imagining that injustice ought to be punished in this life, merely on
account of the order of society, which cannot otherwise be maintained,
that Nature teaches us to hope, and religion, we suppose, authorises
us to expect, that it will be punished, even in a life to come. Our
sense of its ill desert pursues it, if I may say so, even beyond the
grave, though the example of its punishment there cannot serve to
deter the rest of mankind, who see it not, who know it not, from being
guilty of the like practices here. The justice of God, however, we
think, still requires, that he should hereafter avenge the injuries of
the widow and the fatherless, who are here so often insulted with
impunity. In every religion, and in every superstition that the world
has ever beheld, accordingly, there has been a Tartarus as well as an
Elysium; a place provided for the punishment of the wicked, as well as
one for the reward of the just.
-----
SECT. III.--OF THE INFLUENCE OF FORTUNE UPON THE SENTIMENTS OF MANKIND,
WITH REGARD TO THE MERIT OR DEMERIT OF THEIR ACTIONS.
INTRODUCTION.--Whatever praise or blame can be due to any action, must
belong either, first, to the intention or affection of the heart, from
which it proceeds, or, secondly, to the external action or movement of
the body, which this affection gives occasion to; or, lastly, to the
good or bad consequences, which actually, and in fact, proceed from
it. These three different things constitute the whole nature and
circumstances of the action, and must be the foundation of whatever
quality can belong to it.
That the two last of these three circumstances cannot be the
foundation of any praise or blame, is abundantly evident; nor has the
contrary ever been asserted by any body. The external action or
movement of the body is often the same in the most innocent and in the
most blamable actions. He who shoots a bird, and he who shoots a man,
both of them perform the same external movement: each of them draws
the trigger of a gun. The consequences which actually, and in fact,
happen to proceed from any action, are, if possible, still more
indifferent either to praise or blame, than even the external movement
of the body. As they depend, not upon the agent, but upon fortune,
they cannot be {85} the proper foundation for any sentiment, of which
his character and conduct are the objects.
The only consequences for which he can be answerable, or by which he
can deserve either approbation or disapprobation of any kind, are
those which were some way or other intended, or those which, at least,
show some agreeable or disagreeable quality in the intention of the
heart, from which he acted. To the intention or affection of the
heart, therefore, to the propriety or impropriety, to the beneficence
or hurtfulness of the design, all praise or blame, all approbation or
disapprobation, of any kind, which can justly be bestowed upon any
action must ultimately belong.
When this maxim is thus proposed, in abstract and general terms, there
is nobody who does not agree to it. Its self-evident justice is
acknowledged by all the world, and there is not a dissenting voice
among all mankind. Every body allows, that how different soever the
accidental, the unintended and unforeseen consequences of different
actions, yet, if the intentions or affections from which they arose
were, on the one hand, equally proper and equally beneficent, or, on
the other, equally improper and equally malevolent, the merit or
demerit of the actions is still the same, and the agent is equally the
suitable object either of gratitude or of resentment.
But how well soever we may seem to be persuaded of the truth of this
equitable maxim, when we consider it after this manner, in abstract,
yet when we come to particular cases, the actual consequences which
happen to proceed from any action, have a very great effect upon our
sentiments concerning its merit or demerit, and almost always either
enhance or diminish our sense of both. Scarce, in any one instance,
perhaps, will our sentiments be found, after examination, to be
entirely regulated by this rule, which we all acknowledge ought
entirely to regulate them.
This irregularity of sentiment, which every body feels, which scarce
any body is sufficiently aware of, and which nobody is willing to
acknowledge, I proceed now to explain; and I shall consider, first,
the cause which gives occasion to it, or the mechanism by which Nature
produces it; secondly, the extent of its influence; and, last of all,
the end which it answers, or the purpose which the Author of nature
seems to have intended by it.
-----
CHAP. I.--_Of the Causes of this Influence of Fortune._
THE causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they are, or however they
operate, seem to be the objects, which, in all animals, immediately
excite those two passions of gratitude and resentment. They are
excited by inanimated, as well as by animated objects. We are angry,
for a {86} moment, even at the stone that hurts us. A child beats it,
a dog barks at it, a choleric man is apt to curse it. The least
reflection, indeed, corrects this sentiment, and we soon become
sensible, that what has no feeling is a very improper object of
revenge. When the mischief, however, is very great, the object which
caused it becomes disagreeable to us ever after, and we take pleasure
to burn or destroy it. We should treat, in this manner, the instrument
which had accidentally been the cause of the death of a friend, and we
should often think ourselves guilty of a sort of inhumanity, if we
neglected to vent this absurd sort of vengeance upon it.
We conceive, in the same manner, a sort of gratitude for those
inanimated objects, which have been the causes of great or frequent
pleasure to us. The sailor, who, as soon as he got ashore, should mend
his fire with the plank upon which he had just escaped from a
shipwreck, would seem to be guilty of an unnatural action. We should
expect that he would rather preserve it with care and affection, as a
monument that was, in some measure, dear to him. A man grows fond of a
snuffbox, of a pen-knife, of a staff which he has long made use of,
and conceives something like a real love and affection for them. If he
breaks or loses them, he is vexed out of all proportion to the value
of the damage. The house which we have long lived in, the tree, whose
verdure and shade we have long enjoyed, are both looked upon with a
sort of respect that seems due to such benefactors. The decay of the
one, or the ruin of the other, affects us with a kind of melancholy,
though we should sustain no loss by it. The Dryads and the Lares of
the ancients, a sort of genii of trees and houses, were probably first
suggested by this sort of affection, which the authors of those
superstitions felt for such objects, and which seemed unreasonable, if
there was nothing animated about them.
But, before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude or
resentment, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain, it must
likewise be capable of feeling them. Without this other quality, those
passions cannot vent themselves with any sort of satisfaction upon it.
As they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain, so their
gratification consists in retaliating those sensations upon what gave
occasion to them; which it is to no purpose to attempt upon what has
no sensibility. Animals, therefore, are less improper objects of
gratitude and resentment than animated objects. The dog that bites,
the ox that gores, are both of them punished. If they have been the
causes of the death of any person, neither the public, nor the
relations of the slain, can be satisfied, unless they are put to death
in their turn: nor is this merely for the security of the living, but,
in some measure, to revenge the injury of the dead. Those animals, on
the contrary, that have been remarkably serviceable to their masters,
become the objects of a very lively gratitude. We are shocked at the
brutality of that officer, {87} mentioned in the Turkish Spy, who
stabbed the horse that had carried him across an arm of the sea, lest
that animal should afterwards distinguish some other person by a
similar adventure.
But, though animals are not only the causes of pleasure and pain, but
are also capable of feeling those sensations, they are still far from
being complete and perfect objects, either of gratitude or resentment;
and those passions still feel, that there is something wanting to
their entire gratification. What gratitude chiefly desires, is not
only to make the benefactor feel pleasure in his turn, but to make him
conscious that he meets with this reward on account of his past
conduct, to make him pleased with that conduct, and to satisfy him
that the person upon whom he bestowed his good offices was not
unworthy of them. What most of all charms us in our benefactor, is the
concord between his sentiments and our own, with regard to what
interests us so nearly as the worth of our own character, and the
esteem that is due to us. We are delighted to find a person who values
us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of
mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish
ourselves. To maintain in him these agreeable and flattering
sentiments, is one of the chief ends proposed by the returns we are
disposed to make to him. A generous mind often disdains the interested
thought of extorting new favours from its benefactor, by what may be
called the importunities of its gratitude. But to preserve and to
increase his esteem, is an interest which the greatest mind does not
think unworthy of its attention. And this is the foundation of what I
formerly observed, and when we cannot enter into the motives of our
benefactor, when his conduct and character appear unworthy of our
approbation, let his services have been ever so great, our gratitude
is always sensibly diminished. We are less flattered by the
distinction; and to preserve the esteem of so weak, or so worthless a
patron, seems to be an object which does not deserve to be pursued for
its own sake.
The object, on the contrary, which resentment is chiefly intent upon,
is not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his turn, as to make him
conscious that he feels it upon account of his past conduct, to make
him repent of that conduct, and to make him sensible, that the person
whom he injured did not deserve to be treated in that manner. What
chiefly enrages us against the man who injures or insults us, is the
little account which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable
preference which he gives to himself above us, and that absurd
self-love, by which he seems to imagine, that other people may be
sacrificed at any time, to his conveniency or his humour. The glaring
impropriety of his conduct, the gross insolence and injustice which it
seems to involve in it, often shock and exasperate us more than all
the mischief which we have suffered. To bring him back to a more just
sense of what is due to other people, to make him sensible of what he
owes us, and of the wrong that he has {88} done to us, is frequently
the principal end proposed in our revenge, which is always imperfect
when it cannot **accomplish this. When our enemy appears to have done us
no injury, when we are sensible that he acted quite properly, that, in
his situation, we should have done the same thing, and that we
deserved from him all the mischief we met with; in that case, if we
have the least spark either of candour or justice, we can entertain no
sort of resentment.
Before any thing, therefore, can be the complete and proper object,
either of gratitude or resentment, it must possess three different
qualifications. First, it must be the cause of pleasure in the one
case, and of pain in the other. Secondly, it must be capable of
feeling those sensations. And, thirdly, it must not only have produced
those sensations, but it must have produced them from design, and from
a design that is approved of in the one case, and disapproved of in
the other. It is by the first qualification, that any object is
capable of exciting those passions: it is by the second, that it is in
any respect capable of gratifying them: the third qualification is not
only necessary for their complete satisfaction, but as it gives a
pleasure or pain that is both exquisite and peculiar, it is likewise
an additional exciting cause of those passions.
As what gives pleasure or pain, therefore, either in one way or
another, is the sole exciting cause of gratitude and resentment;
though the intentions of any person should be ever so proper and
beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so improper and malevolent on the
other; yet, if he has failed in producing either the good or the evil
which he intended, as one of the exciting causes is wanting in both
cases, less gratitude seems due to him in the one, and less resentment
in the other. And, on the contrary, though in the intentions of any
person, there was either no laudable degree of benevolence on the one
hand, or no blamable degree of malice on the other; yet, if his
actions should produce either great good or great evil, as one of the
exciting causes takes place upon both these occasions, some gratitude
is apt to arise towards him in the one, and some resentment in the
other. A shadow of merit seems to fall upon him in the first, a shadow
of demerit in the second. And, as the consequences of actions are
altogether under the empire of Fortune, hence arises her influence
upon the sentiments of mankind with regard to merit and demerit.
-----
CHAP. II.--_Of the Extent of this Influence of Fortune._
THE effect of this influence of fortune is, first, to diminish our
sense of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the
most laudable or blamable intentions, when they fail of producing
their proposed effects: and, secondly, to increase our sense of the
merit or demerit of {89} actions, beyond what is due to the motives or
affections from which they proceed, when they accidentally give
occasion either to extraordinary pleasure or pain.
