And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this

deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of

mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground,

to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and

improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human

life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have

turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains,

and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and

the great high road of communication to the different nations of the

earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to

redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of

inhabitants. It is to no purpose, that the proud and unfeeling

landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the

wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole

harvest that grows upon them. The homely and vulgar proverb, that the

eye is larger than the belly, never was more fully verified than with

regard to him. The capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the

immensity of his desires, and will receive no more than that of the

meanest peasant. The rest he is obliged to distribute among those,

{163} who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself

makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little

is to be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the

different baubles and trinkets which are employed in the oeconomy of

greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that

share of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have

expected from his humanity or his justice. The produce of the soil

maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is

capable of maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what is

most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor,

and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they

mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they

propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the

gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide

with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by

an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the

necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been

divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus

without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the

society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When

Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither

forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the

partition. These last, too, enjoy their share of all that it produces.

In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no

respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease

of the body and peace of the mind, all the different ranks of life are

nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of

the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

The same principle, the same love of system, the same regard to the

beauty of order, of art and contrivance, frequently serves to

recommend those institutions which tend to promote the public welfare.

When a patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any part of the

public police, his conduct does not always arise from pure sympathy

with the happiness of those who are to reap the benefit of it. It is

not commonly from a fellow-feeling with carriers and waggoners that a

public-spirited man encourages the mending of high roads. When the

legislature establishes premiums and other encouragements to advance

the linen or woollen manufactures, its conduct seldom proceeds from

pure sympathy with the wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much less

from that with the manufacturer or merchant. The perfection of police,

the extension of trade and manufactures, are noble and magnificent

objects. The contemplation of them pleases us, and we are interested

in whatever can tend to advance them. They make part of the great

system of government, and the wheels of the political machine seem to

move with more harmony and ease by means of them. We {164} take

pleasure in beholding the perfection of so beautiful and grand a

system, and we are uneasy till we remove any obstruction that can in

the least disturb or encumber the regularity of its motions. All

constitutions of government, however, are valued only in proportion as

they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them. This

is their sole use and end. From a certain spirit of system, however,

from a certain love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value

the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happiness

of our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improve a

certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any immediate sense or

feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy. There have been men of

the greatest public spirit, who have shown themselves in other

respects not very sensible to the feelings of humanity. And on the

contrary, there have been men of the greatest humanity, who seem to

have been entirely devoid of public spirit. Every man may find in the

circle of his acquaintance instances both of the one kind and the

other. Who had ever less humanity, or more public spirit, than the

celebrated legislator of Muscovy? The social and well-natured James

the First of Great Britain seems, on the contrary, to have had scarce

any passion, either for the glory or the interest of his country.

Would you awaken the industry of the man who seems almost dead to

ambition, it will often be to no purpose to describe to him the

happiness of the rich and the great; to tell him that they are

generally sheltered from the sun and the rain, that they are seldom

hungry, that they are seldom cold, and that they are rarely exposed to

weariness, or to want of any kind. The most eloquent exhortation of

this kind will have little effect upon him. If you would hope to

succeed, you must describe to him the conveniency and arrangement of

the different apartments in their palaces; you must explain to him the

propriety of their equipages, and point out to him the number, the

order, and the different offices of all their attendants. If any thing

is capable of making impression upon him, this will. Yet all these

things tend only to keep off the sun and the rain, and save them from

hunger and cold, from want and weariness. In the same manner, if you

would implant public virtue in the breast of him who seems heedless of

the interest of his country, it will often be to no purpose to tell

him, what superior advantages the subjects of a well-governed state

enjoy; that they are better lodged, that they are better clothed, that

they are better fed. These considerations will commonly make no great

impression. You will be more likely to persuade, if you describe the

great system of public police which procures these advantages, if you

explain the connexions and dependencies of its several parts, their

mutual subordination to one another, and their general subserviency to

the happiness of the society; if you show how this system might be

introduced into his own country, what it is that hinders it from

taking place there at present, how those {165} obstructions might be

removed, and all the several wheels of the machine of government be

made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without grating upon

one another, or mutually retarding one another's motions. It is scarce

possible that a man should listen to a discourse of this kind, and not

feel himself animated to some degree of public spirit. He will, at

least for a moment, feel some desire to remove those obstructions, and

to put into motion so beautiful and so orderly a machine. Nothing

tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of politics, of

the several systems of civil government, their advantages and

disadvantages, of the constitution of our own country, its situation,

and interest with regard to foreign nations, its commerce, its

defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the dangers to which it

may be exposed, how to remove the one, and how to guard against the

other. Upon this account political disquisition, if just and

reasonable and practicable, are of all the works of speculation the

most useful. Even the weakest and the worst of them are not altogether

without their utility. They serve at least to animate the public

passions of men, and rouse them to seek out the means of promoting the

happiness of the society.

-----

CHAP. II.--_Of the Beauty which the Appearance of Utility bestows

upon the Characters and the Actions of Men; and how far the Perception

of this Beauty may be regarded as one of the original Principles of

Approbation._

THE characters of men, as well as the contrivances of art, or the

institutions of civil government, may be fitted either to promote or

to disturb the happiness both of the individual and of the society.

The prudent, the equitable, the active, resolute, and sober character

promises prosperity and satisfaction, both to the person himself and

to every one connected with him. The rash, the insolent, the slothful,

effeminate, and voluptuous, on the contrary, forebodes ruin to the

individual, and misfortune to all who have any thing to do with him.

The first turn of mind has at least all the beauty which can belong to

the most perfect machine that was ever invented for promoting the most

agreeable purpose: and the second, all the deformity of the most

awkward and clumsy contrivance. What institution of government could

tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general

prevalence of wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect

remedy for the deficiency of these. Whatever beauty, therefore, can

belong to civil government upon account of its utility, must in a far

superior degree belong to these. On the contrary, what civil policy

can be so ruinous and destructive as the vices of men? The fatal

effects of bad government arise from nothing, but that it does not

{166} sufficiently guard against the mischiefs which human wickedness

so often gives occasion to.

This beauty and deformity which characters appear to derive from their

usefulness or inconveniency, are apt to strike, in a peculiar manner,

those who consider, in an abstract and philosophical light, the

actions and conduct of mankind. When a philosopher goes to examine why

humanity is approved of, or cruelty condemned, he does not always form

to himself, in a very clear and distinct manner, the conception of any

one particular action either of cruelty or of humanity, but is

commonly contented with the vague and indeterminate idea which the

general names of those qualities suggest to him. But it is in

particular instances only that the propriety or impropriety, the merit

or demerit of actions is very obvious and discernible. It is only when

particular examples are given that we perceive distinctly either the

concord or disagreement between our two affections and those of the

agent, or feel a social gratitude arise towards him in the one case,

or a sympathetic resentment in the other. When we consider virtue and

vice in an abstract and general manner, the qualities by which they

excite these several sentiments seem in a great measure to disappear,

and the sentiments themselves become less obvious and discernible. On

the contrary, the happy effects of the one and the fatal consequences

of the other seem then to rise up to the view, and as it were to stand

out and distinguish themselves from all the other qualities of either.

The same ingenious and agreeable author who first explained why

utility pleases, has been so struck with this view of things, as to

resolve our whole approbation of virtue into a perception of this

species of beauty which results from the appearance of utility. No

qualities of the mind, he observes, are approved of as virtuous, but

such as are useful or agreeable either to the person himself or to

others; and no qualities are disapproved of as vicious but such as

have a contrary tendency. And Nature, indeed, seems to have so happily

adjusted our sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, to the

conveniency both of the individual and of the society, that after the

strictest examination it will be found, I believe, that this is

universally the case. But still I affirm, that it is not the view of

this utility or hurtfulness which is either the first or principal

source of our approbation and disapprobation. These sentiments are no

doubt enhanced and enlivened by the perception of the beauty or

deformity which results from this utility or hurtfulness. But still, I

say, that they were originally and essentially different from this

perception.

For first of all, it seems impossible that the approbation of virtue

should be a sentiment of the same kind with that by which we approve

of a convenient and well-contrived building; or that we should have no

other reason for praising a man than that for which we commend a chest

of drawers.

{167} And secondly, it will be found, upon examination, that the

usefulness of any disposition of mind is seldom the first ground of

our approbation; and that the sentiment of approbation always involves

in it a sense of propriety quite distinct from the perception of

utility. We may observe this with regard to all the qualities which

are approved of as virtuous, both those which, according to this

system, are originally valued as useful to ourselves, as well as those

which are esteemed on account of their usefulness to others.

The qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of all, superior

reason and understanding, by which we are capable of discerning the

remote consequences of all our actions, and of fore-seeing the

advantage or detriment which is likely to result from them: and

secondly, self-command, by which we are enabled to abstain from

present pleasure or to endure present pain, in order to obtain a

greater pleasure, or to avoid a greater pain in some future time. In

the union of those two qualities consists the virtue of prudence, of

all the virtues that which is the most useful to the individual.

With regard to the first of those qualities, it has been observed on a

former occasion, that superior reason and understanding are originally

approved of as just and right and accurate, and not merely as useful

or advantageous. It is in the abstruser sciences, particularly in the

higher parts of mathematics, that the greatest and most admired

exertions of human reason have been displayed. But the utility of

those sciences, either to the individual or to the public, is not very

obvious, and to prove it, requires a discussion which is not always

very easily comprehended. It was not, therefore, their utility which

first recommended them to the public admiration. This quality was but

little insisted upon, till it became necessary to make some reply to

the reproaches of those, who, having themselves no taste for such

sublime discoveries, endeavoured to depreciate them as useless.

That self-command, in the same manner, by which we restrain our

present appetites, in order to gratify them more fully upon another

occasion, is approved of, as much under the aspect of propriety, as

under that of utility. When we act in this manner, the sentiments

which influence our conduct seem exactly to coincide with those of the

spectator. The spectator, however, does not feel the solicitations of

our present appetites.

To him the pleasure which we are to enjoy a week hence, or a year

hence, is just as interesting as that which we are to enjoy this

moment. When for the sake of the present, therefore, we sacrifice the

future, our conduct appears to him absurd and extravagant in the

highest degree, and he cannot enter into the principles which

influence it. On the contrary, when we abstain from present pleasure,

in order to secure greater pleasure to come, when we act as if the

remote object interested us as much as that which immediately presses

upon the senses, as our {168} affections exactly correspond with his

own, he cannot fail to approve of our behaviour: and as he knows from

experience, how few are capable of this self-command, he looks upon

our conduct with a considerable degree of wonder and admiration. Hence

arises that eminent esteem with which all men naturally regard a

steady perseverance in the practice of frugality, industry, and

application, though directed to no other purpose than the acquisition

of fortune. The resolute firmness of the person who acts in this

manner, and in order to obtain a great though remote advantage, not

only gives up all present pleasures, but endures the greatest labour

both of mind and body, necessarily commands our approbation. That view

of his interest and happiness which appears to regulate his conduct,

exactly tallies with the idea which we naturally form of it. There is

the most perfect correspondence between his sentiments and our own,

and at the same time, from our experience of the common weakness of

human nature, it is a correspondence which we could not reasonably

have expected. We not only approve, therefore, but in some measure

admire his conduct, and think it worthy of a considerable degree of

applause. It is the consciousness of this merited approbation and

esteem which is alone capable of supporting the agent in this tenor of

conduct. The pleasure which we are to enjoy ten years hence interests

us so little in comparison with that which we may enjoy today, the

passion which the first excites, is naturally so weak in comparison

with that violent emotion which the second is apt to give occasion to,

that the one could never be any balance to the other, unless it was

supported by the sense of propriety, by the consciousness that we

merited the esteem and approbation of every body, by acting in the one

way, and that we became the proper objects of their contempt and

derision by behaving in the other.

Humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities

most useful to others. Wherein consists the propriety of humanity and

justice has been explained upon a former occasion, where it was shown

how much our esteem and approbation of those qualities depended upon

the concord between the affections of the agent and those of the

spectators.

The propriety of generosity and public spirit is founded upon the same

principle with that of justice. Generosity is different from humanity.

Those two qualities, which at first sight seem so nearly allied, do

not always belong to the same person. Humanity is the virtue of a

woman, generosity of a man. The fair sex, who have commonly much more

tenderness than ours, have seldom so much generosity. That women

rarely make considerable donations, is an observation of the civil

law. (Raro mulieres donare solent.) Humanity consists merely in the

exquisite fellow-feeling which the spectator entertains with the

sentiments of the persons principally concerned, so as to grieve for

their sufferings, to resent their injuries, and to rejoice at their

good {169} fortune. The most humane actions require no self-denial, no

self-command, no great exertion of the sense of propriety. They

consist only in doing what this exquisite sympathy would of its own

accord prompt us to do. But it is otherwise with generosity. We never

are generous except when in some respect we prefer some other person

to ourselves, and sacrifice some great and important interest of our

own to an equal interest of a friend or of a superior. The man who

gives up his pretensions to an office that was the great object of his

ambition, because he imagines that the services of another are better

entitled to it; the man who exposes his life to defend that of his

friend, which he judges to be of more importance, neither of them act

from humanity, or because they feel more exquisitely what concerns

that other person that what concerns themselves. They both consider

those opposite interests, not in the light in which they naturally

appear to themselves, but in that in which they appear to others. To

every bystander, the success or preservation of this other person may

justly be more interesting than their own; but it cannot be so to

themselves. When to the interest of this other person, therefore, they

sacrifice their own, they accommodate themselves to the sentiments of

the spectator, and by an effort of magnanimity act according to those

views of things which they feel must naturally occur to any third

person. The soldier who throws away his life in order to defend that

of his officer, would perhaps be but little affected by the death of

that officer, if it should happen without any fault of his own; and a

very small disaster which had befallen himself might excite a much

more lively sorrow. But when he endeavours to act so as to deserve

applause, and to make the impartial spectator enter into the

principles of his conduct, he feels, that to every body but himself,

his own life is a trifle compared with that of his officer, and that

when he sacrifices the one to the other, he acts quite properly and

agreeably to what would be the natural apprehensions of every

impartial bystander.

It is the same case with the greater exertions of public spirit. When

a young officer exposes his life to acquire some inconsiderable

addition to the dominions of his sovereign, it is not because the

acquisition of the new territory is, to himself, an object more

desirable than the preservation of his own life. To him his own life

is of infinitely more value than the conquest of a whole kingdom for

the state which he serves. But when he compares those two objects with

one another, he does not view them in the light in which they

naturally appear to himself, but in that in which they appear to the

nation he fights for. To them the success of the war is of the highest

importance; the life of a private person of scarce any consequence.

When he puts himself in their situation, he immediately feels that he

cannot be too prodigal of his blood, if, by shedding it, he can

promote so valuable a purpose. In thus thwarting, from a sense of duty

and propriety, the strongest of {170} all natural propensities,

consists the heroism of his conduct. There is many an honest

Englishman, who, in his private station, would be more seriously

disturbed by the loss of a guinea, than by the national loss of

Minorca, who yet, had it been in his power to defend that fortress,

would have sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than, through

his fault, have let it fall into the hands of the enemy. When the

first Brutus led forth his own sons to a capital punishment, because

they had conspired against the rising liberty of Rome, he sacrificed

what, if he had consulted his own breast only, would appear to be the

stronger to the weaker affection. Brutus ought naturally to have felt

much more for the death of his own sons, than for all that probably

Rome could have suffered from the want of so great an example. But he

viewed them, not with the eyes of a father, but with those of a Roman

citizen. He entered so thoroughly into the sentiments of this last

character, that he paid no regard to that tie, by which he himself was

connected with them; and to a Roman citizen, the sons even of Brutus

seemed contemptible, when put into the balance with the smallest

interest of Rome. In these and in all other cases of this kind, our

admiration is not so much founded upon the utility, as upon the

unexpected, and on that account the great, the noble, and exalted

propriety of such actions. This utility, when we come to view it,

bestows upon them, undoubtedly a new beauty, and upon that account

still further recommends them to our approbation. This new beauty,

however, is chiefly perceived by men of reflection and speculation,

and it is by no means the quality which first recommends such actions

to the natural sentiments of the bulk of mankind.

It is to be observed, that so far as the sentiment of approbation

arises from the perception of this beauty of utility, it has no

reference of any kind to the sentiments of others. If it was possible,

therefore, that a person should grow up to manhood without any

communication with society, his own actions might, notwithstanding, be

agreeable or disagreeable to him on account of their tendency to his

happiness or disadvantage. He might perceive a beauty of this kind in

prudence, temperance, and good conduct, and a deformity in the

opposite behaviour: he might view his own temper and character with

that sort of satisfaction with which we consider a well-contrived

machine, in the one case: or with that sort of distaste and

dissatisfaction with which we regard a very awkward and clumsy

contrivance, in the other. As these perceptions, however, are merely a

matter of taste, and have all the feebleness and delicacy of that

species of perceptions, upon the justness of which what is properly

called taste is founded, they probably would not be much attended to

by one in his solitary and miserable condition. Even though they

should occur to him, they would by no means have the same effect upon

him, antecedent to his connexion with society, which they would have

in consequence of that connexion. He {171} would not be cast down with

inward shame at the thought of this deformity; nor would he be

elevated with secret triumph of mind from the consciousness of the

contrary beauty. He would not exult from the notion of deserving

reward in the one case, nor tremble from the suspicion of meriting

punishment in the other. All such sentiments suppose the idea of some

other being, who is the natural judge of the person that feels them;

and it is only by sympathy with the decisions of this arbiter of his

conduct, that he can conceive, either the triumph of self-applause, or

the shame of self-condemnation.

-----

_Part V.--Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments

of Moral Approbation and Disapprobation._

CHAP. I.--_Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our notions

of Beauty and Deformity._

THERE are other principles besides those already enumerated, which

have a considerable influence upon the moral sentiments of mankind,

and are the chief causes of the many irregular and discordant opinions

which prevail in different ages and nations concerning what is

blamable or praise-worthy. These principles are custom and fashion,

principles which extend their dominion over our judgments concerning

beauty of every kind.

When two objects have frequently been seen together, the imagination

acquires a habit of passing easily from the one to the other. If the

first appear, we lay our account that the second is to follow. Of

their own accord they put us in mind of one another, and the attention

glides easily along them. Though, independent of custom, there should

be no real beauty in their union, yet when custom has thus connected

them together, we feel an impropriety in their separation. The one we

think is awkward when it appears without its usual companion. We miss

something which we expected to find, and the habitual arrangement of

our ideas is disturbed by the disappointment. A suit of clothes, for

example, seems to want something if they are without the most

insignificant ornament which usually accompanies them, and we find a

meanness or awkwardness in the absence even of a haunch button. When

there is any natural propriety in the union, custom increases our

sense of it, and makes a different arrangement appear still more

disagreeable than it would otherwise seem to be. Those who have been

accustomed to see things in a good taste, are more disgusted by

whatever is clumsy or awkward. Where the conjunction is improper,

custom either diminishes, or takes away altogether, our sense of the

impropriety. Those who have been accustomed to slovenly disorder lose

all sense of neatness or elegance. The modes of furniture or dress

which {172} seem ridiculous to strangers, give no offence to the

people who have been used to them.

Fashion is different from custom, or rather is a particular species of

it. That is not the fashion which every body wears, but which those

wear who are of a high rank, or character. The graceful, the easy, and

commanding manners of the great, joined to the usual richness and

magnificence of their dress, give a grace to the very form which they

happen to bestow upon it. As long as they continue to use this form,

it is connected in our imaginations with the idea of something that is

genteel and magnificent, and though in itself it should be

indifferent, it seems, on account of this relation, to have something

about it that is genteel and magnificent too. As soon as they drop it,

it loses all the grace, which it had appeared to possess before, and

being now used only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to have

something of their meanness and their awkwardness.

Dress and furniture are allowed by all the world to be entirely under

the dominion of custom and fashion. The influence of those principles,

however, is by no means confined to so narrow a sphere, but extends

itself to whatever is in any respect the object of taste, to music, to

poetry, to architecture. The modes of dress and furniture are

continually changing, and that fashion appearing ridiculous to-day

which was admired five years ago, we are experimentally convinced that

it owed its vogue chiefly or entirely to custom and fashion. Clothes

and furniture are not made of very durable materials. A well-fancied

coat is done in a twelve-month, and cannot continue longer to

propagate, as the fashion, that form according to which it was made.

The modes of furniture change less rapidly than those of dress;

because furniture is commonly more durable. In five or six years,

however, it generally undergoes an entire revolution, and every man in

his own time sees the fashion in this respect change many different

ways. The productions of the other arts are much more lasting, and,

when happily imagined, may continue to propagate the fashion of their

make for a much longer time. A well-contrived building may endure many

centuries: a beautiful air may be delivered down by a sort of

tradition, through many successive generations: a well-written poem

may last as long as the world; and all of them continue for ages

together, to give the vogue to that particular style, to that

particular taste or manner, according to which each of them was

composed. Few men have an opportunity of seeing in their own times the

fashion in any of these arts change very considerably. Few men have so

much experience and acquaintance with the different modes which have

obtained in remote ages and nations, as to be thoroughly reconciled to

them, or to judge with impartiality between them and what takes place

in their own age and country. Few men therefore are willing to allow,

that custom or fashion have much influence upon their judgments

concerning what is beautiful {173} or otherwise, in the productions of

any of those arts; but imagine that all the rules, which they think

ought to be observed in each of them, are founded upon reason and

nature, not upon habit or prejudice. A very little attention may

convince them of the contrary, and satisfy them, that the influence of

custom and fashion over dress and furniture, is not more absolute than

over architecture, poetry, and music.

