we do not possess. There is the most
perfect correspondence between his sentiments and ours, and on that
account the most perfect propriety in his behaviour. It is a propriety
too, which, from our experience of the usual weakness of human nature,
we could not reasonably have expected he should be able to maintain.
We wonder with surprise and astonishment at that strength of mind
which is capable of so noble and generous an effort. The sentiment of
complete sympathy and approbation, mixed and animated with wonder and
surprise, constitutes what is properly called admiration, as has
already been more than once take notice of. Cato, surrounded on all
sides by his enemies, unable to resist them, disdaining to submit to
them, and reduced, by the proud maxims of that age, to the necessity
of destroying himself; yet never shrinking from his misfortunes, never
supplicating with the lamentable voice of wretchedness, those
miserable sympathetic tears which we are always so unwilling to give;
but on the contrary, arming himself with manly fortitude, and the
moment before he executes his fatal resolution, giving, with his usual
tranquillity, all necessary orders for the safety of his friends;
appears to Seneca, that great preacher of insensibility, a spectacle
which even the gods themselves might behold with pleasure and
admiration.
Whenever we meet, in common life, with any examples of such heroic
magnanimity, we are always extremely affected. We are more apt to weep
and shed tears for such as, in this manner, seem to feel nothing for
themselves, than for those who give way to all the weakness of sorrow
and in this particular case, the sympathetic grief of the spectator
appears to go beyond the original passion in the person principally
concerned. The friends of Socrates all wept when he drank the last
potion, while he himself expressed the gayest and most cheerful
tranquillity. Upon all such occasions the spectator makes no effort,
and has no occasion to make any, in order to conquer his sympathetic
sorrow. He is under no fear that it will transport him to any thing
that is extravagant and improper; he is rather pleased with the
sensibility of his own heart, and gives way to it with complacence and
self-approbation. He gladly indulges, therefore, the most melancholy
views which can naturally occur to him, concerning the calamity of his
friend, for whom, perhaps, he never felt so exquisitely before, the
tender and tearful passion of love. But it is quite otherwise with the
person principally concerned. He is obliged, as much as possible, to
turn away his eyes from whatever is either naturally terrible or
disagreeable in his situation. Too serious an attention to those
circumstances, he fears, might make so violent an impression upon him,
that he could no longer keep within the bounds of moderation, or
render himself the object of the complete sympathy and approbation of
the spectators. {47} He fixes his thoughts, therefore, upon those only
which are agreeable, the applause and admiration which he is about to
deserve by the heroic magnanimity of his behaviour. To feel that he is
capable of so noble and generous an effort, to feel that in this
dreadful situation he can still act as he would desire to act,
animates and transports him with joy, and enables him to support that
triumphant gaiety which seems to exult in the victory he thus gains
over his misfortunes.
On the contrary, he always appears, in some measure, mean and
despicable, who is sunk in sorrow and dejection upon account of any
calamity of his own. We cannot bring ourselves to feel for him what he
feels for himself, and what, perhaps, we should feel for ourselves if
in his situation: we, therefore, despise him; unjustly perhaps, if any
sentiment could be regarded as unjust, to which we are by nature
irresistibly determined. The weakness of sorrow never appears in any
respect agreeable, except when it arises from what we feel for
ourselves. A son, upon the death of an indulgent and respectable
father, may give way to it without much blame. His sorrow is chiefly
founded upon a sort of sympathy with his departed parent; and we
readily enter into his humane emotion. But if he should indulge the
same weakness upon account of any misfortune which affected himself
only, he would no longer meet with any such indulgence. If he should
be reduced to beggary and ruin, if he should be exposed to the most
dreadful dangers, if he should even be led out to a public execution,
and there shed one single tear upon the scaffold, he would disgrace
himself for ever in the opinion of all the gallant and generous part
of mankind. Their compassion for him, however, would be very strong,
and very sincere; but as it would still fall short of this excessive
weakness, they would have no pardon for the man who could thus expose
himself in the eyes of the world. His behaviour would affect them with
shame rather than with sorrow; and the dishonour which he had thus
brought upon himself would appear to them the most lamentable
circumstance in his misfortune. How did it disgrace the memory of the
intrepid Duke of Biron, who had so often braved death in the field,
that he wept upon the scaffold, when he beheld the state to which he
was fallen, and remembered the favour and the glory from which his own
rashness had so unfortunately thrown him?
-----
CHAP. II.--_Of the Origin of Ambition, and of the Distinction of
Ranks._
IT is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with
our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and
conceal our poverty. Nothing is so mortifying as to be obliged to
expose our distress to the view of the public, and to feel, that
though {48} our situation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no
mortal conceives for us the half of what we suffer. Nay, it is chiefly
from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches
and avoid poverty. For to what purpose is all the toil and bustle of
this world? what is the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of
wealth, of power, and pre-eminence? Is it to supply the necessities of
nature? The wages of the meanest labourer can supply them. We see that
they can afford him food and clothing, the comfort of a house and of a
family. If we examine his oeconomy with rigour, we should find that he
spends a great part of them upon conveniences, which may be regarded
as superfluities, and that, upon extraordinary occasions, he can give
something even to vanity and distinction. What then is the cause of
our aversion to his situation, and why should those who have been
educated in the higher ranks of life, regard it as worse than death,
to be reduced to live, even without labour, upon the same simple fare
with him, to dwell under the same lowly roof, and to be clothed in the
same humble attire? Do they imagine that their stomach is better or
their sleep sounder in a palace than in a cottage? The contrary has
been so often observed, and, indeed, is so very obvious, though it had
never been observed, that there is nobody ignorant of it. From whence,
then arises that emulation which runs through all the different ranks
of men, and what are the advantages which we propose by the great
purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition? To be
observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy,
complacency, and approbation, arc all the advantages which we can
propose to derive from it. It is the vanity, not the ease or the
pleasure, which interests us. But vanity is always founded upon the
belief of our being the object of attention and approbation. The rich
man glories in his riches, because he feels that they naturally draw
upon him the attention of the world, and that mankind are disposed to
go along with him in all those agreeable emotions with which the
advantages of his situation so readily inspire him. At the thought of
this, his heart seems to swell and dilate itself within him, and he is
fonder of his wealth upon this account, than for all the other
advantages it procures him. The poor man, on the contrary, is ashamed
of his poverty. He feels that it either places him out of the sight of
mankind, or, that if they take any notice of him, they have, however,
scarce any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he
suffers. He is mortified upon both accounts; for though to be
overlooked, and to be disapproved of, are things entirely different,
yet as obscurity covers us from the daylight of honour and
approbation, to feel that we are taken no notice of, necessarily damps
the most agreeable hope, and disappoints the most ardent desire, of
human nature. The poor man goes out and comes in unheeded, and when in
the midst of a crowd is in the same obscurity as if shut up in his own
hovel. Those humble {49} cares and painful attentions which occupy
those in his situation, afford no amusement to the dissipated and the
gay. They turn away their their eyes from him, if the extremity of his
distress forces them to look at him, it is only to spurn so
disagreeable an object from among them. The fortunate and the proud
wonder at the insolence of human wretchedness, that it should dare to
present itself before them, and with the loathsome aspect of its
misery presume to disturb the serenity of their happiness. The man of
rank and distinction, on the contrary, is observed by all the world.