1. First, I say, though the intentions of any person should be ever so
proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so improper and
malevolent, on the other, yet, if they fail in producing their
effects, his merit seems imperfect in the one case, and his demerit
incomplete in the other. Nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt
only by those who are immediately affected by the consequence of any
action. It is felt, in some measure, even by the impartial spectator.
The man who solicits an office for another, without obtaining it, is
regarded as his friend, and seems to deserve his love and affection.
But the man who not only solicits, but procures it, is more peculiarly
considered as his patron and benefactor, and is entitled to his
respect and gratitude. The person obliged, we are apt to think, may,
with some justice, imagine himself on a level with the first: but we
cannot enter into his sentiments, if he does not feel himself inferior
to the second. It is common indeed to say, that we are equally obliged
to the man who has endeavoured to serve, as to him who actually did
so. It is the speech which we constantly make upon every unsuccessful
attempt of this kind; but which, like all other fine speeches, must be
understood with a grain of allowance. The sentiments which a man of
generosity entertains for the friend who fails, may often indeed be
nearly the same with those which he conceives for him who succeeds:
and the more generous he is, the more nearly will those sentiments
approach to an exact level. With the truly generous, to be beloved, to
be esteemed by those whom they themselves think worthy of esteem,
gives more pleasure, and thereby excites more gratitude, than all the
advantages which they can ever expect from those sentiments. When they
lose those advantages therefore, they seem to lose but a trifle, which
is scarce worth regarding. They still however lose something. Their
pleasure therefore, and consequently their gratitude, is not perfectly
complete: and accordingly if, between the friend who fails and the
friend who succeeds, all other circumstances are equal, there will,
even in the noblest and best mind, be some little difference of
affection in favour of him who succeeds. Nay, so unjust are mankind in
this respect, that though the intended benefit should be procured, yet
if it is not procured by the means of a particular benefactor, they
are apt to think that less gratitude is due to the man, who with the
best intentions in the world could do no more than help it a little
forward. As their gratitude is in this case divided among the
different persons who contributed to their pleasure, a smaller share
of it seems due to any one. Such a person, we hear men commonly say,
intended no doubt to serve us; and we really believe exerted himself
to the utmost of his abilities for that purpose. We are not, however,
obliged to him for this benefit; {90} since, had it not been for the
concurrence of others, all that he could have done would never have
brought it about. This consideration, they imagine, should, even in
the eyes of the impartial spectator, diminish the debt which they owe
to him. The person himself who has unsuccessfully endeavoured to
confer a benefit, has by no means the same dependency upon the
gratitude of the man whom he meant to oblige, nor the same sense of
his own merit towards him, which he would have had in the case of
success.
Even the merit of talents and abilities which some accident has
hindered from producing their effects, seems in some measure
imperfect, even to those who are fully convinced of their capacity to
produce them. The general who has been hindered by the envy of
ministers from gaining some great advantage over the enemies of his
country, regrets the loss of the opportunity for ever after. Nor is it
only upon account of the public that he regrets it. He laments that he
was hindered from performing an action which would have added a new
lustre to his character in his own eyes, as well as in those of every
other person. It satisfies neither himself nor others to reflect that
the plan or design was all that depended on him, that no greater
capacity was required to execute it than what was necessary to concert
it: that he was allowed to be every way capable of executing it, and
that had he been permitted to go on, success was infallible. He still
did not execute it; and though he might deserve all the approbation
which is due to a magnanimous and great design, he still wanted the
actual merit of having performed a great action. To take the
management of any affair of public concern from the man who has almost
brought it to a conclusion, is regarded as the most invidious
injustice. As he had done so much, he should, we think, have been
allowed to acquire the complete merit of putting an end to it. It was
objected to Pompey, that he came in upon the victories of Lucullus,
and gathered those laurels which were due to the fortune and valour of
another. The glory of Lucullus, it seems, was less complete even in
the opinion of his own friends, when he was not permitted to finish
that conquest which his conduct and courage had put in the power of
almost any man to finish. It mortifies an architect when his plans are
either not executed at all, or when they are so far altered as to
spoil the effect of the building. The plan, however, is all that
depends upon the architect. The whole of his genius is, to good
judges, as completely discovered in that as in the actual execution.
But a plan does not, even to the most intelligent, give the same
pleasure as a noble and magnificent building. They may discover as
much both of taste and genius in the one as in the other. But their
effects are still vastly different, and the amusement derived from the
first, never approaches to the wonder and admiration which are
sometimes excited by the second. We may believe of many men, that
their talents are {91} superior to those of Cæsar and Alexander; and
that in the same situations they would perform still greater actions.
In the mean time, however, we do not behold them with that
astonishment and admiration with which those two heroes have been
regarded in all ages and nations. The calm judgments of the mind may
approve of them more, but they want the splendour of great actions to
dazzle and transport it. The superiority of virtues and talents has
not, even upon those who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect
with the superiority of achievements.
As the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to do good seems thus, in the
eyes of ungrateful mankind, to be diminished by the miscarriage, so
does likewise the demerit of an unsuccessful attempt to do evil. The
design to commit a crime, how clearly soever it may be proved, is
scarce ever punished with the same severity as the actual commission
of it. The case of treason is perhaps the only exception. That crime
immediately affecting the being of the government itself, the
government is naturally more jealous of it than of any other. In the
punishment of treason, the sovereign resents the injuries which are
immediately done to himself: in the punishment of other crimes he
resents those which are done to other men. It is his own resentment
which he indulges in the one case; it is that of his subjects which by
sympathy he enters into in the other. In the first case, therefore, as
he judges in his own cause, he is very apt to be more violent and
sanguinary in his punishments than the impartial spectator can approve
of. His resentment too rises here upon smaller occasions, and does not
always, as in other cases, wait for the perpetration of the crime, or
even for the attempt to commit it. A treasonable concert, though
nothing has been done, or even attempted in consequence of it, nay, a
treasonable conversation, is in many countries punished in the same
manner as the actual commission of treason. With regard to all other
crimes, the mere design, upon which no attempt has followed, is seldom
punished at all, and is never punished severely. A criminal design,
and a criminal action, it may be said indeed, do not necessarily
suppose the same degree of depravity, and ought not therefore to be
subjected to the same punishment. We are capable, it may be said, of
resolving, and even of taking measures to execute, many things which,
when it comes to the point, we feel ourselves altogether incapable of
executing. But this reason can have no place when the design has been
carried the length of the last attempt. The man, however, who fires a
pistol at his enemy but misses him, is punished with death by the laws
of scarce any country. By the old law of Scotland, though he should
wound him, yet, unless death ensues within a certain time, the
assassin is not liable to the last punishment. The resentment of
mankind, however, runs so high against this crime, their terror for
the man who shows himself capable of committing it is so great, that
the mere attempt to {92} commit it ought in all countries to be
capital. The attempt to commit smaller crimes is almost always
punished very lightly, and sometimes is not punished at all. The
thief, whose hand has been caught in his neighbour's pocket before he
had taken any thing out of it, is punished with ignominy only. If he
had got time to take away an handkerchief, he might have been put to
death. The house-breaker, who has been found setting a ladder to his
neighbour's window, but had not got into it, is not exposed to the
capital punishment. The attempt to ravish is not punished as a rape.
The attempt to seduce a married woman is not punished at all, though
seduction is punished severely. Our resentment against the person who
only attempted to do a mischief, is seldom so strong as to bear us out
in inflicting the same punishment upon him, which we should have
thought due if he had actually done it. In the one case, the joy of
our deliverance alleviates our sense of the atrocity of his conduct;
in the other, the grief of our misfortune increases it. His real
demerit, however, is undoubtedly the same in both cases, since his
intentions were equally criminal; and there is in this respect,
therefore an irregularity in the sentiments of all men, and a
consequent relaxation of discipline in the laws of, I believe, all
nations of the most civilized, as well as of the most barbarous. The
humanity of a civilized people disposes them either to dispense with,
or to mitigate punishments, wherever their natural indignation is not
goaded on by the consequences of the crime. Barbarians, on the other
hand, when no actual consequence has happened from any action, are not
apt to be very delicate or inquisitive about the motives.
The person himself who either from passion, or from the influence of
bad company, has resolved, and perhaps taken measures to perpetrate
some crime, but who has fortunately been prevented by an accident
which put it out of his power, is sure, if he has any remains of
conscience, to regard this event all his life after as a great and
signal deliverance. He can never think of it without returning thanks
to Heaven, for having been thus graciously pleased to save him from
the guilt in which he was just ready to plunge himself, and to hinder
him from rendering all the rest of his life a scene of horror,
remorse, and repentance. But though his hands are innocent, he is
conscious that his heart is equally guilty as if he had actually
executed what he was so fully resolved upon. It gives great ease to
his conscience, however, to consider that the crime was not executed,
though he knows that the failure arose from no virtue in him. He still
considers himself as less deserving of punishment and resentment; and
this good fortune either diminishes, or takes away altogether, all
sense of guilt. To remember how much he was resolved upon it, has no
other effect than to make him regard his escape as the greater and
more miraculous: for he still fancies that he has escaped, and he
looks back upon the danger to which his peace of mind was exposed,
with that terror, with which one {93} who is in safety may sometimes
remember the hazard he was in of falling over a precipice, and shudder
with horror at the thought.
2. The second effect of this influence of fortune, is to increase our
sense of the merit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the
motives or affection from which they proceed, when they happen to give
occasion to extraordinary pleasure or pain. The agreeable or
disagreeable effects of the action often throw a shadow of merit or
demerit upon the agent, though in his intention there was nothing that
deserved either praise or blame, or at least that deserved them in the
degree in which we are apt to bestow them. Thus, even the messenger of
bad news is disagreeable to us, and, on the contrary, we feel a sort
of gratitude for the man who brings us good tidings. For a moment we
look upon them both as the authors, the one of our good, the other of
our bad fortune, and regard them in some measure as if they had really
brought about the events which they only give an account of. The first
author of our joy is naturally the object of a transitory gratitude:
we embrace him with warmth and affection, and should be glad, during
the instant of our prosperity, to reward him as for some signal
service. By the custom of all courts, the officer, who brings the news
of a victory, is entitled to considerable preferments, and the general
always chooses one of his principal favourites to go upon so agreeable
an errand. The first author of our sorrow is, on the contrary, just as
naturally the object of a transitory resentment. We can scarce avoid
looking upon him with chagrin and uneasiness; and the rude and brutal
are apt to vent upon him that spleen which his intelligence gives
occasion to. Tigranes, King of Armenia, struck off the head of the man
who brought him the first account of the approach of a formidable
enemy. To punish in this manner the author of bad tidings, seems
barbarous and inhuman: yet, to reward the messenger of good news, is
not disagreeable to us; we think it suitable to the bounty of kings.
But why do we make this difference, since, if there is no fault in the
one, neither is there any merit in the other? It is because any sort
of reason seems sufficient to authorize the exertion of the social and
benevolent affections; but it requires the most solid and substantial
to make us enter into that of the unsocial and malevolent.