Can any reason, for example, be assigned why the Doric capital should

be appropriated to a pillar, whose height is equal to eight diameters;

the Ionic volute to one of nine; and the Corinthian foliage to one of

ten? The propriety of each of those appropriations can be founded upon

nothing but habit and custom. The eye having been used to see a

particular proportion connected with a particular ornament, would be

offended if they were not joined together. Each of the five orders has

its peculiar ornaments, which cannot be changed for any other, without

giving offence to all those who know any thing of the rules of

architecture. According to some architects, indeed, such is the

exquisite judgment with which the ancients have assigned to each order

its proper ornaments, that no others can be found which are equally

suitable. It seems, however, a little difficult to be conceived that

these forms, though, no doubt, extremely agreeable, should be the only

forms which can suit those proportions, or that there should not be

five hundred others which, antecedent to established custom, would

have fitted them equally well. When custom, however, has established

particular rules of building, provided they are not absolutely

unreasonable, it is absurd to think of altering them for others which

are only equally good, or even for others which, in point of elegance

and beauty, have naturally some little advantage over them. A man

would be ridiculous who should appear in public with a suit of clothes

quite different from those which are commonly worn, though the new

dress should in itself be ever so graceful or convenient. And there

seems to be an absurdity of the same kind in ornamenting a house after

a quite different manner from that which custom and fashion have

prescribed; though the new ornaments should in themselves be somewhat

superior to the common ones in use.

According to the ancient rhetoricians, a certain measure or verse was

by nature appropriated to each particular species of writing, as being

naturally expressive of that character, sentiment, or passion, which

ought to predominate in it. One verse, they said, was fit for grave

and another for gay works, which could not, they thought, be

interchanged without the greatest impropriety. The experience of

modern times, however, seems to contradict this principle, though in

itself it would appear to be extremely probable. What is the burlesque

verse in English, is the heroic verse in French. The tragedies of

Racine and the Henriad of Voltaire, are nearly in the same verse with,

Let me have your advice in a weighty affair.

{174} The burlesque verse in French, on the contrary, is pretty much

the same with the heroic verse of ten syllables in English. Custom has

made the one nation associate the ideas of gravity, sublimity, and

seriousness, to that measure which the other has connected with

whatever is gay, flippant, and ludicrous. Nothing would appear more

absurd in English, than a tragedy written in the Alexandrine verses of

the French; or in French, than a work of the same kind in hexametery,

or verses of ten syllables.

An eminent artist will bring about a considerable change in the

established modes of each of those arts, and introduce a new fashion

of writing, music, or architecture. As the dress of an agreeable man

of high rank recommends itself, and how peculiar and fantastical

soever, comes soon to be admired and imitated; so the excellencies of

an eminent master recommend his peculiarities, and his manner becomes

the fashionable style in the art which he practises. The taste of the

Italians in music and architecture has, within these fifty years,

undergone a considerable change, from imitating the peculiarities of

some eminent masters in each of those arts. Seneca is accused by

Quintilian of having corrupted the taste of the Romans, and of having

introduced a frivolous prettiness in the room of majestic reason and

masculine eloquence. Sallust and Tacitus have by others been charged

with the same accusation, though in a different manner. They gave

reputation, it is pretended, to a style, which though in the highest

degree concise, elegant, expressive, and even poetical, wanted,

however, ease, simplicity, and nature, and was evidently the

production of the most laboured and studied affectation. How many

great qualities must that writer possess, who can thus render his very

faults agreeable? After the praise of refining the taste of a nation,

the highest eulogy, perhaps, which can be bestowed upon any author, is

to say, that he corrupted it. In our own language, Mr. Pope and Dr.

Swift have each of them introduced a manner different from what was

practised before, into all works that are written in rhyme, the one in

long verses, the other in short. The quaintness of Butler has given

place to the plainness of Swift. The rambling freedom of Dryden, and

the correct but often tedious and prosaic languor of Addison, are no

longer the objects of imitation, but all long verses are now written

after the manner of the nervous precision of Mr. Pope.

Neither is it only over the productions of the arts, that custom and

fashion exert their dominion. They influence our judgments, in the

same manner, with regard to the beauty of natural objects. What

various and opposite forms are deemed beautiful in different species

of things? The proportions which are admired in one animal, are

altogether different from those which are esteemed in another. Every

class of things has its own peculiar conformation, which is approved

of, and has a beauty of its own, distinct from that of every other

species. {175} It is upon this account that a learned Jesuit, Father

Buffier, has determined that the beauty of every object consists in

that form and colour, which is most usual among things of that

particular sort to which it belongs. Thus, in the human form, the

beauty of each feature lies in a certain middle, equally removed from

a variety of other forms that are ugly. A beautiful nose, for example,

is one that is neither very long, nor very short, neither very

straight, nor very crooked, but a sort of middle among all these

extremes, and less different from any one of them, than all of them

are from one another. It is the form which nature seems to have aimed

at in them all, which, however, she deviates from in a great variety

of ways, and very seldom hits exactly; but to which all those

deviations still bear a very strong resemblance. When a number of

drawings are made after one pattern, though they may all miss it in

some respects, yet they will all resemble it more than they resemble

one another; the general character of the pattern will run through

them all; the most singular and odd will be those which are most wide

of it; and though very few will copy it exactly, yet the most accurate

delineations will bear a greater resemblance to the most careless,

than the careless ones will bear to one another. In the same manner,

in each species of creatures, what is most beautiful bears the

strongest characters of the general fabric of the species, and has the

strongest resemblance to the greater part of the individuals with

which it is classed. Monsters, on the contrary, or what is perfectly

deformed, are always most singular and odd, and have the least

resemblance to the generality of that species to which they belong.

And thus the beauty of each species, though in one sense the rarest of

all things, because few individuals hit this middle form exactly, yet

in another, is the most common, because all the deviations from it

resemble it more than they resemble one another. The most customary

form, therefore, is in each species of things, according to him, the

most beautiful. And hence it is that a certain practice and experience

in contemplating each species of objects is requisite before we can

judge of its beauty, or know wherein the middle and most usual form

consists. The nicest judgment concerning the beauty of the human

species will not help us to judge of that of flowers, or horses, or

any other species of things. It is for the same reason that in

different climates, and where different customs and ways of living

take place, as the generality of any species receives a different

conformation from those circumstances, so different ideas of its

beauty prevail. The beauty of a Moorish is not exactly the same with

that of an English horse. What different ideas are formed in different

nations concerning the beauty of the human shape and countenance? A

fair complexion is a shocking deformity upon the coast of Guinea.

Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty. In some nations long ears

that hang down upon the shoulders are the objects of universal

admiration. In China if a lady's foot is so {176} large as to be fit

to walk upon, she is regarded as a monster of ugliness. Some of the

savage nations in North America tie four boards round the heads of

their children, and thus squeeze them, while the bones are tender and

gristly, into a form that is almost perfectly square. Europeans are

astonished at the absurd barbarity of this practice, to which some

missionaries have imputed the singular stupidity of those nations

among whom it prevails. But when they condemn those savages, they do

not reflect that the ladies in Europe had, till within these very few

years, been endeavouring, for near a century past, to squeeze the

beautiful roundness of their natural shape into a square form of the

same kind. And that, notwithstanding the many distortions and diseases

which this practice was known to occasion, custom had rendered it

agreeable among some of the most civilized nations which, perhaps, the

world has ever beheld.

Such is the system of this learned and ingenious father, concerning

the nature of beauty; of which the whole charm, according to him,

would thus seem to arise from its falling in with the habits which

custom had impressed upon the imagination, with regard to things of

each particular kind. I cannot, however, be induced to believe that

our sense even of external beauty is founded altogether on custom. The

utility of any form, its fitness for the useful purposes for which it

was intended evidently recommends it, and renders it agreeable to us,

independent of custom. Certain colours are more agreeable than

others, and give more delight to the eye the first time it ever

beholds them. A smooth surface is more agreeable than a rough one.

Variety is more pleasing than a tedious undiversified uniformity.

Connected variety, in which each new appearance seems to be introduced

by what went before it, and in which all the adjoining parts seem to

have some natural relation to one another, is more agreeable than a

disjointed and disorderly assemblage of unconnected objects. But

though I cannot admit that custom is the sole principle of beauty, yet

I can so far allow the truth of this ingenious system as to grant,

that there is scarce any one external form so beautiful as to please,

if quite contrary to custom and unlike whatever we have ever been used

to in that particular species of things: or so deformed as not to be

agreeable, if custom uniformly supports it, and habituates us to see

it in every single individual of the kind.

-----

CHAP. II.--_Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral

Sentiments._

SINCE our sentiments concerning beauty of every kind, are so much

influenced by custom and fashion, it cannot be expected, that those,

concerning the beauty of conduct, should be entirely exempted from

{177} the dominion of those principles. Their influence here, however,

seems to be much less than it is every where else. There is, perhaps,

no form of external objects, how absurd and fantastical soever, to

which custom will not reconcile us, or which fashion will not render

even agreeable. But the characters and conduct of a Nero, or a

Claudius, are what no custom will ever reconcile us to, what no

fashion will ever render agreeable; but the one will always be the

object of dread and hatred; the other of scorn and derision. The

principles of the imagination, upon which our sense of beauty depends,

are of a very nice and delicate nature, and may easily be altered by

habit and education: but the sentiments of moral approbation and

disapprobation, are founded on the strongest and most vigorous

passions of human nature; and though they may be warped, cannot be

entirely perverted.

But though the influence of custom and fashion upon moral sentiments,

is not altogether so great, it is however perfectly similar to what it

is every where else. When custom and fashion coincide with the natural

principles of right and wrong, they heighten the delicacy of our

sentiments, and increase our abhorrence for every thing which

approaches to evil. Those who have been educated in what is really

good company, not in what is commonly called such, who have been

accustomed to see nothing in the persons whom they esteemed and lived

with, but justice, modesty, humanity, and good order; are more shocked

with whatever seems to be inconsistent with the rules which those

virtues prescribe. Those, on the contrary, who have had the misfortune

to be brought up amidst violence, licentiousness, falsehood, and

injustice, lose, though not all sense of the impropriety of such

conduct, yet all sense of its dreadful enormity, or of the vengeance

and punishment due to it. They have been familiarized with it from

their infancy, custom has rendered it habitual to them, and they are

very apt to regard it as, what is called, the way of the world,

something which either may, or must be practised, to hinder us from

being made the dupes of our own integrity.

Fashion, too, will sometimes give reputation to a certain degree of

disorder, and, on the contrary, discountenance qualities which deserve

esteem. In the reign of Charles II. a degree of licentiousness was

deemed the characteristic of a liberal education. It was connected,

according to the notions of those times, with generosity, sincerity,

magnanimity, loyalty, and proved that the person who acted in this

manner, was a gentleman, and not a puritan. Severity of manners, and

regularity of conduct, on the other hand, were altogether

unfashionable, and were connected, in the imagination of that age,

with cant, cunning, hypocrisy, and low manners. To superficial minds,

the vices of the great seem at all times agreeable. They connect them,

not only with the splendour of fortune, but with many superior

virtues, which they ascribe to their superiors; with the spirit of

freedom and {178} independency, with frankness, generosity, humanity,

and politeness. The virtues of the inferior ranks of people, on the

contrary, their parsimonious frugality, their painful industry, and

rigid adherence to rules, seems to them mean and disagreeable. They

connect them, both with the meanness of the station to which those

qualities do commonly belong, and with many great vices which, they

suppose, very usually accompany them; such as an abject, cowardly,

ill-natured, lying, and pilfering disposition.