Every body is eager to look at him, and to conceive, at least by
sympathy, that joy and exultation with which his circumstances
naturally inspire him. His actions are the objects of the public care.
Scarce a word, scarce a gesture, can fall from him that is altogether
neglected. In a great assembly he is the person upon whom all direct
their eyes; it is upon him that their passions seem to wait with
expectation, in order to receive that movement and direction which he
shall impress upon them; and if his behaviour is not altogether
absurd, he has, every moment, an opportunity of interesting mankind,
and of rendering himself the object of the observation and fellow
feeling of every body about him. It is this, which, notwithstanding
the restraint it imposes, notwithstanding the loss of liberty with
which it is attended, renders greatness the object of envy, and
compensates, in the opinion of mankind, all that toil, all that
anxiety, all those mortifications which must be undergone in the
pursuit of it; and what is of yet more consequence, all that leisure,
all that ease, all that careless security, which are forfeited for
ever by the acquisition.
When we consider the condition of the great, in those delusive colours
in which the imagination is apt to paint it, it seems to be almost the
abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. It is the very state
which, in all our waking dreams and idle reveries, we had sketched out
to ourselves as the final object of our desires. We feel, therefore, a
peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who are in it. We
favour all their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. What
pity, we think, that any thing should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a
situation. We could even wish them immortal; and it seems hard to us,
that death should at last put an end to such perfect enjoyment. It is
cruel, we think, in Nature to compel them from their exalted stations
to that humble, but hospitable home, which she has provided for all
her children. Great king, live for ever! is the compliment which,
after the manner of eastern adulation, we should readily make them,
if experience did not teach us its absurdity. Every calamity that
befals them, every injury that is done them, excites in the breast of
the spectator ten times more compassion and resentment than he would
have felt, had the same things happened to other men. It is the
misfortune of kings only which afford the proper subjects for tragedy.
They resemble {50} in this respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those
two situations are the chief which interest us upon the theatre;
because, in spite of all that reason and experience can tell us to the
contrary, the prejudices of the imagination attach to these two states
a happiness superior to any other. To disturb, or to put an end to
such perfect enjoyment, seems to be the most atrocious of all
injuries. The traitor who conspires against the life of his monarch,
is thought a greater monster than any other murderer. All the innocent
blood that was shed in the civil wars provoked less indignation than
the death of Charles I. A stranger to human nature, who saw the
indifference of men about the misery of their inferiors, and the
regret and indignation which they feel for the misfortunes and
sufferings of those above them, would be apt to imagine, that pain
must be more agonizing, and the convulsions of death more terrible to
persons of higher rank, than they are to those of meaner stations.
Upon this disposition of mankind, to go along with all the passions of
the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction of ranks, and
the order of society. Our obsequiousness to our superiors more
frequently arises from our admiration for the advantages of their
situation, than from any private expectations of benefit from their
goodwill. Their benefits can extend but to a few; but their fortunes
interest almost every body. We are eager to assist them in completing
a system of happiness that approaches so near to perfection; and we
desire to serve them for their own sake, without any recompense but
the vanity or the honour of obliging them. Neither is our deference to
the inclinations founded chiefly, or altogether, upon a regard to the
utility of such submission, and to the order of society, which is best
supported by it. Even when the order of society seems to require that
we should oppose them, we can hardly bring ourselves to do it. That
kings are servants of the people, to be obeyed, resisted, deposed, or
punished, as the public conveniency may require, is the doctrine of
reason and philosophy; but it is not the doctrine of nature. Nature
would teach us to submit to them for their own sake, to tremble and
bow down before their exalted station, to regard their smile as a
reward sufficient to compensate any services, and to dread their
displeasure, though no other evil were to follow from it, as the
severest of all mortifications. To treat them in any respect as men,
to reason and dispute with them upon ordinary occasions, requires such
resolution, that there are few men whose magnanimity can support them
in it, unless they are likewise assisted by similarity and
acquaintance. The strongest motives, the most furious passions, fear,
hatred, and resentment, are scarce sufficient to balance this natural
disposition to respect them: and their conduct must, either justly or
unjustly, have excited the highest degree of those passions, before
the bulk of the people can be brought to oppose them with violence, or
to desire to see them {51} either punished or deposed. Even when the
people have been brought this length, they are apt to relent every
moment, and easily relapse into their habitual state of deference to
those whom they have been accustomed to look upon as their natural
superiors. They cannot stand the mortification of their monarch.
Compassion soon takes the place of resentment, they forget all past
provocations, their old principles of loyalty revive, and they run to
re-establish the ruined authority of their old masters, with the same
violence with which they had opposed it. The death of Charles I.
brought about the restoration of the royal family. Compassion for
James II., when he was seized by the populace in making his escape on
ship-board, had almost prevented the Revolution, and made it go on
more heavily than before.
Do the great seem insensible of the easy price at which they may
acquire the public admiration; or do they seem to imagine that to
them, as to other men, it must be the purchase either of sweat or of
blood? By what important accomplishments is the young nobleman
instructed to support the dignity of his rank, and to render himself
worthy of that superiority over his fellow citizens, to which the
virtue of his ancestors had raised them: Is it by knowledge, by
industry, by patience, by self-denial, or by virtue of any kind? As
all his words, as all his motions are attended to, he learns an
habitual regard to every circumstance of ordinary behaviour, and
studies to perform all those small duties with the most exact
propriety. As he is conscious how much he is observed, and how much
mankind are disposed to favour all his inclinations, he acts, upon the
most indifferent occasions, with that freedom and elevation which the
thought of this naturally inspires. His air, his manner, his
deportment, all mark that elegant and graceful sense of his own
superiority, which those who are born to inferior stations can hardly
ever arrive at. These are the arts by which he proposes to make
mankind more easily submit to his authority, and to govern their
inclinations according to his own pleasure: and in this he is seldom
disappointed. These arts, supported by rank and pre-eminence, are,
upon ordinary occasions, sufficient to govern the world. Lewis XIV.
during the greater part of his reign, was regarded, not only in
France, but over all Europe, as the most perfect model of a great
prince. But what were the talents and virtues by which he acquired
this great reputation? Was it by the scrupulous and inflexible justice
of all his undertakings, by the immense dangers and difficulties with
which they were attended, or by the unwearied and unrelenting
application with which he pursued them? Was it by his extensive
knowledge, by his exquisite judgment, or by his heroic valour? It was
by none of these qualities. But he was, first of all, the most
powerful prince in Europe, and consequently held the highest rank
among kings; and then says his historian, 'he surpassed all his
courtiers in the gracefulness of his shape, and the majestic beauty of
his features. The {52} sound of his voice, noble and affecting, gained
those hearts which his presence intimidated. He had a step and a
deportment which could suit only him and his rank, and which would
have been ridiculous in any other person. The embarrassment which he
occasioned to those who spoke to him, flattered that secret
satisfaction with which he felt his own superiority. The old officer,
who was confounded and faltered in asking him a favour, and not being
able to conclude his discourse, said to him: "Sir, your majesty, I
hope, will believe that I do not tremble thus before your enemies:"
had no difficulty to obtain what he demanded.' These frivolous
accomplishments, supported by his rank, and, no doubt too, by a degree
of other talents and virtues, which seems, however, not to have been
much above mediocrity, established this prince in the esteem of his
own age, and have drawn, even from posterity, a good deal of respect
for his memory. Compared with these, in his own times, and in his own
presence, no other virtue, it seems, appeared to have any merit.