But though in general we are averse to enter into the unsocial and
malevolent affections, though we lay it down for a rule that we ought
never to approve of their gratification, unless so far as the
malicious and unjust intention of the person, against whom they are
directed, renders him their proper object; yet, upon some occasions,
we relax of this severity. When the negligence of one man has
occasioned some unintended damage to another, we generally enter so
far into the resentment of the sufferer, as to approve of his
inflicting a punishment upon the offender much beyond what the offence
would have appeared to deserve, had no such unlucky consequence
followed from it.
{94} There is a degree of negligence, which would appear to deserve
some chastisement though it should occasion no damage to any body.
Thus, if a person should throw a large stone over a wall into a public
street without giving warning to those who might be passing by, and
without regarding where it was likely to fall, he would undoubtedly
deserve some chastisement. A very accurate police would punish so
absurd an action, even though it had done no mischief. The person who
has been guilty of it, shows an insolent contempt of the happiness and
safety of others. There is real injustice in his conduct. He wantonly
exposes his neighbour to what no man in his senses would choose to
expose himself, and evidently wants that sense of what is due to his
fellow-creatures, which is the basis of justice and of society. Gross
negligence therefore is, in the law, said to be almost equal to
malicious design. (Lata culpa prope dolum est.) When any unlucky
consequences happen from such carelessness, the person who has been
guilty of it, is often punished as if he had really intended those
consequences; and his conduct, which was only thoughtless and
insolent, and what deserved some chastisement, is considered as
atrocious, and as liable to the severest punishment. Thus if, by the
imprudent action above-mentioned, he should accidentally kill a man,
he is, by the laws of many countries, particularly by the old law of
Scotland, liable to the last punishment. And though this is no doubt
excessively severe, it is not altogether inconsistent with our natural
sentiments. Our just indignation against the folly and inhumanity of
his conduct is exasperated by our sympathy with the unfortunate
sufferer. Nothing, however, would appear more shocking to our natural
sense of equity, than to bring a man to the scaffold merely for having
thrown a stone carelessly into the street without hurting any body.
The folly and inhumanity of his conduct, however, would in this case
be the same; but still our sentiments would be very different. The
consideration of this difference may satisfy us how much the
indignation, even of the spectator, is apt to be animated by the
actual consequences of the action. In cases of this kind there will,
if I am not mistaken, be found a great degree of severity in the laws
of almost all nations; as I have already observed that in those of an
opposite kind there was a very general relaxation of discipline.
There is another degree of negligence which does not involve in it any
sort of injustice. The person who is guilty of it treats his neighbour
as he treats himself, means no harm to any body, and is far from
entertaining any insolent contempt for the safety and happiness of
others. He is not, however, so careful and circumspect in his conduct
as he ought to be, and deserves upon this account some degree of blame
and censure, but no sort of punishment. Yet if, by a negligence (Culpa
levis) of this kind he should occasion some damage to another person,
he is by the laws of, I believe, all countries, obliged to compensate
it. {95} And though this is, no doubt, a real punishment, and what no
mortal would have thought of inflicting upon him, had it not been for
the unlucky accident which his conduct gave occasion to; yet this
decision of the law is approved of by the natural sentiments of all
mankind. Nothing, we think, can be more just than that one man should
not suffer by the carelessness of another; and that the damage
occasioned by blamable negligence, should be made up by the person who
was guilty of it.
There is another species of negligence (Culpa levissima), which
consists merely in a want of the most anxious timidity and
circumspection, with regard to all the possible consequences of our
actions. The want of this painful attention, when no bad consequences
follow from it, is so far from being regarded as blamable, that the
contrary quality is rather considered as such. That timid
circumspection which is afraid of every thing, is never regarded as a
virtue, but as a quality which more than any other incapacitates for
action and business. Yet when, from a want of this excessive care, a
person happens to occasion some damage to another, he is often by the
law obliged to compensate it. Thus, by the Aquilian law, the man, who
not being able to manage a horse that had accidentally taken fright,
should happen to ride down his neighbour's slave, is obliged to
compensate the damage. When an accident of this kind happens, we are
apt to think that he ought not to have rode such a horse, and to
regard his attempting it as an unpardonable levity; though without
this accident we should not only have made no such reflection, but
should have regarded his refusing it as the effect of timid weakness,
and of an anxiety about merely possible events, which it is to no
purpose to be aware of. The person himself, who by an accident even of
this kind has involuntarily hurt another, seems to have some sense of
his own ill desert, with regard to him. He naturally runs up to the
sufferer to express his concern for what has happened, and to make
every acknowledgment in his power. If he has any sensibility, he
necessarily desires to compensate the damage, and to do every thing he
can to appease that animal resentment which he is sensible will be apt
to arise in the breast of the sufferer. To make no apology, to offer
no atonement, is regarded as the highest brutality. Yet why should he
make an apology more than any other person? Why should he, since he
was equally innocent with any other by-stander, be thus singled out
from among all mankind, to make up for the bad fortune of another?
This task would surely never be imposed upon him, did not even the
impartial spectator feel some indulgence for what may be regarded as
the unjust resentment of that other.
-----
{96}
CHAP. III.--_Of the final Cause of this Irregularity of
Sentiments._
SUCH is the effect of the good or bad consequence of actions upon the
sentiments both of the person who performs them, and of others; and
thus, Fortune, which governs the world, has some influence where we
should be least willing to allow her any, and directs in some measure
the sentiments of mankind, with regard to the character and conduct
both of themselves and others. That the world judges by the event, and
not by the design, has been in all ages the complaint, and is the
great discouragement of virtue. Every body agrees to the general
maxim, that as the event does not depend on the agent, it ought to
have no influence upon our sentiments, with regard to the merit or
propriety of his conduct. But when we come to particulars, we find
that our sentiments are scarce in any one instance exactly conformable
to what this equitable maxim would direct. The happy or unprosperous
event of any action, is not only apt to give us a good or bad opinion
of the prudence with which it was conducted, but almost always too
animates our gratitude or resentment, our sense of the merit or
demerit of the design.
Nature, however, when she implanted the seeds of this irregularity in
the human breast, seems, as upon all other occasions, to have intended
the happiness and perfection of the species. If the hurtfulness of the
design, if the malevolence of the affection, were alone the causes
which excited our resentment, we should feel all the furies of that
passion against any person in whose breast we suspected or believed
such designs or affections were harboured, though they had never broke
out into any actions. Sentiments, thoughts, intentions, would become
the objects of punishment; and if the indignation of mankind run as
high against them as against actions; if the baseness of the thought
which had given birth to no action, seemed in the eyes of the world as
much to call aloud for vengeance as the baseness of the action, every
court of judicature would become a real inquisition. There would be no
safety for the most innocent and circumspect conduct. Bad wishes, bad
views, bad designs, might still be suspected: and while these excited
the same indignation with bad conduct, while bad intentions were as
much resented as bad actions, they would equally expose the person to
punishment and resentment. Actions, therefore, which either produce
actual evil, or attempt to produce it, and thereby put us in the
immediate fear of it, are by the Author of nature rendered the only
proper and approved objects of human punishment and resentment.
Sentiments, designs, affections, though it is from these that
according to cool reason human actions derive their whole merit or
demerit, are placed by the great Judge of hearts beyond the limits of
every human jurisdiction, and are reserved for the cognisance of his
own unerring tribunal. That necessary rule of justice, therefore, that
{97} men in this life are liable to punishment for their actions only,
not for their designs and intentions, is founded upon this salutary
and useful irregularity in human sentiments concerning merit or
demerit, which at first sight appears so absurd and unaccountable. But
every part of nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates
the providential care of its Author, and we may admire the wisdom and
goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of men.
Nor is that irregularity of sentiments altogether without its utility,
by which the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to serve, and much more
that of mere good inclinations and kind wishes, appears to be
imperfect. Man was made for action, and to promote by the exertion of
his faculties such changes in the external circumstances both of
himself and others, as may seem most favourable to the happiness of
all. He must not be satisfied with indolent benevolence, nor fancy
himself the friend of mankind, because in his heart he wishes well to
the prosperity of the world. That he may call forth the whole vigour
of his soul, and strain every nerve, in order to produce those ends
which it is the purpose of his being to advance, Nature has taught
him, that neither himself nor mankind can be fully satisfied with his
conduct, nor bestow upon it the full measure of applause, unless he
has actually produced them. He is made to know, that the praise of
good intentions, without the merit of good offices, will be but of
little avail to excite either the loudest acclamations of the world,
or even the highest degree of self applause. The man who has performed
no single action of importance, but whose whole conversation and
deportment express the justest, the noblest, and most generous
sentiments, can be entitled to demand no very high reward, even though
his inutility should be owing to nothing but the want of an
opportunity to serve. We can still refuse it him without blame. We can
still ask him, What have you done? What actual service can you
produce, to entitle you to so great a recompense? We esteem you, and
love you; but we owe you nothing. To reward indeed that latent virtue
which has been useless only for want of an opportunity to serve, to
bestow upon it those honours and preferments, which, though in some
measure it may be said to deserve them, it could not with propriety
have insisted upon, is the effect of the most divine benevolence. To
punish, on the contrary, for the affections of the heart only, where
no crime has been committed, is the most insolent and barbarous
tyranny. The benevolent affections seem to deserve most praise, when
they do not wait till it becomes almost a crime for them not to exert
themselves. The malevolent, on the contrary, can scarce be too tardy,
too slow, or deliberate.
It is even of considerable importance, that the evil which is done
without design should be regarded as a misfortune to the doer as well
as to the sufferer. Man is thereby taught to reverence the happiness
of his brethren, to tremble lest he should, even unknowingly, do any
thing {98} that can hurt them, and to dread that animal resentment
which, he feels, is ready to burst out against him, if he should,
without design, be the unhappy instrument of their calamity. As in the
ancient heathen religion, that holy ground which had been consecrated
to some god, was not to be trod upon but upon solemn and necessary
occasions, and the man who had even ignorantly violated it, became
piacular from that moment, and, until proper atonement should be made,
incurred the vengeance of that powerful and invisible being to whom it
had been set apart; so by the wisdom of nature, the happiness of every
innocent man is, in the same manner, rendered holy, consecrated, and
hedged round against the approach of every other man; not to be
wantonly trod upon, not even to be, in any respect, ignorantly and
involuntarily violated, without requiring some expiation, some
atonement in proportion to the greatness of such undesigned violation.
A man of humanity, who accidentally, and without the smallest degree
of blamable negligence, has been the cause of the death of another
man, feels himself piacular, though not guilty. During his whole life
he considers this accident as one of the greatest misfortunes that
could have befallen him. If the family of the slain is poor, and he
himself in tolerable circumstances, he immediately takes them under
his protection, and, without any other merit, thinks them entitled to
every degree of favour and kindness. If they are in better
circumstances, he endeavours by every submission, by every expression
of sorrow, by rendering them every good office which he can devise or
they accept of, to atone for what has happened, and to propitiate, as
much as possible, their, perhaps natural, though no doubt most unjust
resentment, for the great, though involuntary, offence which he has
given unto them.
