The state or sovereignty in which we have been born and educated, and

under the protection of which we continue to live, is, in ordinary

cases, the greatest society upon whose happiness or misery our good or

bad conduct can have much influence. It is accordingly, by nature,

most strongly recommended to us. Not only we ourselves, but all the

objects of our kindest affections, our children, our parents, our

relations, our friends, our benefactors, all those whom we naturally

love and revere the most, are commonly comprehended within it; and

their prosperity and safety depend in some measure upon its prosperity

and safety. It is by nature, therefore, endeared to us, not only by

all our selfish, but by all our private benevolent affections. Upon

account of our own connexion with it, its prosperity and glory seem to

reflect some sort of honour upon ourselves. When we compare it with

other societies of the same kind, we are proud of its superiority, and

mortified in some degree if it appears in any respect below them. All

the illustrious characters which it has produced in former times (for

against those of our own times envy may sometimes prejudice us a

little), its warriors, its statesmen, its poets, its philosophers, and

men of letters of all kinds; we are disposed to view with the most

partial admiration, and to rank them (sometimes most unjustly) above

those of all other nations. The patriot who lays down his life for the

safety, or even for the vain-glory of this society, appears to act

with the most exact propriety. He appears to view himself in the light

in which the impartial spectator naturally and necessarily views him,

as but one of the multitude, in the eye of that equitable judge, of no

more consequence than any other in it, but bound at all times to

sacrifice and devote himself to the safety, to the service, and even

to the glory of the greater number. But though this sacrifice appears

to be perfectly just and proper, we know how difficult it is to make

it, and how few people are capable of making it. His conduct,

therefore, excites not only our entire approbation, but our highest

wonder and admiration, and seems to merit all the applause which can

be due to the most heroic virtue. The traitor, on the contrary, who,

in some peculiar situation, fancies he can promote his own little

interest by betraying to the public enemy that of his native country;

who, regardless of the judgment of the man within the breast, prefers

himself, in this respect so shamefully and so basely, to all those

with whom he has any connexion; appears to be of all villains the most

detestable.

The love of our own nation often disposes us to view, with the most

malignant jealousy and envy, the prosperity and aggrandisement of any

other neighbouring nation. Independent and neighbouring nations,

having no common superior to decide their disputes, all live in

continual dread and suspicion of one another. Each sovereign,

expecting {203} little justice from his neighbours, is disposed to

treat them with as little as he expects from them. The regard for the

laws of nations, or for those rules which independent states profess

or pretend to think themselves bound to observe in their dealings with

one another, is often very little more than mere pretence and

profession. From the smallest interest, upon the slightest

provocation, we see those rules every day, either evaded or directly

violated without shame or remorse. Each nation foresees, or imagines

it foresees, its own subjugation in the increasing power and

aggrandisement of any of its neighbours; and the mean principle of

national prejudice is often founded upon the noble one of the love of

our own country. The sentence with which the elder Cato is said to

have concluded every speech which he made in the senate, whatever

might be the subject, '_It is my opinion likewise that Carthage

ought to be destroyed_,' was the natural expression of the savage

patriotism of a strong but coarse mind, enraged almost to madness

against a foreign nation from which his own had suffered so much. The

more humane sentence with which Scipio Nasica is said to have

concluded all his speeches, '_It is my opinion likewise that

Carthage ought not to be destroyed_,' was the liberal expression of

a more enlarged and enlightened mind, who felt no aversion to the

prosperity even of an old enemy, when reduced to a state which could

no longer be formidable to Rome. France and England may each of them

have some reason to dread the increase of the naval and military power

of the other; but for either of them to envy the internal happiness

and prosperity of the other, the cultivation of its lands, the

advancement of its manufactures, the increase of its commerce, the

security and number of its ports and harbours, its proficiency in all

the liberal arts and sciences, is surely beneath the dignity of two

such great nations. These are all real improvements of the world we

live in. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In

such improvements each nation ought, not only to endeavour itself to

excel, but from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of

obstructing the excellence of its neighbours. These are all proper

objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy.

The love of our own country seems not to be derived from the love of

mankind. The former sentiment is altogether independent of the latter,

and seems sometimes even to dispose us to act inconsistently with it.

France may contain, perhaps, near three times the number of

inhabitants which Great Britain contains. In the great society of

mankind, therefore, the prosperity of France should appear to be an

object of much greater importance than that of Great Britain. The

British subject, however, who, upon that account, should prefer upon

all occasions the prosperity of the former to that of the latter

country, would not be thought a good citizen of Great Britain. We do

not love our country merely as a part of the great society of mankind:

we love {204} it for its own sake, and independently of any such

consideration. That wisdom which contrived the system of human

affections, as well as that of every other part of nature, seems to

have judged that the interest of the great society of mankind would be

best promoted by directing the principal attention of each individual

to that particular portion of it, which was most within the sphere

both of his abilities and of his understanding.