The objects with which men in the different professions and states of

life are conversant, being very different, and habituating them to

very different passions, naturally form in them very different

characters and manners. We expect in each rank and profession, a

degree of those manners, which, experience has taught us, belong to

it. But as in each species of things, we are particularly pleased with

the middle conformation, which, in every part and feature, agrees most

exactly with the general standard which nature seems to have

established for things of that kind; so in each rank, or, if I may say

so, in each species of men, we are particularly pleased, if they have

neither too much, nor too little of the character which usually

accompanies their particular condition and situation. A man, we say,

should look like his trade and profession; yet the pedantry of every

profession is disagreeable. The different periods of life have, for

the same reason, different manners assigned to them. We expect in old

age, that gravity and sedateness which its infirmities, its long

experience, and its worn-out sensibility seem to render both natural

and respectable; and we lay our account to find in youth that

sensibility, that gaiety and sprightly vivacity which experience

teaches us to expect from the lively impressions that all interesting

objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpractised senses of that

early period of life. Each of those two ages, however, may easily have

too much of these peculiarities which belong to it. The flirting

levity of youth, and the immovable insensibility of old age, are

equally disagreeable. The young, according to the common saying, are

most agreeable when in their behaviour there is something of the

manners of the old, and the old, when they retain something of the

gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have too much

of the manners of the other. The extreme coldness, and the dull

formality, which are pardoned in old age, make youth ridiculous. The

levity, the carelessness, and the vanity, which are indulged in youth,

will render old age contemptible.

The peculiar character and manners which we are led by custom to

appropriate to each rank and profession, have sometimes perhaps a

propriety independent of custom; and are what we should approve of

for their own sakes, if we took into consideration all the different

circumstances which naturally affect those in each different state of

life. The propriety of a person's behaviour, depends not upon its

{179} suitableness to any one circumstance of his situation, but to

all the circumstances, which, when we bring his case home to

ourselves, we feel, should naturally call upon his attention. If he

appears to be so much occupied by any one of them, as entirely to

neglect the rest, we disapprove of his conduct, as something which we

cannot entirely go along with, because not properly adjusted to all

the circumstances of his situation: yet, perhaps, the emotion he

expresses for the object which principally interests him, does not

exceed what we should entirely sympathize with, and approve of, in one

whose attention was not required by any other thing. A parent in

private life might, upon the loss of an only son, express without

blame a degree of grief and tenderness, which would be unpardonable in

a general at the head of an army, when glory, and the public safety,

demanded so great a part of his attention. As different objects ought,

upon common occasions, to occupy the attention of men of different

professions, so different passions ought naturally to become habitual

to them; and when we bring home to ourselves their situation in this

particular respect, we must be sensible, that every occurrence should

naturally affect them more or less, according as the emotion which it

excites, coincides or disagrees with the fixed habit and temper of

their minds. We cannot expect the same sensibility to the gay

pleasures and amusements of life in a clergyman, which we lay our

account with in an officer. The man whose peculiar occupation it is to

keep the world in mind of that awful futurity which awaits him, who is

to announce what may be the fatal consequences of every deviation from

the rules of duty, and who is himself to set the example of the most

exact conformity, seems to be the messenger of tidings, which cannot,

in propriety, be delivered either with levity or indifference. His

mind is supposed to be continually occupied with what is too grand and

solemn, to leave any room for the impressions of those frivolous

objects, which fill up the attention of the dissipated and the gay. We

readily feel therefore, that, independent of custom, there is a

propriety in the manners which custom has allotted to this profession;

and that nothing can be more suitable to the character of a clergyman,

than that grave, that austere and abstracted severity, which we are

habituated to expect in his behaviour. These reflections are so very

obvious, that there is scarce any man so inconsiderate, as not, at

some time, to have made them, and to have accounted to himself in this

manner for his approbation of the useful character of the clerical

order.

The foundation of the customary character of some other professions is

not so obvious, and our approbation of it is founded entirely in the

habit, without being either confirmed or enlivened by any reflections

of this kind. We are led by custom, for example, to annex the

character of gaiety, levity, and sprightly freedom, as well as of some

degree of dissipation, to the military profession. Yet, if we were

{180} to consider what mood or tone of temper would be most suitable

to this situation, we should be apt to determine, perhaps, that the

most serious and thoughtful turn of mind would best become those whose

lives are continually exposed to uncommon danger, and who should

therefore be more constantly occupied with the thoughts of death and

its consequences than other men. It is this very circumstance,

however, which is not improbably the occasion why the contrary turn of

mind prevails so much among men of this profession. It requires so

great an effort to conquer the fear of death, when we survey it with

steadiness and attention, that those who are constantly exposed to it,

find it easier to turn away their thoughts from it altogether, to wrap

themselves up in careless security and indifference, and to plunge

themselves, for this purpose, into every sort of amusement and

dissipation. A camp is not the element of a thoughtful or a melancholy

man: persons of that cast, indeed, are often abundantly determined,

and are capable, by a great effort, of going on with inflexible

resolution to the most unavoidable death. But to be exposed to

continual, though less imminent danger, to be obliged to exert, for a

long time, a degree of this effort, exhausts and depresses the mind,

and renders it incapable of all happiness and enjoyment. The gay and

careless, who have occasion to make no effort at all, who fairly

resolve never to look before them, but to lose in continual pleasures

and amusements all anxiety about their situation, more easily support

such circumstances. Whenever, by any peculiar circumstances, an

officer has no reason to lay his account with being exposed to any

uncommon danger, he is very apt to lose the gaiety and dissipated

thoughtlessness of his character. The captain of a city guard is

commonly as sober, careful, and penurious an animal as the rest of his

fellow-citizens. A long peace is, for the same reason, very apt to

diminish the difference between the civil and the military character.

The ordinary situation, however, of men of this profession, renders

gaiety, and a degree of dissipation, so much their usual character;

and custom has, in our imagination, so strongly connected this

character with this state of life, that we are very apt to despise any

man, whose peculiar humour or situation renders him incapable of

acquiring it. We laugh at the grave and careful faces of a city guard,

which so little resemble those of their profession. They themselves

seem often to be ashamed of the regularity of their own manners, and,

not to be out of the fashion of their trade, are fond of affecting

that levity, which is by no means natural to them. Whatever is the

deportment which we have been accustomed to see in a respectable order

of men, it comes to be so associated in our imagination with that

order, that whenever we see the one, we lay our account that we are to

meet with the other, and when disappointed, miss something which we

expected to find. We are embarrassed, and put to a stand, and know not

how to address ourselves to a character, which plainly {181} affects

to be of a different species from those with which we should have been

disposed to class it.

The different situations of different ages and countries are apt, in

the same manner, to give different characters to the generality of

those who live in them, and their sentiments concerning the particular

degree of each quality, that is either blamable or praise-worthy, vary

according to that degree which is usual in their own country, and in

their own times. That degree of politeness which would be highly

esteemed, perhaps would be thought effeminate adulation, in Russia,

would be regarded as rudeness and barbarism at the court of France.

That degree of order and frugality, which, in a Polish nobleman, would

be considered as excessive parsimony, would be regarded as

extravagance in a citizen of Amsterdam. Every age and country look

upon that degree of each quality, which is commonly to be met with in

those who are esteemed among themselves, as the golden mean of that

particular talent or virtue. And as this varies, according as their

different circumstances render different qualities more or less

habitual to them, their sentiments concerning the exact propriety of

character and behaviour vary accordingly.

Among civilized nations, the virtues which are founded upon humanity,

are more cultivated than those which are founded upon self-denial and

the command of the passions. Among rude and barbarous nations, it is

quite otherwise, the virtues of self-denial are more cultivated than

those of humanity. The general security and happiness which prevail in

ages of civility and politeness, afford little exercise to the

contempt of danger, to patience in enduring labour, hunger, and pain.

Poverty may easily be avoided, and the contempt of it therefore almost

ceases to be a virtue. The abstinence from pleasure becomes less

necessary, and the mind is more at liberty to unbend and to indulge

its natural inclinations in all those particular respects.

Among savages and barbarians it is quite otherwise. Every savage

undergoes a sort of Spartan discipline, and by the necessity of his

situation is inured to every sort of hardship. He is in continual

danger: he is often exposed to the greatest extremities of hunger, and

frequently dies of pure want. His circumstances not only habituate him

to every sort of distress, but teach him to give way to none of the

passions which that distress is apt to excite. He can expect from his

countrymen no sympathy or indulgence for such weakness. Before we can

feel much for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If

our own misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend

to that of our neighbour: and all savages are too much occupied with

their own wants and necessities, to give much attention to those of

another person. A savage, therefore, whatever be the nature of his

distress, expects no sympathy from those about him, and disdains, upon

that account, to expose himself, by allowing the least weakness to

escape {182} him. His passions, how furious and violent soever, are

never permitted to disturb the serenity of his countenance or the

composure of his conduct and behaviour. The savages in North America,

we are told, assume upon all occasions the greatest indifference, and

would think themselves degraded if they should ever appear in any

respect to be overcome, either by love, or grief, or resentment. Their

magnanimity and self-command, in this respect, are almost beyond the

conception of Europeans. In a country in which all men are upon a

level, with regard to rank and fortune, it might be expected that the

mutual inclinations of the two parties should be the only thing

considered in marriages, and should be indulged without any sort of

control. This, however, is the country in which all marriages, without

exception, are made up by the parents, and in which a young man would

think himself disgraced for ever, if he showed the least preference of

one woman above another, or did not express the most complete

indifference, both about the time when, and the person to whom, he was

to be married. The weakness of love, which is so indulged in ages of

humanity and politeness, is regarded among savages as the most

unpardonable effeminacy. Even after the marriage, the two parties seem

to be ashamed of a connexion which is founded upon so sordid a

necessity. They do not live together. They see one another by stealth

only. They both continue to dwell in the houses of their respective

fathers, and the open cohabitation of the two sexes, which is

permitted without blame in all other countries, is here considered as

the most indecent and unmanly sensuality. Nor is it only over this

agreeable passion that they exert this absolute self-command. They

often bear, in the sight of all their countrymen, with injuries,

reproach, and the grossest insults, with the appearance of the

greatest insensibility, and without expressing the smallest

resentment. When a savage is made prisoner of war, and receives, as is

usual, the sentence of death from his conquerors, he hears it without

expressing any emotion, and afterwards submits to the most dreadful

torments, without ever bemoaning himself, or discovering any other

passion but contempt of his enemies. While he is hung by the shoulders

over a slow fire, he derides his tormentors, and tells them with how

much more ingenuity he himself had tormented such of their countrymen

as had fallen into his hands. After he has been scorched and burnt,

and lacerated in all the most tender and sensible parts of his body

for several hours together, he is often allowed, in order to prolong

his misery, a short respite, and is taken down from the stake: he

employs this interval in talking upon all indifferent subjects,

inquires after the news of the country, and seems indifferent about

nothing but his own situation. The spectators express the same

insensibility; the sight of so horrible an object seems to make no

impression upon them; they scarce look at the prisoner, except when

they lend a hand to torment him. At other times they smoke tobacco,

and amuse themselves {183} with any common object, as if no such

matter was going on. Every savage is said to prepare himself from his

earliest youth for this dreadful end. He composes, for this purpose,

what they call the song of death, a song which he is to sing when he

has fallen into the hands of his enemies, and is expiring under the

tortures which they inflict upon him. It consists of insults upon his

tormentors, and expresses the highest contempt of death and pain. He

sings this song upon all extraordinary occasions, when he goes out to

war, when he meets his enemies in the field, or whenever he has a mind

to show that he has familiarised his imagination to the most dreadful

misfortunes, and that no human event can daunt his resolution or alter

his purpose. The same contempt of death and torture prevails among all

other savage nations. There is not a negro from the coast of Africa,

who does not in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which

the soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of

conceiving. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over

mankind, than when she subjected those nations of heroes to the refuse

of the jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of

the countries which they come from, nor of those which they go to, and

whose levity, brutality, and baseness, expose them to the contempt of

the vanquished.