Knowledge, industry, valour, and beneficence trembled, were abashed,
and lost all dignity before them.
But it is not by accomplishments of this kind, that the man of
inferior rank must hope to distinguish himself. Politeness is so much
the virtue of the great, that it will do little honour to any body but
themselves. The coxcomb, who imitates their manner, and affects to be
eminent by the superior propriety of his ordinary behaviour, is
rewarded with a double share of contempt for his folly and
presumption. Why should the man, whom nobody thinks it worth while to
look at, be very anxious about the manner in which he holds up his
head, or disposes of his arms while he walks through a room? He is
occupied surely with a very superfluous attention, and with an
attention too that marks a sense of his own importance, which no other
mortal can go along with. The most perfect modesty and plainness,
joined to as much negligence as is consistent with the respect due to
the company, ought to be the chief characteristics of the behaviour of
a private man. If ever he hopes to distinguish himself, it must be by
more important virtues. He must acquire dependants to balance the
dependants of the great, and he has no other fund to pay them from,
but the labour of his body and the activity of his mind. He must
cultivate these therefore: he must acquire superior knowledge in his
profession and superior industry in the exercise of it. He must be
patient in labour, resolute in danger, and firm in distress. These
talents he must bring into public view, by the difficulty, importance,
and at the same time, good judgment of his undertakings, and by the
severe and unrelenting application, with which he pursues them.
Probity and prudence, generosity and frankness, must characterize his
behaviour upon all ordinary occasions; and he must, at the same time,
be forward to engage in all those situations, in which it requires the
greatest talents and virtues to act with propriety, but in which the
greatest applause is to be acquired by those who can {53} acquit
themselves with honour. With what impatience does the man of spirit
and ambition, who is depressed by his situation, look round for some
great opportunity to distinguish himself? No circumstances, which can
afford this, appear to him undesirable. He even looks forward with
satisfaction to the prospect of foreign war or civil dissension; and,
with secret transport and delight, sees through all the confusion and
bloodshed which attend them, the probability of those wished-for
occasions presenting themselves, in which he may draw upon himself the
attention and admiration of mankind. The man of rank and distinction,
on the contrary, whose whole glory consists in the propriety of his
ordinary behaviour, who is contented with the humble renown which this
can afford him, and has no talents to acquire any other, is unwilling
to embarrass himself with what can be attended either with difficulty
or distress. To figure at a ball is his great triumph, and to succeed
in an intrigue of gallantry, his highest exploit. He has an aversion
to all public confusions, not from the love of mankind, for the great
never look upon their inferiors as their fellow-creatures; nor yet
from want of courage, for in that he is seldom defective; but from a
consciousness that he possesses none of the virtues which are required
in such situations, and that the public attention will certainly be
drawn away from him by others. He may be willing to expose himself to
some little danger, and to make a campaign when it happens to be the
fashion. But he shudders with horror at the thought of any situation
which demands the continual and long exertion of patience, industry,
fortitude, and application of thought. These virtues are hardly ever
to be met with in men who are born to those high stations. In all
governments, accordingly, even in monarchies, the highest offices are
generally possessed, and the whole detail of the administration
conducted, by men who were educated in the middle and inferior ranks
of life, who have been carried forward by their own industry and
abilities, though loaded with the jealousy, and opposed by the
resentment, of all those who were born their superiors, and to whom
the great, after having regarded them first with contempt, and
afterwards with envy, are at last contented to truckle with the same
abject meanness with which they desire that the rest of mankind should
behave to themselves.
It is the loss of this easy empire over the affections of mankind
which renders the fall from greatness so insupportable. When the
family of the king of Macedon was led in triumph by Paulus Æmilius,
their misfortunes, it is said, made them divide with their conqueror
the attention of the Roman people. The sight of the royal children,
whose tender age rendered them insensible of their situation, struck
the spectators, amidst the public rejoicings and prosperity, with the
tenderest sorrow and compassion. The king appeared next in the
procession; and seemed like one confounded and astonished, and bereft
of all {54} sentiment, by the greatness of his calamities. His friends
and ministers followed after him. As they moved along, they often cast
their eyes upon their fallen sovereign, and always burst into tears at
the sight; their whole behaviour demonstrating that they thought not
of their own misfortunes, but were occupied entirely by the superior
greatness of his. The generous Romans, on the contrary, beheld him
with disdain and indignation, and regarded as unworthy of all
compassion the man who could be so mean-spirited as to bear to live
under such calamities. Yet what did those calamities amount to?
According to the greater part of historians, he was to spend the
remainder of his days, under the protection of a powerful and humane
people, in a state which in itself should seem worthy of envy, a state
of plenty, ease, leisure, and security, from which it was impossible
for him even by his own folly to fall. But he was no longer to be
surrounded by that admiring mob of fools, flatterers, and dependants,
who had formerly been accustomed to attend upon all his motions. He
was no longer to be gazed upon by multitudes, nor to have it in his
power to render himself the object of their respect, their gratitude,
their love, their admiration. The passions of nations were no longer
to mould themselves upon his inclinations. This was that insupportable
calamity which bereaved the king of all sentiment; which made his
friends forget their own misfortunes; and which the Roman magnanimity
could scarce conceive how any man could be so mean-spirited as to bear
to survive.
'Love,' says my Lord Rochefaucault, 'is commonly succeeded by
ambition; but ambition is hardly ever succeeded by love.' That
passion, when once it has got entire possession of the breast, will
admit neither a rival nor a successor. To those who have been
accustomed to the possession, or even to the hope of public
admiration, all other pleasures sicken and decay. Of all the discarded
statesmen who for their own ease have studied to get the better of
ambition, and to despise those honours which they could no longer
arrive at, how few have been able to succeed? The greater part have
spent their time in the most listless and insipid indolence, chagrined
at the thoughts of their own insignificancy, incapable of being
interested in the occupations of private life, without enjoyment
except when they talked of their former greatness, and without
satisfaction except when they were employed in some vain project to
recover it. Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty
for the lordly servitude of a court, but to live free, fearless, and
independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous
resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so
few have been able to return; never come within the circle of
ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters
of the earth who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind
before you.
Of such mighty importance does it appear to be, in the imaginations
{55} of men, to stand in that situation which sets them most in the
view of general sympathy and attention. And thus, place, that great
object which divides the wives of aldermen, is the end of half the
labours of human life; and is the cause of all the tumult and bustle,
all the rapine and injustice, which avarice and ambition have
introduced into this world. People of sense, it is said, indeed
despise place; that is, they despise sitting at the head of the table,
and are indifferent who it is that is pointed out to the company by
that frivolous circumstance, which the smallest **advantage is capable
of overbalancing. But rank, distinction, pre-eminence, no man
despises, unless he is either raised very much above, or sunk very
much below, the ordinary standard of human nature; unless he is either
so confirmed in wisdom and real philosophy, as to be satisfied that,
while the propriety of his conduct renders him the just object of
approbation, it is of little consequence though he be neither attended
to, nor approved of; or so habituated to the idea of his own meanness,
so sunk in slothful and sottish indifference, as entirely to have
forgot the desire and almost the very wish for superiority over his
fellows.