The distress which an innocent person feels, who, by some accident,
has been led to do something which, if it had been done with knowledge
and design, would have justly exposed him to the deepest reproach, has
given occasion to some of the finest and most interesting scenes both
of the ancient and of the modern drama. It is this fallacious sense of
guilt, if I may call it so, which constitutes the whole distress of
Oedipus and Jocasta upon the Greek, of Monimia and Isabella upon the
English, theatre. They are all in the highest degree piacular, though
not one of them is in the smallest degree guilty.
Notwithstanding, however, all these seeming irregularities of
sentiment, if man should unfortunately either give occasion to those
evils which he did not intend, or fail in producing that good which he
intended, Nature has not left his innocence altogether without
consolation, nor his virtue altogether without reward. He then calls
to his assistance that just and equitable maxim, That those events
which did not depend upon our conduct, ought not to diminish the
esteem that is due to us. He summons up his whole magnanimity and
firmness of {99} soul, and strives to regard himself, not in the light
in which he at present appears, but in that in which he ought to
appear, in which he would have appeared had his generous designs been
crowned with success, and in which he would still appear,
notwithstanding their miscarriage, if the sentiments of mankind were
either altogether candid and equitable, or even perfectly consistent
with themselves. The more candid and humane part of mankind entirely
go along with the efforts which he thus makes to support himself in
his own opinion. They exert their whole generosity and greatness of
mind, to correct in themselves this irregularity of human nature, and
endeavour to regard his unfortunate magnanimity in the same light in
which, had it been successful, they would, without any such generous
exertion, have naturally been disposed to consider it.
-----
_Part III. Of the Foundation of our Judgments concerning our own
Sentiments and Conduct, and of the Sense of Duty._
CHAP. I.--_Of the Principle of Self-approbation and of Self
-disapprobation._
IN the two foregoing parts of this discourse, I have chiefly
considered the origin and foundation of our judgments concerning the
sentiments and conduct of others. I come now to consider more
particularly the origin of those concerning our own.
The principle by which we naturally either approve or disapprove of
our own conduct, seems to be altogether the same with that by which we
exercise the like judgments concerning the conduct of other people. We
either approve or disapprove of the conduct of another man according
as we feel that, when we bring his case home to ourselves, we either
can or cannot entirely sympathize with the sentiments and motives
which directed it. And, in the same manner, we either approve or
disapprove of our own conduct, according as we feel that, when we
place ourselves in the situation of another man, and view it, as it
were, with his eyes and from his station, we either can or cannot
entirely enter into and sympathize with the sentiments and motives
which influenced it. We can never survey our own sentiments and
motives, we can never form any judgment concerning them; unless we
remove ourselves, as it were, from our own natural station, and
endeavour to view them as at a certain distance from us. But we can do
this in no other way than by endeavouring to view them with the eyes
of other people, or as other people are likely to view them. Whatever
judgment we can form concerning them, accordingly, must always bear
some secret reference, either to what are, or to what, upon a certain
condition, {100} would be, or to what, we imagine, ought to be the
judgment of others. We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we
imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it. If,
upon placing ourselves in his situation, we thoroughly enter into all
the passions and motives which influenced it, we approve of it, by
sympathy with the approbation of this supposed equitable judge. If
otherwise, we enter into his disapprobation, and condemn it.
Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in
some solitary place, without any communication with his own species,
he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or
demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity
of his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. All
these are objects which he cannot easily see, which naturally he does
not look at, and with regard to which he is provided with no mirror
which can present them to his view. Bring him into society, and he is
immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before. It is
placed in the countenance and behaviour of those he lives with, which
always mark when they enter into, and when they disapprove of his
sentiments; and it is here that he first views the propriety and
impropriety of his own passions, the beauty and deformity of his own
mind. To a man who from his birth was a stranger to society, the
objects of his passions, the external bodies which either pleased or
hurt him, would occupy his whole attention. The passions themselves,
the desires or aversions, the joys or sorrows, which those objects
excited, though of all things the most immediately present to him,
could scarce ever be the objects of his thoughts. The idea of them
could never interest him so much as to call upon his attentive
consideration. The consideration of his joy could in him excite no new
joy, nor that of his sorrow any new sorrow, though the consideration
of the causes of those passions might often excite both. Bring him
into society and all his own passions will immediately become the
causes of new passions. He will observe that mankind approve of some
of them, and are disgusted by others. He will be elevated in the one
case, and cast down in the other; his desires and aversions, his joys
and sorrows, will now often become the causes of new desires and new
aversions, new joys and new sorrows: they will now, therefore,
interest him deeply, and often call upon his most attentive
consideration.
Our first ideas of personal beauty and deformity, are drawn from the
shape and appearance of others, not from our own. We soon become
sensible, however, that others exercise the same criticism upon us. We
are pleased when they approve of our figure, and are disobliged when
they seem to be disgusted. We become anxious to know how far our
appearance deserves either their blame or approbation. We examine our
persons limb by limb, and by placing ourselves before a looking-glass,
or by some such expedient, endeavour as much as {101} possible, to
view ourselves at the distance and with the eyes of other people. If,
after this examination, we are satisfied with our own appearance, we
can more easily support the most disadvantageous judgments of others.
If, on the contrary, we are sensible that we are the natural objects
of distaste, every appearance of their disapprobation mortifies us
beyond all measure. A man who is tolerably handsome, will allow you to
laugh at any little irregularity in his person; but all such jokes are
commonly unsupportable to one who is really deformed. It is evident,
however, that we are anxious about our own beauty and deformity, only
upon account of its effect upon others. If we had no connexion with
society, we should be altogether indifferent about either.
In the same manner our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the
characters and conduct of other people; and we are all very forward to
observe how each of these affects us. But we soon learn, that other
people are equally frank with regard to our own. We become anxious to
know how far we deserve their censure or applause, and whether to them
we must necessarily appear those agreeable or disagreeable creatures
which they represent us. We begin, upon this account, to examine our
own passions and conduct, and to consider how these must appear to
them; by considering how they would appear to us if in their
situation. We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour,
and endeavour to imagine what effect it would, in this light, produce
upon us. This is the only looking-glass by which we can, in some
measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety of
our own conduct. If in this view it pleases us, we are tolerably
satisfied. We can be more indifferent about the applause, and, in some
measure, despise the censure of the world; secure that, however
misunderstood or misrepresented, we are the natural and proper objects
of approbation. On the contrary, if we are doubtful about it, we are
often, upon that very account, more anxious to gain their approbation,
and, provided we have not already, as they say, shaken hands with
infamy, we are altogether distracted at the thoughts of their censure,
which then strikes us with double severity.
When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass
sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident
that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two
persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different
character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into
and judged of. The first is the spectator, whose sentiments with
regard to my own conduct I endeavour to enter into, by placing myself
in his situation, and by considering how it would appear to me, when
seen from that particular point of view. The second is the agent, the
person whom I properly call myself, and of whose conduct, under the
character of a spectator, I was endeavouring to form some opinion. The
first is the judge; the second the person judged of. But that the
{102} judge should, in every respect, be the same with the person
judged of, is as impossible, as that the cause should, in every
respect, be the same with the effect.
To be amiable and to be meritorious; that is, to deserve love and to
deserve reward, are the great characters of virtue; and to be odious
and punishable, of vice. But all these characters have an immediate
reference to the sentiments of others. Virtue is not said to be
amiable, or to be meritorious, because it is the object of its own
love, or of its own gratitude; but because it excites those sentiments
in other men. The consciousness that it is the object of such
favourable regards, is the source of that inward tranquillity and
self-satisfaction with which it is naturally attended, as the
suspicion of the contrary gives occasion to the torments of vice. What
so great happiness as to be beloved, and to know that we deserve to be
beloved? What so great misery as to be hated, and to know that we
deserve to be hated?
-----
CHAP. II.--_Of the Love of Praise, and of that of Praise-worthiness;
and of the dread of Blame, and of that of Blame-worthiness._
MAN naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to
be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He
naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be
that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He
desires, not only praise, but praise-worthiness; or to be that thing
which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural
and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but
blame-worthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be
blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame.
The love of praise-worthiness is by no means derived altogether from
the love of praise. Those two principles, though they resemble one
another, though they are connected, and often blended with one
another, are yet, in many respects, distinct and independent of one
another.
The love and admiration which we naturally conceive for those whose
character and conduct we approve of, necessarily dispose us to desire
to become ourselves the objects of the like agreeable sentiments, and
to be as amiable and as admirable as those whom we love and admire the
most. Emulation, the anxious desire that we ourselves should excel, is
originally founded in our admiration of the excellence of others.
Neither can we be satisfied with being merely admired for what other
people are admired. We must at least believe ourselves to be admirable
for what they are admirable. But, in order to attain this
satisfaction, we must become the impartial spectators of our own
character and conduct. We must endeavour to view them with the eyes of
other {103} people, or as other people are likely to view them. When
seen in this light, if they appear to us as we wish, we are happy and
contented. But it greatly confirms this happiness and contentment when
we find that other people, viewing them with those very eyes with
which we, in imagination only, were endeavouring to view them, see
them precisely in the same light in which we ourselves had seen them.
Their approbation necessarily confirms our own self-approbation. Their
praise necessarily strengthens our own sense of our own
praise-worthiness. In this case, so far is the love of
praise-worthiness from being derived altogether from that of praise;
that the love of praise seems, at least in a great measure, to be
derived from that of praise-worthiness.
The most sincere praise can give little pleasure when it cannot be
considered as some sort of proof of praise-worthiness. It is by no
means sufficient that, from ignorance or mistake, esteem and
admiration should, in some way or other, be bestowed upon us. If we
are conscious that we do not deserve to be so favourably thought of,
and that if the truth were known, we should be regarded with very
different sentiments, our satisfaction is far from being complete. The
man who applauds us either for actions which we did not perform, or
for motives which had no sort of influence upon our conduct, applauds
not us, but another person. We can derive no sort of satisfaction from
his praises. To us they should be more mortifying than any censure,
and should perpetually call to our minds, the most humbling of all
reflections, the reflection of what we ought to be, but what we are
not. A woman who paints, could derive, one should imagine, but little
vanity from the compliments that are paid to her complexion. These, we
should expect, ought rather to put her in mind of the sentiments which
her real complexion would excite, and mortify her the more by the
contrast. To be pleased with such groundless applause is a proof of
the most superficial levity and weakness. It is what is properly
called vanity, and is the foundation of the most ridiculous and
contemptible vices, the vices of affectation and common lying; follies
which, if experience did not teach us how common they are, one should
imagine the least spark of common sense would save us from. The
foolish liar, who endeavours to excite the admiration of the company
by the relation of adventures which never had any existence; the
important coxcomb, who gives himself airs of rank and distinction
which he well knows he has no just pretensions to; are both of them,
no doubt, pleased with the applause which they fancy they meet with.