This heroic and unconquerable firmness, which the custom and education

of his country demand of every savage, is not required of those who

are brought up to live in civilized societies. If these last complain

when they are in pain, if they grieve when they are in distress, if

they allow themselves either to be overcome by love, or to be

discomposed by anger, they are easily pardoned. Such weaknesses are

not apprehended to affect the essential parts of their character. As

long as they do not allow themselves to be transported to do anything

contrary to justice or humanity, they lose but little reputation,

though the serenity of their countenance, or the composure of their

discourse and behaviour should be somewhat ruffled and disturbed. A

humane and polished people, who have more sensibility to the passions

of others, can more readily enter into an animated and passionate

behaviour, and can more easily pardon some little excess. The person

principally concerned is sensible of this; and being assured of the

equity of his judges, indulges himself in stronger expressions of

passion, and is less afraid of exposing himself to their contempt by

the violence of his emotions. We can venture to express more emotion

in the presence of a friend than in that of a stranger, because we

expect more indulgence from the one than from the other. And in the

same manner the rules of decorum amongst civilized nations, admit of a

more animated behaviour, than is approved of among barbarians. The

first converse together with the openness of friends; the second with

the reserve of strangers. The emotion and vivacity with which the

French and the Italians, the two most polished nations upon the

continent, express {184} themselves on occasions that are at all

interesting, surprise at first those strangers who happen to be

travelling among them, and who, having been educated among a people of

duller sensibility, cannot enter into this passionate behaviour, of

which they have never seen any example in their own country. A young

French nobleman will weep in the presence of the whole court upon

being refused a regiment. An Italian, says the Abbot Du Bos, expresses

more emotion on being condemned in a fine of twenty shillings, than an

Englishman on receiving the sentence of death. Cicero, in the times of

the highest Roman politeness, could, without degrading himself, weep

with all the bitterness of sorrow in the sight of the whole senate and

the whole people; as it is evident he must have done in the end of

almost every oration. The orators of the earlier and ruder ages of

Rome could not probably, consistent with the manners of the times,

have expressed themselves with so much emotion. It would have been

regarded, I suppose, as a violation of nature and propriety in the

Scipios, in the Leliuses, and in the elder Cato, to have exposed so

much tenderness to the view of the public. Those ancient warriors

could express themselves with order, gravity, and good judgment: but

are said to have been strangers to that sublime and passionate

eloquence which was first introduced into Rome, not many years before

the birth of Cicero, by the two Gracchi, by Crassus, and by Sulpitius.

This animated eloquence, which has been long practised, with or

without success, both in France and Italy, is but just beginning to be

introduced into England. So wide is the difference between the degrees

of self-command which are required in civilized and in barbarous

nations, and by such different standards do they judge of the

propriety of behaviour.

This difference gives occasion to many others that are not less

essential. A polished people being accustomed to give way, in some

measure, to the movements of nature, become frank, open, and sincere.

Barbarians, on the contrary, being obliged to smother and conceal the

appearance of every passion, necessarily acquire the habits of

falsehood and dissimulation. It is observed by all those who have been

conversant with savage nations, whether in Asia, Africa, or America,

that they are equally impenetrable, and that, when they have a mind to

conceal the truth, no examination is capable of drawing it from them.

They cannot be trepanned by the most artful questions. The torture

itself is incapable of making them confess any thing which they have

no mind to tell. The passions of a savage too, though they never

express themselves by an outward emotion, but lie concealed in the

breast of the sufferer, are, notwithstanding, all mounted to the

highest pitch of fury. Though he seldom shows any symptoms of anger,

yet his vengeance, when he comes to give way to it, is always

sanguinary and dreadful. The least affront drives him to despair. His

countenance and discourse indeed, are still sober and composed, and

express nothing {185} but the most perfect tranquillity of mind: but

his actions are often the most furious and violent. Among the North

Americans it is not uncommon for persons of the tenderest age and more

fearful sex to drown themselves upon receiving only a slight reprimand

from their mothers, and this too without expressing any passion, or

saying any thing, except, _you shall no longer have a daughter_.

In civilized nations the passions of men are not commonly so furious

or so desperate. They are often clamorous and noisy, but are seldom

very hurtful; and seem frequently to aim at no other satisfaction, but

that of convincing the spectator, that they are in the right to be so

much moved, and of procuring his sympathy and approbation.

All these effects of custom and fashion, however, upon the moral

sentiments of mankind, are inconsiderable, in comparison of those

which they give occasion to in some other cases; and it is not

concerning the general style of character and behaviour, that those

principles produce the greatest perversion of judgment, but concerning

the propriety or impropriety of particular usages.

The different manners which custom teaches us to approve of in the

different professions and states of life, do not concern things of the

greatest importance. We expect truth and justice from an old man as

well as from a young, from a clergyman as well as from an officer; and

it is in matters of small moment only that we look for the

distinguishing marks of their respective characters. With regard to

these, too, there is often some unobserved circumstance which, if it

was attended to, would show us, that, independent of custom, there was

a propriety in the character which custom had taught us to allot to

each profession. We cannot complain, therefore, in this case, that the

perversion of natural sentiment is very great. Though the manners of

different nations require different degrees of the same quality, in

the character which they think worthy of esteem, yet the worst that

can be said to happen even here, is that the duties of one virtue are

sometimes extended so as to encroach a little upon the precincts of

some other. The rustic hospitality that is in fashion among the Poles

encroaches, perhaps, a little upon oeconomy and good order; and the

frugality that is esteemed in Holland, upon generosity and

good-fellowship. The hardiness demanded of savages diminishes their

humanity; and, perhaps, the delicate sensibility required in civilized

nations, sometimes destroys the masculine firmness of the character.

In general, the style of manners which takes place in any nation, may

commonly upon the whole be said to be that which is most suitable to

its situation. Hardiness is the character most suitable to the

circumstances of a savage; sensibility to those of one who lives in a

very civilized country. Even here, therefore, we cannot complain that

the moral sentiments of men, as displayed by them, are very grossly

perverted.

It is not therefore in the general style of conduct or behaviour that

{186} custom authorises the widest departure from what is the natural

propriety of action. With regard to particular usages, its influence

is often much more destructive of good morals, and it is capable of

establishing, as lawful and blameless, particular actions, which shock

the very plainest principles of right and wrong.

Can there be greater barbarity, for example, than to hurt an infant?

Its helplessness, its innocence, its amiableness, call forth the

compassion, even of an enemy, and not to spare that tender age is

regarded as the most furious effort of an enraged and cruel conqueror.

What then should we imagine must be the heart of a parent who could

injure that weakness which even a furious enemy is afraid to violate?

Yet the exposition, that is, the murder of new-born infants, was a

practice allowed of in almost all the states of Greece, even among the

polite and civilized Athenians; and whenever the circumstances of the

parent rendered it inconvenient to bring up the child, to abandon it

to hunger or to wild beasts was regarded without blame or censure.

This practice had probably begun in times of the most savage

barbarity. The imaginations of men had been first made familiar with

it in that earliest period of society, and the uniform continuance of

the custom had hindered them afterwards from perceiving its enormity.

We find, at this day, that this practice prevails among all savage

nations; and in that rudest and lowest state of society it is

undoubtedly more pardonable than in any other. The extreme indigence

of a savage is often such that he himself is frequently exposed to the

greatest extremity of hunger, he often dies of pure want, and it is

frequently impossible for him to support both himself and his child.

We cannot wonder, therefore, that in this case he should abandon it.

One who, in flying from an enemy, whom it was impossible to resist,

should throw down his infant, because it retarded his flight, would

surely be excusable; since, by attempting to save it, he could only

hope for the consolation of dying with it. That in this state of

society, therefore, a parent should be allowed to judge whether he can

bring up his child, ought not to surprise us so greatly. In the latter

ages of Greece, however, the same thing was permitted from views of

remote interest or conveniency, which could by no means excuse it.

Uninterrupted custom had by this time so thoroughly authorised the

practice, that not only the loose maxims of the world tolerated this

barbarous prerogative, but even the doctrine of philosophers, which

ought to have been more just and accurate, was led away by the

established custom, and upon this, as upon many other occasions,

instead of censuring, supported the horrible abuse, by far-fetched

considerations of public utility. Aristotle talks of it as of what the

magistrate ought upon many occasions to encourage. The humane Plato is

of the same opinion, and, with all that love of mankind which seems to

animate all his writings, no where marks this practice with

disapprobation. When custom can give sanction to so dreadful a

violation of humanity; we {187} may well imagine that there is scarce

any particular practice so gross which it cannot authorise. Such a

thing, we hear men every day saying, is commonly done, and they seem

to think this a sufficient apology for what, in itself, is the most

unjust and unreasonable conduct.

There is an obvious reason why custom should never pervert our

sentiments with regard to the general style and character of conduct

and behaviour, in the same degree as with regard to the propriety or

unlawfulness of particular usages. There never can be any such custom.

No society could subsist a moment, in which the usual strain of men's

conduct and behaviour was of a piece with the horrible practice I have

just now mentioned.

-----

_Part VI.--Of the Character of Virtue._

INTRODUCTION.--When we consider the character of any individual, we

naturally view it under two different aspects; first, as it may affect

his own happiness; and secondly, as it may affect that of other

people.

-----

SEC. I.--OF THE CHARACTER OF THE INDIVIDUAL, SO FAR AS IT AFFECTS HIS

OWN HAPPINESS; OR OF PRUDENCE.