As to become the natural object of the joyous congratulations and
sympathetic attentions of mankind is, in this manner, the circumstance
which gives to prosperity all its dazzling splendour; so nothing
darkens so much the gloom of adversity as to feel that our misfortunes
are the objects, not of the fellow-feeling, but of the contempt and
aversion of our brethren. It is upon this account that the most
dreadful calamities are not always those which it is most difficult to
support. It is often more mortifying to appear in public under small
disasters, than under great misfortunes. The first excite no sympathy;
but the second, though they may excite none that approaches to the
anguish of the sufferer, call forth, however, a very lively
compassion. The sentiments of the spectators are, in this last case,
less wide of those of the sufferer, and their imperfect fellow-feeling
lends him some assistance in supporting his misery. Before a gay
assembly, a gentleman would be more mortified to appear covered with
filth and rags than with blood and wounds. This last situation would
interest their pity; the other would provoke their laughter. The judge
who orders a criminal to be set in the pillory, dishonours him more
than if he had condemned him to the scaffold. The great prince, who,
some years ago, caned a general officer at the head of his army,
disgraced him irrecoverably. The punishment would have been much less
had he shot him through his body. By the laws of honour, to strike
with a cane dishonours, to strike with a sword does not, for an
obvious reason. Those slighter punishments, when inflicted on a
gentleman, to whom dishonour is the greatest of all evils, come to be
regarded among a humane and generous people, as the most dreadful of
any. With regard to persons of that rank, therefore, they are
universally laid aside, and the law, while {56} it takes their life
upon many occasions, respects their honour upon almost all. To scourge
a person of quality, or to set him in the pillory, upon account of any
crime whatever, is a brutality of which no European government, except
that of Russia, is capable.
A brave man is not rendered contemptible by being brought to the
scaffold; he is, by being set in the pillory. His behaviour in the one
situation may gain him universal esteem and admiration. No behaviour
in the other can render him agreeable. The sympathy of the spectators
supports him in the one case, and saves him from that shame, that
consciousness that his misery is felt by himself only, which is of all
sentiments the most unsupportable. There is no sympathy in the other;
or, if there is any, it is not with his pain, which is a trifle, but
with his consciousness of the want of sympathy with which this pain is
attended. It is with his shame, not with his sorrow. Those who pity
him, blush and hang down their heads for him. He droops in the same
manner, and feels himself irrecoverably degraded by the punishment,
though not by the crime. The man, on the contrary, who dies with
resolution, as he is naturally regarded with the erect aspect of
esteem and approbation, so he wears himself the same undaunted
countenance; and, if the crime does not deprive him of the respect of
others, the punishment never will. He has no suspicion that his
situation is the object of contempt or derision to any body, and he
can, with propriety, assume the air, not only of perfect serenity, but
of triumph and exultation.
'Great dangers.' says the Cardinal de Retz, 'have their charms,
because there is some glory to be got, even when we miscarry. But
moderate dangers have nothing but what is horrible, because the loss
of reputation always attends the want of success.' His maxim has the
same foundation with what we have been just now observing with regard
to punishments.
Human virtue is superior to pain, to poverty, to danger, and to death;
nor does it even require its utmost efforts to despise them. But to
have its misery exposed to insult and derision, to be led in triumph,
to be set up for the hand of scorn to point at, is a situation in
which its constancy is much more apt to fail. Compared with the
contempt of mankind, all other external evils are easily supported.
-----
CHAP. III.--_ Of the Corruption of our Moral Sentiments, which is
occasioned by this Disposition to admire the Rich and the Great, and
to despise or neglect Persons of poor and mean Condition._
THIS disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the
powerful, and to despise or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and
mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the
{57} distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same
time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our
moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with
the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue;
and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper
objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness,
has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.
We desire both to be respectable and to be respected. We dread both to
be contemptible and to be contemned. But, upon coming into the world,
we soon find that wisdom and virtue are by no means the sole objects
of respect; nor vice and folly, of contempt. We frequently see the
respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the
rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous. We see
frequently the vices and follies of the powerful much less despised
than the poverty and weakness of the innocent. To deserve, to acquire,
and to enjoy the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great
objects of ambition and emulation. Two different roads are presented
to us, equally leading to the attainment of this so much desired
object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the practice of virtue;
the other, by the acquisition of wealth and greatness. Two different
characters are presented to our emulation; the one, of proud ambition
and ostentatious avidity; the other, of humble modesty and equitable
justice. Two different models, two different pictures, are held out
to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and
behaviour; the one more gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the
other more correct and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline: the
one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the
other, attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most
studious and careful observer. They are the wise and the virtuous
chiefly, a select, though, I am afraid, but a small party, who are the
real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue. The great mob of
mankind are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more
extraordinary, most frequently the disinterested admirers and
worshippers, of wealth and greatness.
The respect which we feel for wisdom and virtue is, no doubt,
different from that which we conceive for wealth and greatness; and it
requires no very nice discernment to distinguish the difference. But,
notwithstanding this difference, those sentiments bear a very
considerable resemblance to one another. In some particular features
they are, no doubt, different, but, in the general air of the
countenance, they seem to be so very nearly the same, that inattentive
observers are very apt to mistake the one for the other.
In equal degrees of merit there is scarce any man who does not respect
more the rich and the great, than the poor and the humble. With most
men the presumption and vanity of the former are much more admired,
than the real and solid merit of the latter. It is scarce {58}
agreeable to good morals, or even to good language, perhaps, to say,
that mere wealth and greatness, abstracted from merit and virtue,
deserve our respect. We must acknowledge, however, that they almost
constantly obtain it; and that they may, therefore, be considered as,
in some respects, the natural objects of it. Those exalted stations
may, no doubt, be completely degraded by vice and folly. But, the vice
and folly must be very great, before they can operate this complete
degradation. The profligacy of a man of fashion is looked upon with
much less contempt and aversion, than that of a man of meaner
condition. In the latter, a single transgression of the rules of
temperance and propriety, is commonly more resented, than the constant
and avowed contempt of them ever is in the former.
In the middling and inferior stations of life, the road to virtue and
that to fortune, to such fortune, at least, as men in such stations
can reasonably expect to acquire, are, happily, in most cases, very
nearly the same. In all the middling and inferior professions, real
and solid professional abilities, joined to prudent, just, firm, and
temperate conduct, can very seldom fail of success. Abilities will
even sometimes prevail where the conduct is by no means correct.