But their vanity arises from so gross an illusion of the imagination,
that it is difficult to conceive how any rational creature should be
imposed upon by it. When they place themselves in the situation of
those whom they fancy they have deceived, they are struck with the
highest admiration for their own persons. They look upon themselves,
not in that light in which, they know, they ought to appear to their
companions, but in that in which they believe their {104} companions
actually look upon them. Their superficial weakness and trivial folly
hinder them from ever turning their eyes inwards, or from seeing
themselves in that despicable point of view in which their own
consciences must tell them that they would appear to every body, if
the real truth should ever come to be known.
As ignorant and groundless praise can give no solid joy, no
satisfaction that will bear any serious examination, so, on the
contrary, it often gives real comfort to reflect, that though no
praise should actually be bestowed upon us, our conduct, however, has
been such as to deserve it, and has been in every respect suitable to
those measures and rules by which praise and approbation are naturally
and commonly bestowed. We are pleased, not only with praise, but with
having done what is praise-worthy. We are pleased to think that we
have rendered ourselves the natural objects of approbation, though no
approbation should ever actually be bestowed upon us: and we are
mortified to reflect that we have justly merited the blame of those we
live with, though that sentiment should never actually be exerted
against us. The man who is conscious to himself that he has exactly
observed those measures of conduct which experience informs him are
generally agreeable, reflects with satisfaction on the propriety of
his own behaviour. When he views it in the light in which the
impartial spectator would view it, he thoroughly enters into all the
motives which influenced it. He looks back upon every part of it with
pleasure and approbation, and though mankind should never be
acquainted with what he has done, he regards himself, not so much
according to the light in which they actually regard him, as according
to that in which they would regard him if they were better informed.
He anticipates the applause and admiration which in this case would be
bestowed upon him, and he applauds and admires himself by sympathy
with sentiments, which do not indeed actually take place, but which
the ignorance of the public alone hinders from taking place, which he
knows are the natural and ordinary effects of such conduct, which his
imagination strongly connects with it, and which he has acquired a
habit of conceiving as something that naturally and in propriety ought
to follow from it. Men have voluntarily thrown away life to acquire
after death a renown which they could no longer enjoy. Their
imagination, in the mean time, anticipated that fame which was in
future times to be bestowed upon them. Those applauses which they were
never to hear rung in their ears; the thoughts of that admiration,
whose effects they were never to feel, played about their hearts,
banished from their breasts the strongest of all natural fears, and
transported them to perform actions which seem almost beyond the reach
of human nature. But in point of reality there is surely no great
difference between that approbation which is not to be bestowed till
we can no longer enjoy it, and that which, indeed, is never to be
bestowed, but which would be bestowed, if the world was ever made to
{105} understand properly the real circumstances of our behaviour. If
the one often produces such violent effects, we cannot wonder that the
other should always be highly regarded.
Nature, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original
desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. She
taught him to feel pleasure in their favourable, and pain in their
unfavourable regard. She rendered their approbation most flattering
and most agreeable to him for its own sake; and their disapprobation
most mortifying and most offensive.
But this desire of the approbation, and this aversion to the
disapprobation of his brethren, would not alone have rendered him fit
for that society for which he was made. Nature, accordingly, has
endowed him, not only with a desire of being approved of, but with a
desire of being what ought to be approved of; or of being what he
himself approves of in other men. The first desire could only have
made him wish to appear to be fit for society. The second was
necessary in order to render him anxious to be really fit. The first
could only have prompted him to the affectation of virtue, and to the
concealment of vice. The second was necessary in order to inspire him
with the real love of virtue, and with the real abhorrence of vice. In
every well-formed mind this second desire seems to be the strongest of
the two. It is only the weakest and most superficial of mankind who
can be much delighted with that praise which they themselves know to
be altogether unmerited. A weak man may sometimes be pleased with it,
but a wise man rejects it upon all occasions. But, though a wise man
feels little pleasure from praise where he knows there is no
praise-worthiness, he often feels the highest in doing what he knows
to be praise-worthy, though he knows equally well that no praise is
ever to be bestowed upon it. To obtain the approbation of mankind,
where no approbation is due, can never be an object of any importance
to him. To obtain that approbation where it is really due, may
sometimes be an object of no great importance to him. But to be that
thing which deserves approbation, must always be an object of the
highest.
To desire, or even to accept of praise, where no praise is due, can be
the effect only of the most contemptible vanity. To desire it where it
is really due is to desire no more than that a most essential act of
justice should be done to us. The love of just fame, of true glory,
even for its own sake, and independent of any advantage which he can
derive from it, is not unworthy even of a wise man. He sometimes,
however, neglects, and even despises it; and he is never more apt to
do so than when he has the most perfect assurance of the perfect
propriety of every part of his own conduct. His self-approbation, in
this case, stands in need of no confirmation from the approbation of
other men. It is alone sufficient, and he is contented with it. This
self-approbation, if not the only, is at least the principal object,
{106} about which he can or ought to be anxious. The love of it is the
love of virtue.
As the love and admiration which we naturally conceive for some
characters, dispose us to wish to become ourselves the proper objects
of such agreeable sentiments; so the hatred and contempt which we as
naturally conceive for others, dispose us, perhaps still more
strongly, to dread the very thought of resembling them in any respect.
Neither is it, in this case, too, so much the thought of being hated
and despised that we are afraid of, as that of being hateful and
despicable. We dread the thought of doing any thing which can render
us the just and proper objects of the hatred and contempt of our
fellow-creatures; even though we had the most perfect security that
those sentiments were never actually to be exerted against us. The man
who has broke through all those measures of conduct, which can alone
render him agreeable to mankind, though he should have the most
perfect assurance that what he had done was for ever to be concealed
from every human eye, it is all to no purpose. When he looks back upon
it, and views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would
view it, he finds that he can enter into none of the motives which
influenced it. He is abashed and confounded at the thoughts of it, and
necessarily feels a very high degree of that shame which he would be
exposed to, if his actions should ever come to be generally known. His
imagination, in this case too, anticipates the contempt and derision
from which nothing saves him but the ignorance of those he lives with.
He still feels that he is the natural object of these sentiments, and
still trembles at the thought of what he would suffer, if they were
ever actually exerted against him. But if what he had been guilty of
was not merely one of those improprieties which are the objects of
simple disapprobation, but one of those enormous crimes which excite
detestation and resentment, he could never think of it, as long as he
had any sensibility left, without feeling all the agony of horror and
remorse; and though he could be assured that no man was ever to know
it, and could even bring himself to believe that there was no God to
revenge it, he would still feel enough of both these sentiments to
embitter the whole of his life: he would still regard himself as the
natural object of the hatred and indignation of all his
fellow-creatures; and, if his heart was not grown callous by the habit
of crimes, he could not think without terror and astonishment even of
the manner in which mankind would look upon him, of what would be the
expression of their countenance and of their eyes, if the dreadful
truth should ever come to be known. These natural pangs of an
affrighted conscience are the dæmons, the avenging furies, which, in
this life, haunt the guilty, which allow them neither quiet nor
repose, which often drive them to despair and distraction, from which
no assurance of secrecy can protect them, from which no principles of
irreligion can entirely deliver them, and from which {107} nothing can
free them but the vilest and most abject of all states, a complete
insensibility to honour and infamy, to vice and virtue. Men of the
most detestable characters, who, in the execution of the most dreadful
crimes, had taken their measures so coolly as to avoid even the
suspicion of guilt, have sometimes been driven, by the horror of their
situation, to discover, of their own accord, what no human sagacity
could ever have investigated. By acknowledging their guilt, by
submitting themselves to the resentment of their offended
fellow-citizens, and, by thus satiating that vengeance of which they
were sensible that they had become the proper objects, they hoped, by
their death to reconcile themselves, at least in their own
imagination, to the natural sentiments of mankind; to be able to
consider themselves as less worthy of hatred and resentment; to atone,
in some measure, for their crimes, and, by thus becoming the objects
rather of compassion than of horror, if possible, to die in peace and
with the forgiveness of all their fellow-creatures. Compared to what
they felt before the discovery, even the thought of this, it seems was
happiness.
In such cases, the horror of blame-worthiness seems, even in persons
who cannot be suspected of any extraordinary delicacy or sensibility
of character, completely to conquer the dread of blame. In order to
allay that horror, in order to pacify, in some degree, the remorse of
their own consciences, they voluntarily submitted themselves both to
the reproach and to the punishment which they knew were due to their
crimes, but which, at the same time, they might easily have avoided.
They are the most frivolous and superficial of mankind only who can be
much delighted with that praise which they themselves know to be
altogether unmerited. Unmerited reproach, however, is frequently
capable of mortifying very severely even men of more than ordinary
constancy. Men of the most ordinary constancy, indeed, easily learn to
despise those foolish tales which are so frequently circulated in
society, and which, from their own absurdity and falsehood, never fail
to die away in the course of a few weeks, or of a few days. But an
innocent man, though of more than ordinary constancy, is often, not
only shocked, but most severely mortified by the serious, though
false, imputation of a crime; especially when that imputation happens
unfortunately to be supported by some circumstances which gave it an
air of probability. He is humbled to find that any body should think
so meanly of his character as to suppose him capable of being guilty
of it. Though perfectly conscious of his own innocence, the very
imputation seems often, even in his own imagination, to throw a shadow
of disgrace and dishonour upon his character. His just indignation,
too, at so very gross an injury, which, however, it may frequently be
improper and sometimes even impossible to revenge, is itself a very
painful sensation. There is no greater tormentor of the human breast
than violent resentment which cannot be gratified. An innocent man,
brought to {108} the scaffold by the false imputation of an infamous
or odious crime, suffers the most cruel misfortune which it is
possible for innocence to suffer. The agony of his mind may, in this
case, frequently be greater than that of those who suffer for the like
crimes, of which they have been actually guilty. Profligate criminals,
such as common thieves and highwaymen, have frequently little sense of
the baseness of their own conduct, and consequently no remorse.
Without troubling themselves about the justice or injustice of the
punishment, they have always been accustomed to look upon the gibbet
as a lot very likely to fall to them. When it does fall to them,
therefore, they consider themselves only as not quite so lucky as some
of their companions, and submit to their fortune, without any other
uneasiness than what may arise from the fear of death; a fear which,
even by such worthless wretches, we frequently see, can be so easily,
and so very completely conquered. The innocent man, on the contrary,
over and above the uneasiness which this fear may occasion, is
tormented by his own indignation at the injustice which has been done
to him. He is struck with horror at the thoughts of the infamy which
the punishment may shed upon his memory, and foresees, with the most
exquisite anguish, that he is hereafter to be remembered by his
dearest friends and relations, not with regret and affection, but with
shame, and even with horror for his supposed disgraceful conduct: and
the shades of death appear to close round him with a darker and more
melancholy gloom than naturally belongs to them. Such fatal accidents,
for the tranquillity of mankind, it is to be hoped, happen very rarely
in any country; but they happen sometimes in all countries, even in
those where justice is in general very well administered. The
unfortunate Calas, a man of much more than ordinary constancy (broke
upon the wheel and burnt at Tholouse for the supposed murder of his
own son, of which he was perfectly innocent), seemed, with his last
breath, to deprecate, not so much the cruelty of the punishment, as
the disgrace which the imputation might bring upon his memory. After
he had been broke, and was just going to be thrown into the fire, the
monk, who attended the execution, exhorted him to confess the crime
for which he had been condemned. 'My father,' said Calas, 'can you
yourself bring yourself to believe that I am guilty?'