THE preservation and healthful state of the body seem to be the

objects which Nature first recommends to the care of every individual.

The appetites of hunger and thirst, the agreeable or disagreeable

sensations of pleasure and pain, of heat and cold, &c., may be

considered as lessons delivered by the voice of Nature herself,

directing him what he ought to choose, and what he ought to avoid, for

this purpose. The first lessons which he is taught by those to whom

his childhood is entrusted, tend, the greater part of them, to the

same purpose. Their principal object is to teach him how to keep out

of harm's way.

As he grows up, he soon learns that some care and foresight are

necessary for providing the means of gratifying those natural

appetites, of procuring pleasure and avoiding pain, of procuring the

agreeable and avoiding the disagreeable temperature of heat and cold.

In the proper direction of this care and foresight consists the art of

preserving and increasing what is called his external fortune.

Though it is in order to supply the necessities and conveniencies of

the body, that the advantages of external fortune are originally

recommended to us, yet we cannot live long in the world without

perceiving that the respect of our equals, our credit and rank in the

society we live in, depend very much upon the degree in which we

possess, or are supposed to possess, those advantages. The desire of

becoming the {188} proper objects of this respect, of deserving and

obtaining this credit and rank among our equals, is, perhaps, the

strongest of all our desires, and our anxiety to obtain the advantages

of fortune is accordingly much more excited and irritated by this

desire, than by that of supplying all the necessities and

conveniencies of the body, which are always very easily supplied to

us.

Our rank and credit among our equals, too, depend very much upon,

what, perhaps, a virtuous man would wish them to depend entirely, our

character and conduct, or upon the confidence, esteem, and good-will,

which these naturally excite in the people we live with.

The care of the health, of the fortune, of the rank and reputation of

the individual, the objects upon which his comfort and happiness in

this life are supposed principally to depend, is considered as the

proper business of that virtue which is commonly called Prudence.

We suffer more, it has already been observed, when we fall from a

better to a worse situation, than we ever enjoy when we rise from a

worse to a better. Security, therefore, is the first and the principal

object of prudence. It is averse to expose our health, our fortune,

our rank, or reputation, to any sort of hazard. It is rather cautious

than enterprising, and more anxious to preserve the advantages which

we already possess, than forward to prompt us to the acquisition of

still greater advantages. The methods of improving our fortune, which

it principally recommends to us, are those which expose to no loss or

hazard; real knowledge and skill in our trade or profession, assiduity

and industry in the exercise of it, frugality, and even some degree of

parsimony, in all our expenses.

The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand

whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other

people that he understands it; and though his talents may not always

be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither

endeavours to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful

impostor, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant, nor by the

confident assertions of a superficial and impudent pretender. He is

not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His

conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the

quackish arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves

into public notice and reputation. For reputation in his profession he

is naturally disposed to rely a good deal upon the solidity of his

knowledge and abilities; and he does not always think of cultivating

the favour of those little clubs and cabals, who, in the superior arts

and sciences, so often erect themselves into the supreme judges of

merit; and who make it their business to celebrate the talents and

virtues of one another, and to decry whatever can come into

competition with them. If he ever connects himself with any society of

this kind, it is merely in self-defence, not with a view to impose

upon the public, but to {189} hinder the public from being imposed

upon, to his disadvantage, by the clamours, the whispers, or the

intrigues, either of that particular society, or of some other of the

same kind.

The prudent man is always sincere, and feels horror at the very

thought of exposing himself to the disgrace which attends upon the

detection of falsehood. But though always sincere, he is not always

frank and open; and though he never tells any thing but the truth, he

does not always think himself bound, when not properly called upon, to

tell the whole truth. As he is cautious in his actions, so he is

reserved in his speech; and never rashly or unnecessarily obtrudes his

opinion concerning either things or persons.

The prudent man, though not always distinguished by the most exquisite

sensibility, is always very capable of friendship. But his friendship

is not that ardent and passionate, but too often transitory affection,

which appears so delicious to the generosity of youth and

inexperience. It is a sedate, but steady and faithful attachment to a

few well-tried and well-chosen companions; in the choice of whom he is

not guided by the giddy admiration of shining accomplishments, but by

the sober esteem of modesty, discretion, and good conduct. But though

capable of friendship, he is not always much disposed to general

sociality. He rarely frequents, and more rarely figures in those

convivial societies which are distinguished for the jollity and gaiety

of their conversation. Their way of life might too often interfere

with the regularity of his temperance, might interrupt the steadiness

of his industry, or break in upon the strictness of his frugality.

But though his conversation may not always be very sprightly or

diverting, it is always perfectly inoffensive. He hates the thought of

being guilty of any petulance or rudeness. He never assumes

impertinently over any body, and, upon all common occasions, is

willing to place himself rather below than above his equals. Both in

his conduct and conversation, he is an exact observer of decency, and

respects with an almost religious scrupulosity, all the established

decorums and ceremonials of society. And, in this respect, he sets a

much better example than has frequently been done by men of much more

splendid talents and virtues, who, in all ages, from that of Socrates

and Aristippus, down to that of Dr. Swift and Voltaire, and from that

of Philip and Alexander the Great, down to that of the great Czar

Peter of Muscovy, have too often distinguished themselves by the most

improper and even insolent contempt of all the ordinary decorums of

life and conversation, and who have thereby set the most pernicious

example to those who wish to resemble them, and who too often content

themselves with imitating their follies, without even attempting to

attain their perfections.

In the steadiness of his industry and frugality, in his steadily

sacrificing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the

probable {190} expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of

a more distant but more lasting period of time, the prudent man is

always both supported and rewarded by the entire approbation of the

impartial spectator, and of the representative of the impartial

spectator, the man within the breast. The impartial spectator does not

feel himself worn out by the present labour of those whose conduct he

surveys; nor does he feel himself solicited by the importunate calls

of their present appetites. To him their present, and what is likely

to be their future, situation, are very nearly the same: he sees them

nearly at the same distance, and is affected by them very nearly in

the same manner. He knows, however, that to the persons principally

concerned, they are very far from being the same, and that they

naturally affect _them_ in a very different manner. He cannot

therefore but approve, and even applaud, that proper exertion of

self-command, which enables them to act as if their present and their

future situation affected them nearly in the same manner in which they

affect him.

The man who lives within his income, is naturally contented with his

situation, which, by continual, though small accumulations, is growing

better and better every day. He is enabled gradually to relax, both in

the rigour of his parsimony and in the severity of his application;

and he feels with double satisfaction this gradual increase of ease

and enjoyment, from having felt before the hardship which attended the

want of them. He has no anxiety to change so comfortable a situation

and does not go in quest of new enterprises and adventures, which

might endanger, but could not well increase the secure tranquillity

which he actually enjoys. If he enters into any new projects or

enterprises, they are likely to be well concerted and well prepared.

He can never be hurried or driven into them by any necessity, but has

always time and leisure to deliberate soberly and coolly concerning

what are likely to be their consequences.

The prudent man is not willing to subject himself to any

responsibility which his duty does not impose upon him. He is not a

bustler in business where he has no concern; is not a meddler in other

people's affairs; is not a professed counsellor or adviser, who

obtrudes his advice where nobody is asking it. He confines himself, as

much as his duty will permit, to his own affairs, and has no taste for

that foolish importance which many people wish to derive from

appearing to have some influence in the management of those of other

people. He is averse to enter into any party disputes, hates faction,

and is not always very forward to listen to the voice even of noble

and great ambition. When distinctly called upon, he will not decline

the service of his country, but he will not cabal in order to force

himself into it, and would be much better pleased that the public

business were well managed by some other person, than that he himself

should have the trouble, and incur the **responsibility, of managing

it. In the bottom of his heart he {191} would prefer the undisturbed

enjoyment of secure tranquillity, not only to all the vain splendour

of successful ambition, but to the real and solid glory of performing

the greatest and most magnanimous actions.

Prudence, in short, when directed merely to the care of the health, of

the fortune, and the rank and reputation of the individual, though it

is regarded as a most respectable, and even in some degree, as an

amiable and agreeable quality, yet it never is considered as one,

either of the most endearing, or of the most ennobling of the virtues.

It commands a certain cold esteem, but does not seem entitled to any

very ardent love or admiration.

Wise and judicious conduct, when directed to greater and nobler

purposes than the care of the health, the fortune, the rank and

reputation of the individual, is frequently and very properly called

prudence. We talk of the prudence of the great general, of the great

statesman, of the great legislator. Prudence is, in all these cases,

combined with many greater and more splendid virtues, with valour,

with extensive and strong benevolence, with a sacred regard to the

rules of justice, and all these supported by a proper degree of

self-command. This superior prudence, when carried to the highest

degree of perfection, necessarily supposes the art, the talent, and

the habit or disposition of acting with the most perfect propriety in

every possible circumstance and situation. It necessarily supposes the

utmost perfection of all the intellectual and of all the moral

virtues. It is the best head joined to the best heart. It is the most

perfect wisdom combined with the most perfect virtue. It constitutes

very nearly the character of the Academical or Peripatetic sage, as

the superior prudence does that of the Epicurean.

Mere imprudence, or the mere want of the capacity to take care of

one's-self, is, with the generous and humane, the object of

compassion; with those of less delicate sentiments, of neglect, or, at

worst, of contempt, but never of hatred or indignation. When combined

with other vices, however, it aggravates in the highest degree the

infamy and disgrace which would otherwise attend them. The artful

knave, whose dexterity and address exempt him, though not from strong

suspicions, yet from punishment or distinct detection, is too often

received in the world with an indulgence which he by no means

deserves. The awkward and foolish one, who, for want of this dexterity

and address, is convicted and brought to punishment, is the object of

universal hatred, contempt, and derision. In countries where great

crimes frequently pass unpunished, the most atrocious actions become

almost familiar, and cease to impress the people with that horror

which is universally felt in countries where an exact administration

of justice takes place. The injustice is the same in both countries;

but the imprudence is often very different. In the latter, great

crimes are evidently great follies. In the former, they are not always

considered as {192} such. In Italy, during the greater part of the

sixteenth century, assassinations, murders, and even murders under

trust, seem to have been almost familiar among the superior ranks of

people. Cæsar Borgia invited four of the little princes in his

neighbourhood, who all possessed little sovereignties, and commanded

little armies of their own, to a friendly conference at Senigaglia,

where, as soon as they arrived, he put them all to death. This

infamous action, though certainly not approved of even in that age of

crimes, seems to have contributed very little to the discredit, and

not in the least to the ruin of the perpetrator. That ruin happened a

few years after from causes altogether disconnected with this crime.

Machiavel, not indeed a man of the nicest morality even for his own

times, was resident, as minister from the republic of Florence, at the

court of Cæsar Borgia when this crime was committed. He gives a very

particular account of it, and in that pure, elegant, and simple

language which distinguishes all his writings. He talks of it very

coolly; is pleased with the address with which Cæsar Borgia conducted

it; has much contempt for the dupery and weakness of the sufferers;

but no compassion for their miserable and untimely death, and no sort

of indignation at the cruelty and falsehood of their murderer. The

violence and injustice of great conquerors are often regarded with

foolish wonder and admiration; those of petty thieves, robbers, and

murderers, with contempt, hatred, and even horror upon all occasions.