Either habitual imprudence, however, or injustice, or weakness, or
profligacy, will always cloud, and sometimes depress altogether, the
most splendid professional abilities. Men in the inferior and middling
stations of life, besides, can never be great enough to be above the
law, which must generally overawe them into some sort of respect for,
at least, the more important rules of justice. The success of such
people, too, almost always depends upon the favour and good opinion of
their neighbours and equals; and without a tolerably regular conduct
these can very seldom be obtained. The good old proverb, therefore,
that honesty is the best policy, holds, in such situations, almost
always perfectly true. In such situations, therefore, we may generally
expect a considerable degree of virtue; and, fortunately for the good
morals of society, these are the situations of the greater part of
mankind.
In the superior stations of life the case is unhappily not always the
same. In the courts of princes, in the drawing-rooms of the great,
where success and preferment depend, not upon the esteem of
intelligent and well-informed equals, but upon the fanciful and
foolish favour of ignorant, presumptuous, and proud superiors;
flattery and falsehood too often prevail over merit and abilities. In
such societies the abilities to please, are more regarded than the
abilities to serve. In quiet and peaceable times, when the storm is at
a distance, the prince, or great man, wishes only to be amused, and is
even apt to fancy that he has scarce any occasion for the service of
any body, or that those who amuse him are sufficiently able to serve
him. The external graces, the frivolous accomplishments of that
impertinent and foolish thing called a man of fashion, are commonly
more admired than the solid and {59} masculine virtues of a warrior, a
statesman, a philosopher, or a legislator. All the great and awful
virtues, all the virtues which can fit, either for the council, the
senate, or the field, are, by the insolent and insignificant
flatterers, who commonly figure the most in such corrupted societies,
held in the utmost contempt and derision. When the Duke of Sully was
called upon by Louis the Thirteenth, to give his advice in some great
emergency, he observed the favourites and courtiers whispering to one
another, and smiling at his unfashionable appearance. 'Whenever your
Majesty's father,' said the old warrior and statesman, 'did me the
honour to consult me, he ordered the buffoons of the court to retire
into the antechamber.'
It is from our disposition to admire, and consequently to imitate, the
rich and the great, that they are enabled to set, or to lead, what is
called the fashion. Their dress is the fashionable dress; the language
of their conversation, the fashionable style; their air and
deportment, the fashionable behaviour. Even their vices and follies
are fashionable; and the greater part of men are proud to imitate and
resemble them in the very qualities which dishonour and degrade them.
Vain men often give themselves airs of a fashionable profligacy,
which, in their hearts, they do not approve of, and of which, perhaps,
they are really not guilty. They desire to be praised for what they
themselves do not think praiseworthy, and are ashamed of unfashionable
virtues which they sometimes practise in secret, and for which they
have secretly some degree of real veneration. There are hypocrites of
wealth and greatness, as well as of religion and virtue; and a vain
man is as apt to pretend to be what he is not, in the one way, as a
cunning man is in the other. He assumes the equipage and splendid way
of living of his superiors, without considering that whatever may be
praiseworthy in any of these, derives its whole merit and propriety
from its suitableness to that situation and fortune which both require
and can easily support the expense. Many a poor man places his glory
in being thought rich, without considering that the duties (if one may
call such follies by so venerable a name) which that reputation
imposes upon him, must soon reduce him to beggary, and render his
situation still more unlike that of those whom he admires and
imitates, than it had been originally.
To attain to this envied situation, the candidates for fortune too
frequently abandon the paths of virtue; for unhappily, the road which
leads to the one, and that which leads to the other, lie sometimes in
very opposite directions. But the ambitious man flatters himself that,
in the splendid situation to which he advances, he will have so many
means of commanding the respect and admiration of mankind, and will be
enabled to act with such superior propriety and grace, that the lustre
of his future conduct will entirely cover, or efface, the foulness of
the steps by which he arrived at that elevation. In many governments
the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if
they {60} can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear
of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it.
They often endeavour, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the
ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes by the
perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination,
by rebellion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose
or stand in the way of their greatness. They more frequently miscarry
than succeed; and commonly gain nothing but the disgraceful punishment
which is due to their crimes. But, though they should be so lucky as
to attain that wished-for greatness, they are always most miserably
disappointed in the happiness which they expect to enjoy in it. It is
not ease or pleasure, but always honour, of one kind or another,
though frequently an honour very ill understood, that the ambitious
man really pursues. But the honour of his exalted station appears,
both in his own eyes and in those of other people, polluted and denied
by the baseness of the means through which he rose to it. Though by
the profusion of every liberal expense; though by excessive indulgence
in every profligate pleasure, the wretched, but usual, resource of
ruined characters; though by the hurry of public business, or by the
prouder and more dazzling tumult of war, he may endeavour to efface,
both from his own memory and from that of other people, the
remembrance of what he has done; that remembrance never fails to
pursue him. He invokes in vain the dark and dismal powers of
forgetfulness and oblivion. He remembers himself what he has done, and
that remembrance tells him that other people must likewise remember
it. Amidst all the gaudy pomp of the most ostentatious greatness;
amidst the venal and vile adulation of the great and of the learned;
amidst the more innocent, though more foolish, acclamations of the
common people; amidst all the pride of conquest and the triumph of
successful war, he is still secretly pursued by the avenging furies of
shame and remorse; and, while glory seems to surround him on all
sides, he himself, in his own imagination, sees black and foul infamy
fast pursuing him, and every moment ready to overtake him from behind.
Even the great Cæsar, though he had the magnanimity to dismiss his
guards, could not dismiss his suspicions. The remembrance of Pharsalia
still haunted and pursued him. When, at the request of the senate, he
had the generosity to pardon Marcellus, he told that assembly, that he
was not unaware of the designs which were carrying on against his
life; but that, as he had lived long enough both for nature and for
glory, he was contented to die, and therefore despised all
conspiracies. He had, perhaps, lived long enough for nature. But the
man who felt himself the object of such deadly resentment from those
whose favour he wished to gain, and whom he still wished to consider
as his friends, had certainly lived too long for real glory; or for
all the happiness which he could ever hope to enjoy in the love and
esteem of his equals. {61}
_Part II.--Of Merit and Demerit; or, of the Objects of Reward and
Punishment._
SEC. I.--OF THE SENSE OF MERIT AND DEMERIT.
INTRODUCTION.--There is another set of qualities ascribed to the
actions and conduct of mankind, distinct from their propriety or
impropriety, their decency or ungracefulness, and which are the
objects of a distinct species of approbation and disapprobation. These
are Merit and Demerit, the qualities of deserving reward and of
deserving punishment.
It has already been observed, that the sentiment or affection of the
heart, from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue
or vice depends, may be considered under two different aspects, or in
two different relations: first, in relation to the cause or object
which excites 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 object which excites
it, depends the propriety or impropriety, the decency or
ungracefulness 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 of the propriety
or impropriety of actions, has been explained in the former part of
this discourse. We come now to consider, wherein consists that of
their good or ill desert.
-----
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 Object of Resentment, appears to deserve
Punishment._
TO us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which
appears to be the proper and approved object of that sentiment, which
most immediately and directly prompts us to reward, or to do good to
another. And in the same manner, that action must appear to deserve
punishment, which appears to be the proper and approved object of that
sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to punish, or
to inflict evil upon another.
The sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to
reward, is gratitude; that which most immediately and directly prompts
us to punish, is resentment.