To persons in such unfortunate circumstances, that humble philosophy
which confines its views to this life, can afford, perhaps, but little
consolation. Every thing that could render either life or death
respectable is taken from them. They are condemned to death and to
everlasting infamy. Religion can alone afford them any effectual
comfort. She alone can tell them that it is of little importance what
man may think of their conduct, while the all-seeing Judge of the
world approves of it. She alone can present to them the view of
another world; a world of more candour, humanity, and justice, than
the present; where their {109} innocence is in due time to be
declared, and their virtue to be finally rewarded: and the same great
principle which can alone strike terror into triumphant vice, affords
the only effectual consolation to disgraced and insulted innocence.
In smaller offences, as well as in greater crimes, it frequently
happens that a person of sensibility is much more hurt by the unjust
imputation, than the real criminal is by the actual guilt. A woman of
gallantry laughs even at the well-founded surmises which are
circulated concerning her conduct. The worst founded surmise of the
same kind is a mortal stab to an innocent virgin. The person who is
deliberately guilty of a disgraceful action, we may lay it down, I
believe, as a general rule, can seldom have much sense of the
disgrace; and the person who is habitually guilty of it, can scarce
ever have any.
When every man, even of middling understanding, so readily despises
unmerited applause, how it comes to pass that unmerited reproach
should often be capable of mortifying so severely men of the soundest
and best judgment, may, perhaps, deserve some consideration.
Pain, I have already had occasion to observe, is, in almost all cases,
a more pungent sensation than the opposite and correspondent pleasure.
The one, almost always, depresses us much more below the ordinary, or
what may be called the natural, state of our happiness, than the other
ever raises us above it. A man of sensibility is apt to be more
humiliated by just censure than he is ever elevated by just applause.
Unmerited applause a wise man rejects with contempt upon all
occasions; but he often feels very severely the injustice of unmerited
censure. By suffering himself to be applauded for what he has not
performed, by assuming a merit which does not belong to him, he feels
that he is guilty of a mean falsehood, and deserves, not the
admiration, but the contempt of those very persons who, by mistake,
had been led to admire him. It may, perhaps, give him some
well-founded pleasure to find that he has been, by many people,
thought capable of performing what he did not perform. But, though he
may be obliged to his friends for their good opinion, he would think
himself guilty of the greatest baseness if he did not immediately
undeceive them. It gives him little pleasure to look upon himself in
the light in which other people actually look upon him, when he is
conscious that, if they knew the truth, they would look upon him in a
very different light. A weak man, however, is often much delighted
with viewing himself in this false and delusive light. He assumes the
merit of every laudable action that is ascribed to him, and pretends
to that of many which nobody ever thought of ascribing to him. He
pretends to have done what he never did, to have written what another
wrote, to have invented what another discovered; and is led into all
the miserable vices of plagiarism and common lying. But though no man
of {110} middling good sense can derive much pleasure from the
imputation of a laudable action which he never performed, yet a wise
man may suffer great pain from the serious imputation of a crime which
he never committed. Nature, in this case, has rendered the pain, not
only more pungent than the opposite and correspondent pleasure, but
she has rendered it so in a much greater than the ordinary degree. A
denial rids a man at once of the foolish and ridiculous pleasure; but
it will not always rid him of the pain. When he refuses the merit
which is ascribed to him, nobody doubts his veracity. It may be
doubted when he denies the crime which he is accused of. He is at once
enraged at the falsehood of the imputation, and mortified to find that
any credit should be given to it. He feels that his character is not
sufficient to protect him. He feels that his brethren, far from
looking upon him in that light in which he anxiously desires to be
viewed by them, think him capable of being guilty of what he is
accused of. He knows perfectly that he has not been guilty. He knows
perfectly what he has done; but, perhaps, scarce any man can know
perfectly what he himself is capable of doing. What the peculiar
constitution of his own mind may or may not admit of, is, perhaps,
more or less a matter of doubt to every man. The trust and good
opinion of his friends and neighbours, tends more than any thing to
relieve him from this most disagreeable doubt; their distrust and
unfavourable opinion to increase it. He may think himself very
confident that their unfavourable judgment is wrong: but this
confidence can seldom be so great as to hinder that judgment from
making some impression upon him; and the greater his sensibility, the
greater his delicacy, the greater his worth in short, this impression
is likely to be the greater.
The agreement or disagreement both of the sentiments and judgments of
other people with our own, is, in all cases, it must be observed, of
more or less importance to us, exactly in proportion as we ourselves
are more or less uncertain about the propriety of our own sentiments,
about the accuracy of our own judgments.
A man of sensibility may sometimes feel great uneasiness lest he
should have yielded too much even to what may be called an honourable
passion; to his just indignation, perhaps, at the injury which may
have been done either to himself or to his friend. He is anxiously
afraid lest, meaning only to act with spirit, and to do justice, he
may, from the too great vehemence of his emotion, have done a real
injury to some other person; who, though not innocent, may not have
been altogether so guilty as he at first apprehended. The opinion of
other people becomes, in this case, of the utmost importance to him.
Their approbation is the most healing balsam; their disapprobation,
the bitterest and most tormenting poison that can be poured into his
uneasy mind. When he is perfectly satisfied with every part of his own
conduct, the judgment of other people is often of less importance to
him.
{111} There are some very noble and beautiful arts, in which the
degree of excellence can be determined only by a certain nicety of
taste, of which the decisions, however, appear always, in some
measure, uncertain. There are others, in which the success admits,
either of clear demonstration, or very satisfactory proof. Among the
candidates for excellence in those different arts, the anxiety about
the public opinion is always much greater in the former than in the
latter.
The beauty of poetry is a matter of such nicety, that a young beginner
can scarce ever be certain that he has attained it. Nothing delights
him so much, therefore, as the favourable judgments of his friends and
of the public; and nothing mortifies him so severely as the contrary.
The one establishes, the other shakes, the good opinion which he is
anxious to entertain concerning his own performances. Experience and
success may in time give him a little more confidence in his own
judgment. He is at all times, however, liable to be most severely
mortified by the unfavourable judgments of the public. Racine was so
disgusted by the indifferent success of his Phædra, the finest
tragedy, perhaps, that is extant in any language, that, though in the
vigour of his life, and at the height of his abilities, he resolved to
write no more for the stage. That great poet used frequently to tell
his son, that the most paltry and impertinent criticism had always
given him more pain than the highest and justest eulogy had ever given
him pleasure. The extreme sensibility of Voltaire to the slightest
censure of the same kind is well known to every body. The Dunciad of
Mr. Pope is an everlasting monument of how much the most correct, as
well as the most elegant and harmonious of all the English poets, had
been hurt by the criticisms of the lowest and most contemptible
authors. Gray (who joins to the sublimity of Milton the elegance and
harmony of Pope, and to whom nothing is wanting to render him,
perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have written a
little more) is said to have been so much hurt by a foolish and
impertinent parody of two of his finest odes, that he never afterwards
attempted any considerable work. Those men of letters who value
themselves upon what is called fine writing in prose, approach
somewhat to the sensibility of poets.
Mathematicians, on the contrary, who may have the most perfect
assurance, both of the truth and of the importance of their
discoveries, are frequently very indifferent about the reception which
they may meet with from the public. The two greatest mathematicians
that I ever had the honour to be known to, and I believe, the two
greatest that have lived in my time, Dr. Robert Simpson of Glasgow,
and Dr. Matthew Stewart of Edinburgh, never seemed to feel even the
slightest uneasiness from the neglect with which the ignorance of the
public received some of their most valuable works. The great work of
Sir Isaac Newton, _his Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy_, I {112} have been told, was for several years
neglected by the public. The tranquillity of that great man, it is
probable, never suffered, upon that account, the interruption of a
single quarter of an hour. Natural philosophers, in their independency
upon the public opinion, approach nearly to mathematicians, and, in
their judgments concerning the merit of their own discoveries and
observations, enjoy some degree of the same security and tranquillity.
The morals of those different classes of men of letters are, perhaps,
sometimes somewhat affected by this very great difference in their
situation with regard to the public.
Mathematicians and natural philosophers, from their independency upon
the public opinion, have little temptation to form themselves into
factions and cabals, either for the support of their own reputation,
or for the depression of that of their rivals. They are almost always
men of the most amiable simplicity of manners, who live in good
harmony with one another, are the friends of one another's reputation,
enter into no intrigue in order to secure the public applause, but are
pleased when their works are approved of, without being either much
vexed or very angry when they are neglected.
It is not always the same case with poets, or with those who value
themselves upon what is called fine writing. They are very apt to
divide themselves into a sort of literary faction; each cabal being
often avowedly, and almost always secretly, the mortal enemy of the
reputation of every other, and employing all the mean arts of intrigue
and solicitation to pre-occupy the public opinion in favour of the
works of its own members, and against those of its enemies and rivals.
In France, Despreaux and Racine did not think it below them to set
themselves at the head of a literary cabal, in order to depress the
reputation, first of Quinault and Perreault, and afterwards of
Fontenelle and La Motte, and even to treat the good La Fontaine with a
species of most disrespectful kindness. In England, the amiable Mr.
Addison did not think it unworthy of his gentle and modest character
to set himself at the head of a little cabal of the same kind, in
order to keep down the rising reputation of Mr. Pope. Mr. Fontenelle,
in writing the lives and characters of the members of the academy of
sciences, a society of mathematicians and natural philosophers, has
frequent opportunities of celebrating the amiable simplicity of their
manners; a quality which, he observes, was so universal among them as
to be characteristical, rather of that whole class of men of letters,
than of any individual. Mr. D'Alembert, in writing the lives and
characters of the members of the French Academy, a society of poets
and fine writers, or of those who are supposed to be such, seems not
to have had such frequent opportunities of making any remark of this
kind, and no where pretends to represent this amiable quality as
characteristical of that class of men of letters whom he celebrates.
{113} Our uncertainty concerning our own merit, and our anxiety to
think favourably of it, should together naturally enough make us
desirous to know the opinion of other people concerning it; to be more
than ordinarily elevated when that opinion is favourable, and to be
more than ordinarily mortified when it is otherwise: but they should
not make us desirous either of obtaining the favourable, or of
avoiding the unfavourable opinion, by intrigue and cabal. When a man
has bribed all the judges, the most unanimous decision of the court,
though it may gain him his law-suit, cannot give him any assurance
that he was in the right: and had he carried on his law-suit merely to
satisfy himself that he was in the right, he never would have bribed
the judges. But though he wished to find himself in the right, he
wished likewise to gain his law-suit; and therefore he bribed the
judges. If praise were of no consequence to us, but as a proof of our
own praise-worthiness, we never should endeavour to obtain it by
unfair means. But, though to wise men it is, at least in doubtful
cases, of principal consequence upon this account; it is likewise of
some consequence upon its own account: and therefore (we cannot,
indeed, upon such occasions, call them wise men), but men very much
above the common level have sometimes attempted both to obtain praise,
and to avoid blame, by very unfair means.