The former, though they are a hundred times more mischievous and

destructive, yet when successful, they often pass for deeds of the

most heroic magnanimity. The latter are always viewed with hatred and

aversion, as the follies, as well as the crimes, of the lowest and

most worthless of mankind. The injustice of the former is certainly,

at least, as great as that of the latter; but the folly and imprudence

are not near so great. A wicked and worthless man of parts often goes

through the world with much more credit than he deserves. A wicked and

worthless fool appears always, of all mortals, the most hateful, as

well as the most contemptible. As prudence combined with other

virtues, constitutes the noblest; so imprudence combined with other

vices, constitutes the vilest of all characters.

-----

SECT. II.--OF THE CHARACTER OF THE INDIVIDUAL, SO FAR AS IT CAN

AFFECT THE HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE.

INTRODUCTION.--The character of every individual, so far as it can

affect the happiness of other people, must do so by its disposition

either to hurt or to benefit them.

Proper resentment for injustice attempted, or actually committed, is

the only motive which, in the eyes of the impartial spectator, can

justify our hurting or disturbing in any respect the happiness of our

neighbour. {193} To do so from any other motive is itself a violation

of the laws of justice, which force ought to be employed either to

restrain or to punish. The wisdom of every state or commonwealth

endeavours, as well as it can, to employ the force of the society to

restrain those who are subject to its authority from hurting or

disturbing the happiness of one another. The rules which it

establishes for this purpose, constitute the civil and criminal law of

each particular state or country. The principles upon which those

rules either are, or ought to be founded, are the subject of a

particular science, of all sciences by far the most important, but

hitherto, perhaps, the least cultivated, that of natural

jurisprudence; concerning which it belongs not to our present subject

to enter into any detail. A sacred and religious regard not to hurt or

disturb in any respect the happiness of our neighbour, even in those

cases where no law can properly protect him, constitutes the character

of the perfectly innocent and just man; a character which, when

carried to a certain delicacy of attention, is always highly

respectable and even venerable for its own sake, and can scarce ever

fail to be accompanied with many other virtues, with great feeling for

other people, with great humanity and great benevolence. It is a

character sufficiently understood, and requires no further

explanation. In the present section I shall only endeavour to

explain the foundation of that order which nature seems to have traced

out for the distribution of our good offices, or for the direction and

employment of our very limited powers of beneficence: first, towards

individuals; and secondly, towards societies.

The same unerring wisdom, it will be found, which regulates every

other part of her conduct, directs, in this respect too, the order of

her recommendations; which are always stronger or weaker in proportion

as our beneficence is more or less necessary, or can be more or less

useful.

-----

CHAP. I.--_Of the Order in which Individuals are recommended by

Nature to our Care and Attention._

EVERY man, as the Stoics used to say, is first and principally

recommended to his own care; and every man is certainly, in every

respect, fitter and abler to take care of himself than of any other

person. Every man feels his own pleasures and his own pains more

sensibly than those of other people. The former are the original

sensations; the latter the reflected or sympathetic images of those

sensations. The former may be said to be the substance; the latter the

shadow.

After himself, the members of his own family, those who usually live

in the same house with him, his parents, his children, his brothers

and sisters, are naturally the objects of his warmest affections. They

are naturally and usually the persons upon whose happiness or misery

his conduct must have the greatest influence. He is more habituated to

{194} sympathize with them. He knows better how every thing is likely

to affect them, and his sympathy with them is more precise and

determinate, than it can be with the greater part of other people. It

approaches nearer, in short, to what he feels for himself.

This sympathy too, and the affections which are founded on it, are by

nature more strongly directed towards his children than towards his

parents, and his tenderness for the former seems generally a more

active principle, than his reverence and gratitude towards the latter.

In the natural state of things, it has already been observed, the

existence of the child, for some time after it comes into the world,

depends altogether upon the care of the parent; that of the parent

does not naturally depend upon the care of the child. In the eye of

nature, it would seem, a child is a more important object than an old

man; and excites a much more lively, as well as a much more universal

sympathy. It ought to do so. Every thing may be expected, or at least

hoped, from the child. In ordinary cases, very little can be either

expected or hoped from the old man. The weakness of childhood

interests the affections of the most brutal and hard-hearted. It is

only to the virtuous and humane, that the infirmities of old age are

not the objects of contempt and aversion. In ordinary cases, an old

man dies without being much regretted by any body. Scarce a child can

die without rending asunder the heart of somebody.

The earliest friendships, the friendships which are naturally

contracted when the heart is most susceptible of that feeling, are

those among brothers and sisters. Their good agreement, while they

remain in the same family, is necessary for its tranquillity and

happiness. They are capable of giving more pleasure or pain to one

another than to the greater part of other people. Their situation

renders their mutual sympathy of the utmost importance to their common

happiness; and, by the wisdom of nature, the same situation, by

obliging them to accommodate to one another, renders that sympathy

more habitual, and thereby more lively, more distinct, and more

determinate.

The children of brothers and sisters are naturally connected by the

friendship which, after separating into different families, continues

to take place between their parents. Their good agreement improves the

enjoyment of that friendship; their discord would disturb it. As they

seldom live in the same family, however, though of more importance to

one another than to the greater part of other people, they are of much

less than brothers and sisters. As their mutual sympathy is less

necessary, so it is less habitual, and therefore proportionally

weaker.

The children of cousins, being still less connected, are of still less

importance to one another; and the affection gradually diminishes as

the relation grows more and more remote.

What is called affection, is in reality nothing but habitual sympathy.

Our concern in the happiness or misery of those who are the objects of

{195} what we call our affections; our desire to promote the one, and

to prevent the other; are either the actual feeling of that habitual

sympathy, or the necessary consequences of that feeling. Relations

being usually placed in situations which naturally create this

habitual sympathy, it is expected that a suitable degree of affection

should take place among them. We generally find that it actually does

take place; we therefore naturally expect that it should; and we are,

upon that account, more shocked when, upon any occasion, we find that

it does not. The general rule is established, that persons related to

one another in a certain degree, ought always to be affected towards

one another in a certain manner, and that there is always the highest

impropriety, and sometimes even a sort of impiety, in their being

affected in a different manner. A parent without parental tenderness,

a child devoid of all filial reverence, appear monsters, the objects,

not of hatred only, but of horror to their neighbours.

Though in a particular instance, the circumstances which usually

produce those natural affections, as they are called, may, by some

accident, not have taken place, yet respect for the general rule will

frequently, in some measure, supply their place, and produce something

which, though not altogether the same, may bear, however, a very

considerable resemblance to those affections. A father is apt to be

less attached to a child, who, by some accident, has been separated

from him in its infancy, and who does not return to him till it is

grown up to manhood. The father is apt to feel less paternal

tenderness for the child; the child, less filial reverence for the

father. Brothers and sisters, when they have been educated in distant

countries, are apt to feel a similar diminution of affection. With the

dutiful and the virtuous, however, respect for the general rule will

frequently produce something which, though by no means the same, yet

may very much resemble those natural affections. Even during the

separation, the father and the child, the brothers or the sisters, are

by no means indifferent to one another. They all consider one another

as persons to and from whom certain affections are due, and they live

in the hopes of being some time or another in a situation to enjoy

that friendship which ought naturally to have taken place among

persons so nearly connected. Till they meet, the absent son, the

absent brother, are frequently the favourite son, the favourite

brother. They have never offended, or, if they have, it is so long

ago, that the offence is forgotten, as some childish trick not worth

the remembering. Every account they have heard of one another, if

conveyed by people of any tolerable good nature, has been, in the

highest degree, flattering and favourable. The absent son, the absent

brother, is not like other ordinary sons and brothers; but an

all-perfect son, an all-perfect brother; and the most romantic hopes

are entertained of the happiness to be enjoyed in the friendship and

conversation of such persons. When they meet, it is {196} often with

so strong a disposition to conceive that habitual sympathy which

constitutes the family affection, that they are very apt to fancy they

have actually conceived it, and to behave to one another as if they

had. Time and experience, however, I am afraid, too frequently

undeceive them. Upon a more familiar acquaintance, they frequently

discover in one another habits, humours, and inclinations, different

from what they expected, to which, from want of habitual sympathy,

from want of the real principle and foundation of what is properly

called family-affection, they cannot now easily accommodate

themselves. They have never lived in the situation which almost

necessarily forces that easy accommodation, and though they may now be

sincerely desirous to assume it, they have really become incapable of

doing so. Their familiar conversation and intercourse soon become less

pleasing to them, and, upon that account, less frequent. They may

continue to live with one another in the mutual exchange of all

essential good offices, and with every other external appearance of

decent regard. But that cordial satisfaction, that delicious sympathy,

that confidential openness and ease, which naturally take place in the

conversation of those who have lived long and familiarly with one

another, it seldom happens that they can completely enjoy.

It is only, however, with the dutiful and the virtuous, that the

general rule has even this slender authority. With the dissipated, the

profligate, and the vain, it is entirely disregarded. They are so far

from respecting it, that they seldom talk of it but with the most

indecent derision; and an early and long separation of this kind never

fails to estrange them most completely from one another. With such

persons, respect for the general rule can at best produce only a cold

and affected civility (a very slender semblance of real regard); and

even this, the slightest offence, the smallest opposition of interest,

commonly puts an end to altogether.

The education of boys at distant great schools, of young men at

distant colleges, of young ladies in distant nunneries and

boarding-schools, seems, in the higher ranks of life, to have hurt

most essentially the domestic morals, and consequently the domestic

happiness, both of France and England. Do you wish to educate your

children to be dutiful to their parents, to be kind and affectionate

to their brothers and sisters? put them under the necessity of being

dutiful children, of being kind and affectionate brothers and sisters:

educate them in your own house. From their parent's house, they may,

with propriety and advantage, go out every day to attend public

schools: but let their dwelling be always at home. Respect for you

must always impose a very useful restraint upon their conduct; and

respect for them may frequently impose no useless restraint upon your

own. Surely no acquirement, which can possibly be derived from what is

called a public education, can make any sort of compensation for what

{197} is almost certainly and necessarily lost by it. Domestic

education is the institution of nature; public education, the

contrivance of man. It is surely unnecessary to say, which is likely

to be the wisest.

In some tragedies and romances, we meet with many beautiful and

interesting scenes, founded upon what is called, the force of blood,

or upon the wonderful affection which near relations are supposed to

conceive for one another, even before they know that they have any

such connection. This force of blood, however, I am afraid, exists no

where but in tragedies and romances. Even in tragedies and romances,

it is never supposed to take place between any relations, but those

who are naturally bred up in the same house; between parents and

children, between brothers and sisters. To imagine any such mysterious

affection between cousins, or even between aunts or uncles, and

nephews or nieces, would be too ridiculous.