{62} To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward,
which appears to be the proper and approved object of gratitude; as,
on the other hand, that action must appear to deserve punishment,
which appears to be the proper and approved object of resentment.
To reward, is to recompense, to remunerate, to return good for good
received. To punish, too, is to recompense, to remunerate, 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 excite us as to be 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 object of such agreeable emotions, and consequently 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 happy, without
regarding who was the author of his prosperity. But gratitude is not
to be satisfied in this manner. If the person to whom we owe many
obligations, is made happy without our assistance, though it pleases
our love, it does not content our gratitude. Till we have recompensed
him, till we ourselves have been instrumental in promoting his
happiness, we feel ourselves still loaded with that debt which his
past services have laid upon us.
The hatred and dislike, in the same manner, which grow upon the
habitual disapprobation, would often lead us to take a malicious
pleasure in the misfortune of the man whose conduct and character
excite so painful a passion. But though dislike and hatred harden us
against all sympathy, and sometimes dispose us even to rejoice at the
distress of another, yet, if there is no resentment in the case, if
neither we nor our friends have received any great personal
provocation, these passions would not naturally lead us to wish to be
instrumental in bringing it about. Though we could fear no punishment
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 it would be agreeable, perhaps, to hear, that the person whom
he abhorred and detested was killed by some accident. But if he had
the least spark of justice, which, though this passion is not very
favourable to virtue, he might still have, it would hurt him
excessively to have been himself, even without design, the occasion of
this misfortune. Much more would the very thought of voluntarily
contributing to it shock him beyond all measure. He would reject with
horror even the imagination of so execrable a design; and if he could
imagine himself capable of such an enormity, he would begin to regard
to himself in the same odious light in which he had considered the
person who was the object of his dislike. But it is quite otherwise
with resentment: if the person {63} who had done us some great injury,
who had murdered our father or our brother, for example, should soon
afterwards die of a fever, or even be brought to the scaffold upon
account of some other crime, though it might soothe our hatred, it
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 cannot 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, through fear
of the like punishment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like
offence. The natural gratification of this passion tends, of its own
accord, to produce all the political ends of punishment; the
correction of the criminal, and example to the public.
Gratitude and resentment, therefore, are the sentiments which most
immediately and directly prompt to reward and to punish. To us,
therefore, he must appear to deserve reward, who appears to be the
proper 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 approved
of.
But these, as well as all the other passions of human nature, seem
proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial
spectator entirely sympathizes with them, when every indifferent
by-stander entirely enters into and goes along with them.
He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or
persons, is the natural object of a gratitude which every human 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 sympathize 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 punishment,
which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that account
rejoices 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 satisfaction
with which they naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good
fortune. {64} We enter into the love and affection 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, though
they should lose nothing 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, protected, 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 person 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 sympathize 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 upon him. As we entirely enter
into the affection from which these returns proceed, they necessarily
seem every way proper and suitable to their object.
2. In the same manner, as we sympathize with the sorrow of our
fellow-creature whenever we see his distress, so we likewise enter
into his abhorrence and aversion 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 repeal 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 distress of the sufferer seems to serve only to animate
our fellow-feeling with his resentment against the offender. We are
rejoiced 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 resentment
of his friends and relations, but with the imaginary resentment which
in fancy we lend to the dead, who is no longer capable of feeling that
or any other human 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 deformed and mangled
carcass 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 {65} 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 principal 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
consciousness of what passes upon earth. His blood, we think, calls
aloud for vengeance. The very ashes of the dead seem to be disturbed
at the thought that his injuries are to pass unrevenged. The horrors
which are supposed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghosts which
superstition imagines rise from their graves to demand vengeance upon
those who brought them to an untimely end, all take their origin from
this natural sympathy with the imaginary resentment of the slain. And
with regard, at least, to this most dreadful of all crimes, Nature,
antecedent to all reflection upon the utility of punishment, has in
this manner 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 Person 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 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 enter 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
conduct 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 punishment.
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 {66} gratitude of the person who received the benefit
of his actions. A very small return seems due to that foolish and
profuse generosity which confers the greatest benefits from the most
trivial motives, and gives an estate to a man merely because his name
and surname happen to be the same with those of the giver. Such
services do not seem to demand any proportionable recompense. 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 benefactor 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 easily
absolve him from a great deal of that submissive veneration and esteem
which we should think due to a more respectable character; 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 demand to a worthier patron. Those princes who have heaped,
with the greatest profusion, 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 nobody 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 Charles I., his more frugal and distinguishing son,
notwithstanding the coldness and distant severity of his ordinary
deportment.
2. Secondly, I say, That wherever the conduct of the agent appears to
have been entirely directed by motives and affections which we
thoroughly enter into and approve of, we can have no sort of sympathy
with the resentment of the sufferer, how great soever the mischief
which may have been done to him. When two people quarrel, if we take
part with, and entirely 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, cannot but harden us against all
fellow-feeling with the other, whom we necessarily regard 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 indignation would have
prompted us to inflict upon him, it cannot either displease or provoke
us. When an inhuman murderer is brought to the scaffold, though 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 indignation against so vile a criminal is
indeed the most fatal and {67} 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 entirely go along with. Our heart must adopt the
principles of the agent, and go along with all the affections which
influenced his conduct, before it can entirely sympathize with and
beat time to, the gratitude 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 recompense.
But when to the beneficent tendency of the action is joined the
propriety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we entirely
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 actions seem then to demand, and, if I may say
so, to call aloud for a proportionable recompense. We then entirely
enter into that gratitude which prompts to bestow it. The benefactor
seems then to be the proper object of reward, when we thus entirely
sympathize with, and approve of, that sentiment which prompts to
reward him. When we approve of, and go along with, the affection from
which the action proceeds, we must necessarily approve of the action,
and regard the person towards whom it is directed, as its proper and
suitable 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, unless he has been the cause of it from
motives 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
influenced his conduct. If there appears to have been no impropriety
in these, how fatal 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
{68} abhorrence all fellow-feeling with the motives of the agent, we
then heartily and entirely 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 punishment; and we entirely enter
into, and thereby approve of, that resentment which prompts to inflict
it. The offender necessarily seems then to be the proper object of
punishment, when we thus entirely sympathize 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 approve 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 Demerit._
1. As our sense, therefore, of the propriety of conduct arises from
what I shall call a direct sympathy with the affections and motives of
the person who acts, so our sense of its merit arises from what I
shall call an indirect sympathy with the gratitude 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 receives 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 agents, and an indirect
sympathy with the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his
actions.
We may, upon many different occasions, plainly distinguish those two
different emotions combining and uniting together in our sense of the
good desert of a particular character or action. When we read in
history concerning actions of proper and beneficent greatness of mind,
how eagerly do we enter into such designs? How much are we animated by
that high-spirited generosity which directs them? How keen are we for
their success? How grieved at their disappointment? In imagination we
become the very person whose actions are represented to us: we
transport ourselves in fancy to the scenes of those distant and
forgotten adventures, and imagine ourselves acting the part of a
Scipio or a Camillus, 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 embrace, as it were, their benefactor
along with them. Our heart {69} readily sympathizes with the highest
transports of their grateful affection. No honours, no rewards, 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 performed them rejoice in his turn, arises from the
sympathetic emotions of gratitude and love, with which, when we bring
home to our own breast the situation of those principally concerned,
we feel ourselves 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 antipathy to the
affections and motives of the agent, so our sense of its demerit
arises from what I shall here too call an indirect sympathy with the
resentment of the sufferer.