Praise and blame express what actually are, praise-worthiness and
blame-worthiness what naturally ought to be, the sentiments of other
people with regard to our character and conduct. The love of praise is
the desire of obtaining the favourable sentiments of our brethren. The
love of praise-worthiness is the desire of rendering ourselves the
proper objects of those sentiments. So far those two principles
resemble and are akin to one another. The like affinity and
resemblance take place between dread of blame and that of
blame-worthiness.
The man who desires to do, or who actually does, a praise-worthy
action, may likewise desire the praise which is due to it, and
sometimes, perhaps, more than is due to it. The two principles are in
this case blended together. How far his conduct may have been
influenced by the one, and how far by the other, may frequently be
unknown even to himself. It must almost always be so to other people.
They who are disposed to lessen the merit of his conduct, impute it
chiefly or altogether to the mere love of praise, or to what they call
mere vanity. They who are disposed to think more favourably of it,
impute it chiefly or altogether to the love of praise-worthiness; to
the love of what is really honourable and noble in human conduct; to
the desire, not merely of obtaining, but of deserving the approbation
and applause of his brethren. The imagination of the spectator throws
upon it either the one colour or the other, according either to his
habits of thinking, or to the favour or dislike which he may bear to
the person whose conduct he is considering.
{114} Some splenetic philosophers, in judging of human nature, have
done as peevish individuals are apt to do in judging of the conduct of
one another, and have imputed to the love of praise, or to what they
call vanity, every action which ought to be ascribed to that of
praise-worthiness. I shall hereafter have occasion to give an account
of some of their systems, and shall not at present stop to examine
them.
Very few men can be satisfied with their own private consciousness
that they have attained those qualities, or performed those actions,
which they admire and think praise-worthy in other people; unless it
is, at the same time, generally acknowledged that they possess the
one, or have performed the other; or, in other words, unless they have
actually obtained that praise which they think due both to the one and
to the other. In this respect, however, men differ considerably from
one another. Some seem indifferent about the praise, when, in their
own minds, they are perfectly satisfied that they have attained the
praise-worthiness. Others appear much less anxious about the
praise-worthiness than about the praise.
No man can be completely, or even tolerably satisfied, with having
avoided every thing blame-worthy in his conduct, unless he has
likewise avoided the blame or the reproach. A wise man may frequently
neglect praise, even when he has best deserved it; but, in all matters
of serious consequence, he will most carefully endeavour so to
regulate his conduct as to avoid, not only blame-worthiness, but, as
much as possible, every probable imputation of blame. He will never,
indeed, avoid blame by doing any thing which he judges blame-worthy;
by omitting any part of his duty, or by neglecting any opportunity of
doing any thing which he judges to be really and greatly
praise-worthy. But, with these modifications, he will most anxiously
and carefully avoid it. To show much anxiety about praise, even for
praise-worthy actions, is seldom a mark of great wisdom, but generally
of some degree of weakness. But, in being anxious to avoid the shadow
of blame or reproach, there may be no weakness, but frequently there
may be the most praise-worthy prudence.
'Many people,' says Cicero, 'despise glory, who are yet most severely
mortified by unjust reproach; and that most inconsistently.' This
inconsistency, however, seems to be founded in the unalterable
principles of human nature.
The all-wise Author of Nature has, in this manner, taught man to
respect the sentiments and judgments of his brethren; to be more or
less pleased when they approve of his conduct, and to be more or less
hurt when they disapprove of it. He has made man, if I may say so, the
immediate judge of mankind; and has, in this respect, as in many
others, created him after his own image, and appointed him his
vicegerent upon earth, to superintend the behaviour of his brethren.
They are taught by nature, to acknowledge that power and jurisdiction
which {115} has thus been conferred upon him, to be more or less
humbled and mortified when they have incurred his censure, and to be
more or less elated when they have obtained his applause.
But though man has, in this manner, been rendered the immediate judge
of mankind, he has been rendered so only in the first instance; and an
appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tribunal, to the
tribunal of their own consciences, to that of the supposed impartial
and well-informed spectator, to that of the man within the breast, the
great judge and arbiter of their conduct The jurisdictions of those
two tribunals are founded upon principles which, though in some
respects resembling and akin, are, however, in reality different and
distinct. The jurisdiction of the man without, is founded altogether
in the desire of actual praise, and in the aversion to actual blame.
The jurisdiction of the man within, is founded altogether in the
desire of praise-worthiness, and in the aversion to blame-worthiness;
in the desire of possessing those qualities, and performing those
actions, which we love and admire in other people; and in the dread of
possessing those qualities, and performing those actions, which we
hate and despise in other people. If the man without should applaud
us, either for actions which we have not performed, or for motives
which had no influence upon us; the man within can immediately humble
that pride and elevation of mind which such groundless acclamations
might otherwise occasion, by telling us, that as we know that we do
not deserve them, we render ourselves despicable by accepting them.
If, on the contrary, the man without should reproach us, either for
actions which we never performed, or for motives which had no
influence upon those which we may have performed, the man within may
immediately correct this false judgment, and assure us, that we are by
no means the proper objects of that censure which has so unjustly been
bestowed upon us. But in this and in some other cases, the man within
seems sometimes, as it were, astonished and confounded by the
vehemence and clamour of the man without. The violence and loudness
with which blame is sometimes poured out upon us, seems to stupify and
benumb our natural sense of praise-worthiness and blame-worthiness;
and the judgments of the man within, though not, perhaps, absolutely
altered or perverted, are, however, so much shaken in the steadiness
and firmness of their decision, that their natural effect, in securing
the tranquillity of the mind, is frequently in a great measure
destroyed. We scarce dare to absolve ourselves, when all our brethren
appear loudly to condemn us. The supposed impartial spectator of our
conduct seems to give his opinion in our favour with fear and
hesitation; when that of all the real spectators, when that of all
those with whose eyes and from whose station he endeavours to consider
it, is unanimously and violently against us. In such cases, this
demigod within the breast appears, like the demigods of the poets,
though {116} partly of immortal, yet partly too of mortal extraction.
When his judgments are steadily and firmly directed by the sense of
praise-worthiness and blame-worthiness, he seems to act suitably to
his divine extraction: but when he suffers himself to be astonished
and confounded by the judgments of ignorant and weak man, he discovers
his connexion with mortality, and appears to act suitably, rather to
the human, than to the divine, part of his origin.
In such cases, the only effectual consolation of humbled and afflicted
man lies in an appeal to a still higher tribunal, to that of the
all-seeing Judge of the world, whose eye can never be deceived, and
whose judgments can never be perverted. A firm confidence in the
unerring rectitude of this great tribunal, before which his innocence
is in due time to be declared, and his virtue to be finally rewarded,
can alone support him under the weakness and despondency of his own
mind, under the perturbation and astonishment of the man within the
breast, whom nature has set up as, in this life, the great guardian,
not only of his innocence, but of his tranquillity. Our happiness in
this life is thus, upon many occasions, dependent upon the humble hope
and expectation of a life to come: a hope and expectation deeply
rooted in human nature; which can alone support its lofty ideas of its
own dignity; can alone illumine the dreary prospect of its continually
approaching mortality, and maintain its cheerfulness under all the
heaviest calamities to which, from the disorders of this life, it may
sometimes be exposed. That there is a world to come, where exact
justice will be done to every man, where every man will be ranked with
those who, in the moral and intellectual qualities, are really his
equals; where the owner of those humble talents and virtues which,
from being depressed by fortunes, had, in this life, no opportunity of
displaying themselves; which were unknown, not only to the public, but
which he himself could scarce be sure that he possessed, and for which
even the man within the breast could scarce venture to afford him any
distinct and clear testimony; where that modest, silent, and unknown
merit, will be placed upon a level, and sometimes above those who, in
this world, had enjoyed the highest reputation, and who, from the
advantage of their situation, had been enabled to perform the most
splendid and dazzling actions; is a doctrine, in every respect so
venerable, so comfortable to the weakness, so flattering to the
grandeur of human nature, that the virtuous man who has the misfortune
to doubt of it, cannot possibly avoid wishing most earnestly and
anxiously to believe it. It could never have been exposed to the
derision of the scoffer, had not the distribution of rewards and
punishments, which some of its most zealous assertors have taught us
was to be made in that world to come, been too frequently in direct
opposition to all our moral sentiments.
That the assiduous courtier is often more favoured than the faithful
and active servant; that attendance and adulation are often shorter
{117} and surer roads to preferment than merit or service; and that a
campaign at Versailles or St. James's is often worth two either in
Germany or Flanders, is a complaint which we have all heard from many
a venerable, but discontented, old officer. But what is considered as
the greatest reproach even to the weakness of earthly sovereigns, has
been ascribed, as an act of justice, to divine perfection; and the
duties of devotion, the public and private worship of the Deity, have
been represented, even by men of virtue and abilities, as the sole
virtues which can either entitle to reward or exempt from punishment
in the life to come. They were the virtues perhaps, most suitable to
their station, and in which they themselves chiefly excelled; and we
are all naturally disposed to over-rate the excellencies of our own
characters. In the discourse which the eloquent and philosophical
Massillon pronounced, on giving his benediction to the standards of
the regiment of Catinat, there is the following address to the
officers: 'What is most deplorable in your situation, gentlemen, is,
that in a life hard and painful, in which the services and the duties
sometimes go beyond the rigour and severity of the most austere
cloisters; you suffer always in vain for the life to come, and
frequently even for this life. Alas! the solitary monk in his cell,
obliged to mortify the flesh and to subject it to the spirit, is
supported by the hope of an assured recompense, and by the secret
unction of that grace which softens the yoke of the Lord. But you, on
the bed of death, can you dare to represent to Him your fatigues and
the daily hardships of your employment? can you dare to solicit Him
for any recompense? and in all the exertions that you have made, in
all the violences that you have done to yourselves, what is there that
He ought to place to His own account? The best days of your life,
however, have been sacrificed to your profession, and ten years'
service has more worn out your body, than would, perhaps, have done a
whole life of repentance and mortification. Alas! my brother, one
single day of those sufferings, consecrated to the Lord, would,
perhaps, have obtained you an eternal happiness. One single action,
painful to nature, and offered up to Him, would, perhaps, have secured
to you the inheritance of the saints. And you have done all this, and
in vain, for this world.'