In pastoral countries, and in all countries where the authority of law

is not alone sufficient to give perfect security to every member of

the state, all the different branches of the same family commonly

choose to live in the neighbourhood of one another. Their association

is frequently necessary for their common defence. They are all, from

the highest to the lowest, of more or less importance to one another.

Their concord strengthens their necessary association: their discord

always weakens, and might destroy it. They have more intercourse with

one another, than with the members of any other tribe. The remotest

members of the same tribe claim some connection with one another; and,

where all other circumstances are equal, expect to be treated with

more distinguished attention than is due to those who have no such

pretensions. It is not many years ago that, in the Highlands of

Scotland, the chieftain used to consider the poorest man of his clan,

as his cousin and relation. The same extensive regard to kindred is

said to take place among the Tartars, the Arabs, the Turkomans, and, I

believe, among all other nations who are nearly in the same state of

society in which the Scots Highlanders were about the beginning of the

present century.

In commercial countries, where the authority of law is always

perfectly sufficient to protect the meanest man in the state, the

descendants of the same family, having no such motive for keeping

together, naturally separate and disperse, as interest or inclination

may direct. They soon cease to be of importance to one another; and,

in a few generations, not only lose all care about one another, but

all remembrance of their common origin, and of the connection which

took place among their ancestors. Regard for remote relations becomes,

in every country, less and less, according as this state of

civilization has been longer and more completely established. It has

been longer and more completely established in England than in

Scotland; and remote relations are, accordingly, more considered in

the latter country than in the {198} former, though, in this respect,

the difference between the two countries is growing less and less

every day. Great lords, indeed, are, in every country, proud of

remembering and acknowledging their connection with one another,

however remote. The remembrance of such illustrious relations flatters

not a little the family pride of them all; and it is neither from

affection, nor from any thing which resembles affection, but from the

most frivolous and childish of all vanities, that this remembrance is

so carefully kept up. Should some more humble, though, perhaps, much

nearer kinsman, presume to put such great men in mind of his relation

to their family, they seldom fail to tell him that they are bad

genealogists, and miserably ill-informed concerning their own family

history. It is not in that order that we are to expect any

extraordinary extension of, what is called, natural affection.

I consider what is called natural affection as more the effect of the

moral than of the supposed physical connection between the parent and

the child. A jealous husband, indeed, notwithstanding the moral

connection, notwithstanding the child's having been educated in his

own house, often regards, with hatred and aversion, that unhappy child

which he supposes to be the offspring of his wife's infidelity. It is

the lasting monument of a most disagreeable adventure; of his own

dishonour, and of the disgrace of his family.

Among well-disposed people, the necessity or conveniency of mutual

accommodation, very frequently produces a friendship not unlike that

which takes place among those who are born to live in the same family.

Colleagues in office, partners in trade, call one another brothers;

and frequently feel towards one another as if they really were so.

Their good agreement is an advantage to all; and, if they are

tolerably reasonable people, they are naturally disposed to agree. We

expect that they should do so; and their disagreement is a sort of a

small scandal. The Romans expressed this sort of attachment by the

word _necessitudo_, which, from the etymology, seems to denote

that it was imposed by the necessity of the situation.

Even the trifling circumstance of living in the same neighbourhood,

has some effect of the same kind. We respect the face of a man whom we

see every day, provided he has never offended us. Neighbours can be

very convenient, and they can be very troublesome, to one another. If

they are good sort of people, they are naturally disposed to agree. We

expect their good agreement; and to be a bad neighbour is a very bad

character. There are certain small good offices, accordingly, which

are universally allowed to be due to a neighbour in preference to any

other person who has no such connection.

This natural disposition to accommodate and to assimilate, as much as

we can, our own sentiments, principles, and feelings, to those which

we see fixed and rooted in the persons whom we are obliged to live and

converse a great deal with, is the cause of the contagious effects of

both {199} good and bad company. The man who associates chiefly with

the wise and the virtuous, though he may not himself become either

wise or virtuous, cannot help conceiving a certain respect at least

for wisdom and virtue; and the man who associates chiefly with the

profligate and the dissolute, though he may not himself become

profligate and dissolute, must soon lose, at least, all his original

abhorrence of profligacy and dissolution of manners. The similarity of

family characters, which we so frequently see transmitted through

several successive generations, may, perhaps, be partly owing to this

disposition to assimilate ourselves to those whom we are obliged to

live and converse a great deal with. The family character, however,

like the family countenance, seems to be owing, not altogether to the

moral, but partly too to the physical connection. The family

countenance is certainly altogether owing to the latter.

But of all attachments to an individual, that which is founded

altogether upon esteem and approbation of his good conduct and

behaviour, confirmed by much experience and long acquaintance, is, by

far, the most respectable. Such friendships, arising not from a

constrained sympathy, not from a sympathy which has been assumed and

rendered habitual for the sake of convenience and accommodation; but

from a natural sympathy, from an involuntary feeling that the persons

to whom we attach ourselves are the natural and proper objects of

esteem and approbation; can exist only among men of virtue. Men of

virtue only can feel that entire confidence in the conduct and

behaviour of one another, which can, at all times, assure them that

they can never either offend or be offended by one another. Vice is

always capricious: virtue only is regular and orderly. The attachment

which is founded upon the love of virtue, as it is certainly, of all

attachments, the most virtuous; so it is likewise the happiest, as

well as the most permanent and secure. Such friendships need not be

confined to a single person, but may safely embrace all the wise and

virtuous, with whom we have been long and intimately acquainted, and

upon whose wisdom and virtue we can, upon that account, entirely

depend. They who would confine friendship to two persons, seem to

confound the wise security of friendship with the jealousy and folly

of love. The hasty, fond, and foolish intimacies of young people,

founded, commonly, upon some slight similarity of character,

altogether unconnected with good conduct, upon a taste, perhaps, for

the same studies, the same amusements, the same diversions, or upon

their agreement in some singular principle or opinion, not commonly

adopted; those intimacies which a freak begins, and which a freak puts

an end to, how agreeable soever they may appear while they last, can

by no means deserve the sacred and the venerable name of friendship.

Of all the persons, however, whom nature points out for our peculiar

beneficence, there are none to whom it seems more properly directed

{200} than to those whose beneficence we have ourselves already

experienced. Nature, which formed men for that mutual kindness so

necessary for their happiness, renders every man the peculiar object

of kindness to the persons to whom he himself has been kind. Though

their gratitude should not always correspond to his beneficence, yet

the sense of his merit, the sympathetic gratitude of the impartial

spectator, will always correspond to it. The general indignation of

other people against the baseness of their ingratitude will even,

sometimes, increase the general sense of his merit. No benevolent man

ever lost altogether the fruits of his benevolence. If he does not

always gather them from the persons from whom he ought to have

gathered them, he seldom fails to gather them, and with a tenfold

increase, from other people. Kindness is the parent of kindness; and

if to be beloved by our brethren be the great object of our ambition,

the surest way of obtaining it is, by our conduct to show that we

really love them.

After the persons who are recommended to our beneficence, either their

connection with ourselves, by their personal qualities, or by their

past services, come those who are pointed out, not indeed to, what is

called, our friendship, but to our benevolent attention and good

offices; those who are distinguished by their extraordinary situation;

the greatly fortunate and the greatly unfortunate, the rich and the

powerful, the poor and the wretched. The distinction of ranks, the

peace and order of society, are, in a great measure, founded upon the

respect which we naturally conceive for the former. The relief and

consolation of human misery depend altogether upon our compassion for

the latter. The peace and order of society, is of more importance than

even the relief of the miserable. Our respect for the great,

accordingly, is most apt to offend by its excess; our fellow-feeling

for the miserable, by its defect. Moralists exhort us to charity and

compassion. They warn us against the fascination of greatness. This

fascination, indeed, is so powerful, that the rich and the great are

too often preferred to the wise and the virtuous. Nature has wisely

judged that the distinction of ranks, the peace and order of society,

would rest more securely upon the plain and palpable difference of

birth and fortune, than upon the invisible and often uncertain

difference of wisdom and virtue. The undistinguishing eyes of the

great mob of mankind can well enough perceive the former: it is with

difficulty that the nice discernment of the wise and the virtuous can

sometimes distinguish the latter. In the order of all those

recommendations to virtue, the benevolent wisdom of nature is equally

evident.

It may, perhaps, be unnecessary to observe, that the combination of

two or more of those exciting causes of kindness, increases the

kindness. The favour and partiality which, when there is no envy in

the case, we naturally bear to greatness, are much increased when it

is joined with wisdom and virtue. If, notwithstanding that wisdom and

{201} virtue, the great man should fall into those misfortunes, those

dangers and distresses, to which the most exalted stations are often

the most exposed, we are much more deeply interested in his fortune

than we should be in that of a person equally virtuous, but in a more

humble situation. The most interesting subjects of tragedies and

romances are the misfortunes of virtuous and magnanimous kings and

princes. If, by the wisdom and manhood of their exertions, they should

extricate themselves from those misfortunes, and recover completely

their former superiority and security, we cannot help viewing them

with the most enthusiastic and even extravagant admiration. The grief

which we felt for their distress, the joy which we feel for their

prosperity, seem to combine together in enhancing that partial

admiration which we naturally conceive both for the station and the

character.

When those different beneficent affections happen to draw different

ways, to determine by any precise rules in what cases we ought to

comply with the one, and in what with the other, is, perhaps,

altogether impossible. In what cases friendship ought to yield to

gratitude, or gratitude to friendship; in what cases the strongest of

all natural affections ought to yield to a regard for the safety of

those superiors upon whose safety often depends that of the whole

society; and in what cases natural affection may, without impropriety,

prevail over that regard; must be left altogether to the decision of

the man within the breast, the supposed impartial spectator, the great

judge and arbiter of our conduct. If we place ourselves completely in

his situation, if we really view ourselves with his eyes, and as he

views us, and listen with diligent and reverential attention to what

he suggests to us, his voice will never deceive us. We shall stand in

need of no casuistic rules to direct our conduct. These it is often

impossible to accommodate to all the different shades and gradations

of circumstance, character, and situation, to differences and

distinctions which, though not imperceptible, are, by their nicety and

delicacy, often altogether undefinable. In that beautiful tragedy of

Voltaire, the Orphan of China, while we admire the magnanimity of

Zamti, who is willing to sacrifice the life of his own child, in order

to preserve that of the only feeble remnant of his ancient sovereigns

and masters; we not only pardon, but love the maternal tenderness of

Idame, who, at the risk of discovering the important secret of her

husband, reclaims her infant from the cruel hands of the Tartars,

into which it had been delivered.

-----

CHAP. II.--_Of the Order in which Societies are by Nature

recommended to our Beneficence._

THE same principles that direct the order in which individuals are

recommended to our beneficence, direct that likewise in which

societies {202} are recommended to it. Those to which it is, or may be

of most importance, are first and principally recommended to it.