As we cannot indeed enter into the resentment of the sufferer, unless
our heart beforehand disapproves the motives of the agent, and
renounces all fellow-feeling with them; so upon this account the sense
of demerit, as well as that of merit, seems to be a compounded
sentiment, and to be made up of two distinct emotions; a direct
antipathy to the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect sympathy
with the resentment of the sufferer.
We may here too, upon many different occasions, plainly distinguish
those two different emotions combining and uniting together in our
sense of the ill desert of a particular 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 sentiments which
influenced their conduct, and renounces 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,
murdered, or betrayed, what indignation do we not feel against such
insolent and inhuman oppressors of the earth? Our sympathy 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 {70} 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 retaliation,
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 it, and of making him grieve in his turn, arises from the
sympathetic indignation which naturally boils up in the breast of the
spectator, whenever he thoroughly brings home to himself the case of
the sufferer.[2]
[Footnote 2: To ascribe in this manner our natural sense of the ill
desert of human actions to a sympathy with the resentment of the
sufferer, may seem, to the greater part of the people, to be a
degradation of that sentiment. Resentment 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 benevolent passions,
is regarded as an amiable principle, 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 to one
another; and if our sense of merit arises from a sympathy 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, though in the degree in
which we too often see it, the most odious, perhaps, of all the
passions, is not disapproved of when properly humbled and entirely
brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the
spectator. When we who are the bystanders, feel that our own animosity
entirely 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 inflicting any punishment
beyond what we should rejoice to see inflicted, or what we ourselves
would upon this account even desire to be the instruments of
inflicting, it is impossible that we should not entirely approve of
his sentiment. Our own emotion in this case must, in our eyes,
undoubtedly justify his. And as experience teaches us how much the
greater part of mankind are incapable of this moderation, and how
great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and
undisciplined 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 ungovernable passions of his nature. When indeed the
animosity of the sufferer exceeds, as it almost always does, that 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 resentment of the person who is the object of this
unjust emotion, and who is in danger of suffering from it. Revenge,
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 itself among mankind, it is excessive a hundred times for
once that it is immoderate, we are very apt to consider it as
altogether 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
respect 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 injuries that
have been done to him; and we are as ready to despise him for the
defect, as to hate him for the excess 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 examining upon what principles a perfect being
would approve 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 malice should be
restrained by proper punishments; and consequently, that to inflict
those punishments should be regarded as a proper and laudable action.
Though man, therefore, be naturally endowed with a desire of the
welfare and preservation of society, yet the Author of nature has not
entrusted 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 regard to all those ends which, upon account of their
peculiar importance, may be regarded, if such an expression is
allowable, as the favourite ends of nature, she has constantly in this
manner not only endowed mankind 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 species, are the great ends which Nature seems to
have proposed 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 dissolution; with a desire of the
continuance and perpetuity of the species, and with an aversion to the
thoughts of its entire extinction. But though we are in this manner
endowed with a very strong desire of those ends, it has not been
intrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations 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 objects, we must not only be affected in the same
manner as he is, but we must perceive this harmony and correspondence
of sentiments between him and ourselves. Thus, though 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 perceive the harmony between
his emotions and mine, I cannot be said to approve of the sentiments
which influence his behaviour. The approbation of propriety therefore
requires, not only that we should entirely sympathize 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 meritorious, and
the proper object of reward. Whether the person who has received the
benefit conceives gratitude 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 sympathies, 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 disapprobation of demerit, and that of
impropriety.]
-----
SECT. 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 gratitude 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 resentment, or excite the sympathetic resentment of the
spectator.
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force, the mere
{71} want of it exposes to no punishment; because the mere want of
beneficence tends to do no real positive evil. It may disappoint of
the {72} 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 recompense his benefactor, when he has it
in his power, and when his benefactor needs his assistance, is, no
doubt, guilty of the blackest ingratitude. The heart of every
impartial spectator rejects all fellow-feeling with the selfishness of
his motives, and he is the proper object of the highest
disapprobation. But still he does no positive hurt to any body. He
only does not do that good which in propriety he ought to have done.
He is the object 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 positive hurt to some particular persons. His want of
gratitude, therefore, cannot be punished. To oblige him by force to
perform, what in gratitude he ought to perform, 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 nearest to what is called a perfect and complete obligation.
What friendship, what generosity, 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 mere 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 {73} 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 mere want of the beneficent virtues,
though it may disappoint us of the good which might reasonably be
expected, neither does, nor attempts to do, any mischief from which we
can have occasion 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 violation exposes to resentment, and consequently 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
proper object of resentment, and of punishment, 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 approve of, that which is employed
to prevent and beat off the injury, and to restrain the offender from
hurting his neighbours. 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 distinction between justice and all the other social
virtues, which has of late been particularly insisted upon by an
author of very great and original genius, that we feel ourselves to be
under a stricter obligation to act according to justice, than
agreeably to friendship, charity, or generosity; that the practice of
these last mentioned virtues seems to be left in some measure to our
own choice, but that, somehow or other, we feel ourselves to be in a
peculiar manner tied, 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 blamable,
or the proper object of disapprobation, from what force may be
employed either to punish or to prevent. That seems blamable which
falls short of that ordinary degree of proper beneficence 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 blamable nor praise-worthy. A father, a son, a
brother, who behaves to the correspondent 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 extraordinary
and {74} 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 blamable in the
other.
Even the most ordinary degree of kindness or beneficence, however,
cannot among equals, be extorted by force. Among equals each
individual is naturally, and antecedent to the institution of civil
government, 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 generous spectator not only approves of
his conduct when he does this, but enters so far into his sentiments
as often to be willing 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 reverence which
might be expected to his father; when brothers are without the usual
degree 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 persuasion. 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 entrusted with the power not only
of preserving the public peace by restraining injustice, but of
promoting the prosperity of the commonwealth, by establishing good
discipline, and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety; he
may prescribe rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual
injuries among fellow-citizens, but command mutual good offices to a
certain degree. When the sovereign commands what is merely
indifferent, and what, antecedent to his orders, might have been
omitted without any blame, it becomes not only blamable but punishable
to disobey him. When he commands, therefore, what, antecedent to any
such order, could not have been omitted without the greatest blame, it
surely becomes much more punishable to be wanting in obedience. Of all
the duties of a lawgiver, however, this perhaps is that which it
requires the greatest delicacy and reserve to execute with propriety
and judgment. To {75} neglect it altogether exposes the commonwealth
to many gross disorders and shocking enormities, and to push it too
far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice.