To compare, in this manner, the futile mortifications of a monastery,
to the ennobling hardships and hazards of war; to suppose that one
day, or one hour, employed in the former should, in the eye of the
great Judge of the world, have more merit than a whole life spent
honourably in the latter, is surely contrary to all our moral
sentiments: to all the principles by which nature has taught us to
regulate our contempt or admiration. It is this spirit, however,
which, while it has reserved the celestial regions for monks and
friars, or for those whose conduct and conversation resembled those of
monks and friars, has condemned to the infernal all the heroes, all
the statesmen and lawgivers, all the poets {118} and philosophers of
former ages; all those who have invented, improved, or excelled in the
arts, which contribute to the subsistence, to the conveniency, or to
the ornament of human life; all the great protectors, instructors, and
benefactors of mankind; all those to whom our natural sense of
praise-worthiness forces us to ascribe the highest merit and most
exalted virtue. Can we wonder that so strange an application of this
most respectable doctrine should sometimes have exposed it to contempt
and derision; with those at least who had themselves, perhaps, no
great taste or turn for the devout and contemplative virtues?[3]
[Footnote 3: Vous y grillez sage et docte Platon,
Divin Homere, eloquent Ciceron, etc. _See_ Voltaire.]
-----
CHAP. III.--_Of the Influence and Authority of Conscience._
BUT though the approbation of his own conscience can scarce, upon some
extraordinary occasions, content the weakness of man; though the
testimony of the supposed impartial spectator of the great inmate of
the breast, cannot always alone support him; yet the influence and
authority of this principle is, upon all occasions, very great; and it
is only by consulting this judge within, that we can ever see what
relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions; or that we
can ever make any proper comparison between our own interests and
those of other people.
As to the eye of the body, objects appear great or small, not so much
according to their real dimensions, as according to the nearness or
distance of their situation; so do they likewise to what may be called
the natural eye of the mind: and we remedy the defects of both these
organs pretty much in the same manner. In my present situation an
immense landscape of lawns, and woods, and distant mountains, seems to
do no more than cover the little window which I write by, and to be
out of all proportion less than the chamber in which I am sitting. I
can form a just comparison between those great objects and the little
objects around me, in no other way, than by transporting myself, at
least in fancy, to a different station, from whence I can survey both
at nearly equal distances, and thereby form some judgment of their
real proportions. Habit and experience have taught me to do this so
easily and so readily, that I am scarce sensible that I do it; and a
man must be, in some measure, acquainted with the philosophy of
vision, before he can be thoroughly convinced, how little those
distant objects would appear to the eye, if the imagination, from a
knowledge of their real magnitudes, did not swell and dilate them.
In the same manner, to the selfish and original passions of human
nature, the loss or gain of a very small interest of our own, appears
to be of vastly more importance, excites a much more passionate joy or
{119} sorrow, a much more ardent desire or aversion, than the greatest
concern of another with, whom we have no particular connexion. His
interests, as long as they are surveyed from this station, can never
be put into the balance with our own, can never restrain us from doing
whatever may tend to promote our own, how ruinous so ever to him.
Before we can make any proper comparison of those opposite interests,
we must change our position. We must view them, neither from our own
place nor yet from his, neither with our own eyes nor yet with his,
but from the place and with the eyes of a third person, who has no
particular connexion with either, and who judges with impartiality
between us. Here, too, habit and experience have taught us to do this
so easily and so readily, that we are scarce sensible that we do it;
and it requires, in this case too, some degree of reflection, and even
of philosophy, to convince us, how little interest we should take in
the greatest concerns of our neighbour, how little we should be
affected by whatever relates to him, if the sense of propriety and
justice did not correct the otherwise natural inequality of our
sentiments.
Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of
inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us
consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion
with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving
intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of
all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that
unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the
precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of
man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would, too,
perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings
concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the
commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in
general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these
humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his
business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the
same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The
most frivolous disaster which could befal himself would occasion a
more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow,
he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will
snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred
millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense
multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this
paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry
misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice
the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never
seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the
world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a
villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this
{120} difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so
sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should
often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more
deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves than by whatever
concerns other men, what is it which prompts the generous, upon all
occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to
the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity,
it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up
in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the
strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more
forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is
reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man
within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who,
whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others,
calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous
of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect
better than any other in it; and when we prefer ourselves so
shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of
resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is from him only that we
learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever relates to
ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be
corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who
shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice;
the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the
yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of doing the
smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest benefit to
ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the love of
mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those
divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection,
which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what is
honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of
our own characters.
When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our
conduct, we dare not, as self-love might suggest to us, prefer the
interest of one to that of many. The man within immediately calls to
us, that we value ourselves too much and other people too little, and
that, by doing so, we render ourselves the proper object of the
contempt and indignation of our brethren. Neither is this sentiment
confined to men of extraordinary magnanimity and virtue. It is deeply
impressed upon every tolerably good soldier, who feels that he would
become the scorn of his companions, if he could be supposed capable of
shrinking from danger, or of hesitating, either to expose or to throw
away his life, when the good of the service required it.
One individual must never prefer himself so much even to any other
individual, as to hurt or injure that other, in order to benefit
himself, though the benefit to the one should be much greater than the
hurt or {121} injury to the other. The poor man must neither defraud
nor steal from the rich, though the acquisition might be much more
beneficial to the one than the loss could be hurtful to the other. The
man within immediately calls to him in this case too, that he is no
better than his neighbour, and that by his unjust preference he
renders himself the proper object of the contempt and indignation of
mankind; as well as of the punishment which that contempt and
indignation must naturally dispose them to inflict, for having thus
violated one of those sacred rules, upon the tolerable observation of
which depend the whole security and peace of human society. There is
no commonly honest man who does not more dread the inward disgrace of
such an action, the indelible stain which it would for ever stamp upon
his own mind, than the greatest external calamity which, without any
fault of his own, could possibly befal him; and who does not inwardly
feel the truth of that great stoical maxim, that for one man to
deprive another unjustly of any thing, or unjustly to promote his own
advantage by the loss or disadvantage of another, is more contrary to
nature, than death, than poverty, than pain, than all the misfortunes
which can affect him, either in his body, or in his external
circumstances.
When the happiness or misery of others, indeed, in no respect depends
upon our conduct, when our interests are altogether separated and
detached from theirs, so that there is neither connexion nor
competition between them, we do not always think it so necessary to
restrain, either our natural and, perhaps, improper anxiety about our
own affairs, or our natural and, perhaps, equally improper
indifference about those of other men. The most vulgar education
teaches us to act, upon all important occasions, with some sort of
impartiality between ourselves and others, and even the ordinary
commerce of the world is capable of adjusting our active principles to
some degree of propriety. But it is the most artificial and refined
education only, it has been said, which can correct the inequalities
of our passive feelings; and we must for this purpose, it has been
pretended, have recourse to the severest, as well as to the
profoundest philosophy.
Two different sets of philosophers have attempted to teach us this
hardest of all the lessons of morality. One set have laboured to
increase our sensibility to the interests of others; another, to
diminish that to our own. The first would have us feel for others as
we naturally feel for ourselves. The second would have us feel for
ourselves as we naturally feel for others. Both, perhaps, have carried
their doctrines a good deal beyond the just standard of nature and
propriety.
The first are those whining and melancholy moralists, who are
perpetually reproaching us with our happiness, while so many of our
brethren are in misery,[1*] who regard as impious the natural joy of
{122} prosperity, which does not think of the many wretches that are
at every instant labouring under all sorts of calamities, in the
languor of poverty, in the agony of disease, in the horrors of death,
under the insults and oppressions of their enemies. Commiseration for
those miseries which we never saw, which we never heard of, but which
we may be assured are at all times infesting such numbers of our
fellow-creatures, ought, they think, to damp the pleasures of the
fortunate, and to render a certain melancholy dejection habitual to
all men. But first of all, this extreme sympathy with misfortunes
which we know nothing about, seems altogether absurd and unreasonable.
Take the whole earth at an average, for one man who suffers pain or
misery, you will find twenty in prosperity and joy, or at least in
tolerable circumstances. No reason, surely, can be assigned why we
should rather weep with the one than rejoice with the twenty. This
artificial commiseration, besides, is not only absurd, but seems
altogether unattainable; and those who affect this character have
commonly nothing but a certain affected and sentimental sadness,
which, without reaching the heart, serves only to render the
countenance and conversation impertinently dismal and disagreeable.
And last of all, this disposition of mind, though it could be
attained, would be perfectly useless, and could serve no other purpose
than to render miserable the person who possessed it. Whatever
interest we take in the fortune of those with whom we have no
acquaintance or connexion, and who are placed altogether out of the
sphere of our activity, can produce only anxiety to ourselves without
any manner of advantage to them. To what purpose should we trouble
ourselves about the world in the moon? All men, even those at the
greatest distance, are no doubt entitled to our good wishes, and our
good wishes we naturally give them. But if, notwithstanding, they
should be unfortunate, to give ourselves any anxiety upon that
account, seems to be no part of our duty. That we should be but little
interested, therefore, in the fortune of those whom we can neither
serve nor hurt, and who are in every respect so very remote from us,
seems wisely ordered by nature; and if it were possible to alter in
this respect the original constitution of our frame, we could yet gain
nothing by the change.
[Footnote 1*: "Ah! little think the gay licentious proud," &c. See
Thomson's Seasons, Winter. See also Pascal.]
It is never objected to us that we have too little fellow-feeling with
the joy of success. Wherever envy does not prevent it, the favour
which we bear to prosperity is rather apt to be too great; and the
same moralists who blame us for want of sufficient sympathy with the
miserable, reproach us for the levity with which we are too apt to
admire and almost to worship the fortunate and the powerful.
Among the moralists who endeavour to correct the natural inequality of
our passive feelings by diminishing our sensibility to what peculiarly
concerns ourselves, we may count all the ancient sects of
philosophers, but particularly the ancient Stoics. Man, according to
the Stoics, {123} ought to regard himself, not as something separated
and detached, but as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast
commonwealth of nature. To the interest of this great community, he
ought at all times to be willing that his own little interest should
be sacrificed. Whatever concerns himself, ought to affect him no more
than whatever concerns any other equally important part of this
immense system. We should view ourselves, not in the light in which
our own selfish passions are apt to place us, but in the light in
which any other citizen of the world would view us. What befalls
ourselves we should regard as what befalls our neighbour, or, what
comes to the same thing, as our neighbour regards what befalls us.
'When our neighbour,' says Epictetus, 'loses his wife, or his son,
there is nobody who is not sensible that this is a human calamity, a
natural event altogether according to the ordinary course of things;
but when the same thing happens to ourselves, then we cry out, as if
we had suffered the most dreadful misfortune. We ought, however, to
remember how we were affected when this accident happened to another,
and such as we were in his case, such ought we to be in our own.'
Those private misfortunes, for which our feelings are apt to go beyond
the bounds of propriety, are of two different kinds. They are either
such as affect us only indirectly, by affecting, in the first place,
some other persons who are particularly dear to us; such as our
parents, our children, our brothers and sisters, our intimate friends;
or they are such as affect ourselves immediately and directly, either
in our body, in our fortune, or in our reputation; such as pain,
sickness, approaching death, poverty, disgrace, etc.