Though the mere 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
observance 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. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a
negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour. 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 fulfils, however, all the rules of what is
peculiarly 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 beneficent. Those whose
hearts never open to the feelings of humanity, should, we think, be
shut out in the same manner, from the affections of all their
fellow-creatures, and be allowed to live in the midst of society, as
in a great desert where there is nobody to care for them, or to
inquire 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 regard 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 observes the laws of justice with regard to
others, and merely 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 indignation for evil which that other has done to us. To
disturb his happiness merely because it stands in the way of our own,
to take from him what is of real use to him merely because it {76} may
be of equal or of more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at
the expense of other people, the natural preference which every man
has for his own happiness above that of other people, is what no
impartial spectator can go along with. Every man is, no doubt, by
nature, first and principally recommended 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 connexion, 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
though 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. Though 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. Though 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.
Though it may be true, therefore, that every individual, in his own
breast, naturally prefers himself to all mankind, yet he dares not
look mankind in the face, and avow that he acts according to this
principle. 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 extravagant 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 better than any
other in it. If he would act so as that the impartial spectator may
enter 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 something 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 happiness 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, for
honours, and preferments, he may run as hard as he can, and strain
every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his
competitors. But if he should justle, or throw down any of them, the
indulgence of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a violation
of fair play, which they cannot admit of. This man is to them, in
every respect, as good as he: they do not enter into that self-love by
which he prefers himself so {77} 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 injured, and the
offender becomes the object of their hatred and indignation. He is
sensible that he becomes so, and feels that those sentiments are ready
to burst out against him.
As the greater and more irreparable the evil that is done, the
resentment of the sufferer 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 individuals only, in
the sight both of mankind, and of the person who has committed it. To
be deprived of that which we are possessed of, is a greater evil than
to be disappointed of what we have only the expectation. 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 violation 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 promises of
others.
The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on
the sentiments which mankind must entertain with regard to him,
without seeing all the agonies of shame, and horror, and
consternation. When his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to
reflect on his past conduct, he can enter into none of the motives
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 hatred 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 proper
object of the resentment and indignation of mankind, and of what is
the natural consequence of resentment, vengeance 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 imagines
himself as it were rejected, and thrown out from the affections of all
mankind. He cannot hope for the consolation of sympathy in this his
greatest and most dreadful 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
{78} hostile, 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
solitude is still more dreadful than society. His own thoughts can
present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate, and
disastrous, the melancholy forebodings of incomprehensible misery and
ruin. The horror of solitude drives him back into society, and he
comes again into the presence of mankind, astonished to appear before
them, loaded with shame and distracted 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 sentiments which can enter the human heart 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 resentment 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 survey 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
cheerfulness, serenity, and composure. He is in friendship and harmony
with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with confidence
and benevolent satisfaction, secure that he has rendered himself
worthy of their most favourable regards. In the combination of all
these sentiments consists the consciousness of merit, or of deserved
reward.
-----
CHAP. III.--_Of the Utility of this Constitution of Nature._
IT is thus that man, who can subsist only 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
likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is
reciprocally afforded 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,
{79} and are, as it were, thereby drawn to one common centre of mutual
good offices.
But though the necessary assistance should not be afforded from such
generous and disinterested motives, though among the different members
of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, the
society, though less happy and agreeable, will not necessarily be
dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among different
merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or
affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be
bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary
exchange 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 injury begins,
the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the
bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it
consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the
violence and opposition of their discordant 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, though not in the most
comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of
injustice must utterly destroy it.
Though Nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by
the pleasing consciousness 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 building,
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 edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense
fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and 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. In order to
enforce the observation of justice, therefore, Nature has implanted in
the human breast that consciousness of ill-desert, those terrors of
merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great
safeguards of the association of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb
the violent, and to chastise the guilty. Men, though naturally
sympathetic, feel so little for another, with whom they have no
particular connexion, in comparison of what they feel for themselves;
the misery of one, who is merely their fellow-creature, is of so
little importance 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 {80} defence, and overawe them into a
respect for his innocence, they would, like wild beasts, be at all
times ready to fly upon him; and a man would enter an assembly 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 produce; and in
the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is
contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support
of the individual, and the propagation 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 organizations. 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
purposes of circulation or digestion. The wheels of the watch are all
admirably adjusted to the end for which it was made, the pointing of
the hour. All their various motions conspire in the nicest manner to
produce this effect. If they were endowed with a desire and intention
to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we never 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 though, in accounting for the
operations of bodies, we never fail to distinguish in this manner the
efficient 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 recommend 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 thus
deduced from a single principle.
As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably
observed, as no social intercourse can take place among men who do not
generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this
necessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved
of the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those
who violated them. Man, it has been said, has a natural love for
society, and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for
its own sake, and though 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. Its disorder and confusion, on
the {81} contrary, is the object of his aversion, and he is chagrined
at whatever tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own
interest is connected with the prosperity of society, and that the
happiness, perhaps the preservation of his existence, depends upon its
preservation. 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 appearance 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 bear 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 approves of the enforcement of the laws of justice
even by the capital punishment of those who violate 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 injustice. And so far this account is undoubtedly true,
that we frequently have occasion to confirm our natural sense of the
propriety and fitness of punishment, by reflecting 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 insolence of his injustice
is broken and humbled by the terror of his approaching punishment;
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 counterbalance
the impulse of this weak and partial humanity by the dictates of a
humanity that is more generous and comprehensive. 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 defend 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
licentious ridiculing the most sacred rules of morality, and
professing, sometimes from the corruption, but more frequently from
the vanity of their hearts, the most abominable maxims of conduct. Our
indignation rouses, and we are eager to refute and expose such
detestable {82} principles. But though it is their intrinsic
hatefulness and detestableness, 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 because 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 hatred and detestation? But
when they are asked why we should not act in such or such a manner,
the very question seems to suppose 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, therefore,
that it ought to be so for the sake of something else. Upon this
account we generally 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, therefore, to insist upon this topic.
But though 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 unthinking, 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 preservation of society, which
originally interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against
individuals, may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations. The
concern which we take in the fortune and happiness 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 because 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 compounded and made
up of the particular regards which we feel for the different
individuals 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 individual who has been injured. It is
to be observed, however, that this concern does not necessarily
include {83} in it any degree of those exquisite sentiments which are
commonly called love, esteem, and affection, 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 fellow-feeling with his natural
indignation; though with those who are not either extremely candid, or
who have not been accustomed to correct and regulate their natural
sentiments by general rules, it is very apt to damp it.
Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment,
merely from a view to the general interest of society, which, we
imagine, cannot otherwise be secured. Of this kind are all the
punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil
police, or military discipline. 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 disorder in the society. A sentinel, for
example, 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 occasions, appear necessary, and, for that
reason, just and proper. When the preservation 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 great difficulty that our
heart can reconcile itself to it. Though such carelessness appears
very blamable, yet the thought of this crime does not naturally excite
any such resentment as would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge.
A man of humanity must recollect himself, must make an effort, and
exert his whole firmness and resolution, before he can bring himself
either to inflict it, or to go along with it when it is inflicted by
others. It is not, however, in this manner, that he looks upon the
just punishment of an ungrateful murderer or parricide. His heart, in
this case, applauds with ardour, and even with transport, 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 sentiments 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 sentinel 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 {84} 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 another world, that crime which the injustice of mankind had
neglected to chastise upon earth.