National prejudices and hatreds seldom extend beyond neighbouring

nations. We very weakly and foolishly, perhaps, call the French our

natural enemies; and they perhaps, as weakly and foolishly, consider

us in the same manner. Neither they nor we bear any sort of envy to

the prosperity of China or Japan. It very rarely happens, however,

that our good-will towards such distant countries can be exerted with

much effect.

The most extensive public benevolence which can commonly be exerted

with any considerable effect, is that of the statesmen, who project

and form alliances among neighbouring or not very distant nations, for

the preservation either of, what is called, the balance of power, or

of the general peace and tranquillity of the states within the circle

of their negotiations. The statesmen, however, who plan and execute

such treaties, have seldom anything in view, but the interest of their

respective countries. Sometimes, indeed, their views are more

extensive. The Count d'Avaux, the plenipotentiary of France, at the

treaty of Munster, would have been willing to sacrifice his life

(according to the Cardinal de Retz, a man not over-credulous in the

virtue of other people) in order to have restored, by that treaty, the

general tranquillity of Europe. King William seems to have had a zeal

for the liberty and independency of the greater part of the sovereign

states of Europe; which, perhaps, might be a good deal stimulated by

his particular aversion to France, the state from which, during his

time, that liberty and independency were principally in danger. Some

share of the same spirit seems to have descended to the first ministry

of Queen Anne.

Every independent state is divided into many different orders and

societies, each of which has its own particular powers, privileges,

and immunities. Every individual is naturally more attached to his own

particular order or society, than to any other. His own interest, his

own vanity, the interest and vanity of many of his friends and

companions, are commonly a good deal connected with it. He is

ambitious to extend its privileges and immunities. He is zealous to

defend them against the encroachments of every other order of society.

Upon the manner in which any state is divided into the different

orders and societies which compose it, and upon the particular

distribution which has been made of their respective powers,

privileges, and immunities, depends, what is called, the constitution

of that particular state.

{205} Upon the ability of each particular order or society to maintain

its own powers, privileges, and immunities, against the encroachments

of every other, depends the stability of that particular constitution.

That particular constitution is necessarily more or less altered,

whenever any of its subordinate parts is either raised above or

depressed below whatever had been its former rank and condition.

All those different orders and societies are dependent upon the state

to which they owe their security and protection. That they are all

subordinate to that state, and established only in subserviency to its

prosperity and preservation, is a truth acknowledged by the most

partial member of every one of them. It may often, however, be hard to

convince him that the prosperity and preservation of the state

requires any diminution of the powers, privileges, and immunities of

his own particular order of society. This partiality, though it may

sometimes be unjust, may not, upon that account, be useless. It checks

the spirit of innovation. It tends to preserve whatever is the

established balance among the different orders and societies into

which the state is divided; and while it sometimes appears to obstruct

some alterations of government which may be fashionable and popular at

the time, it contributes in reality to the stability and permanency of

the whole system.

The love of our country seems, in ordinary cases, to involve in it two

different principles; first, a certain respect and reverence for that

constitution or form of government which is actually established; and

secondly, an earnest desire to render the condition of our

fellow-citizens as safe, respectable, and happy as we can. He is not a

citizen who is not disposed to respect the laws and to obey the civil

magistrate; and he is certainly not a good citizen who does not wish

to promote, by every means in his power, the welfare of the whole

society of his fellow citizens.

In peaceable and quiet times, those two principles generally coincide

and lead to the same conduct. The support of the established

government seems evidently the best expedient for maintaining the

safe, respectable, and happy situation of our fellow-citizens; when we

see that this government actually maintains them in that situation.

But in times of public discontent, faction, and disorder, those two

different principles may draw different ways, and even a wise man may

be disposed to think some alteration necessary in that constitution or

form of government, which, in its actual condition, appears plainly

unable to maintain the public tranquillity. In such cases, however, it

often requires, perhaps, the highest effort of political wisdom to

determine when a real patriot ought to support and endeavour to

re-establish the authority of the old system, and when we ought to

give way to the more daring, but often dangerous, spirit of

innovation.

Foreign war and civil faction are the two situations which afford the

most splendid opportunities for the display of public spirit. The hero

{206} who serves his country successfully in foreign war gratifies the

wishes of the whole nation, and is, upon that account, the object of

universal gratitude and admiration. In times of civil discord, the

leaders of the contending parties, though they may be admired by one

half of their fellow-citizens, are commonly execrated by the other.

Their characters and the merit of their respective services appear

commonly more doubtful. The glory which is acquired by foreign war is,

upon this account, almost always more pure and more splendid than that

which can be acquired in civil faction.

The leader of the successful party, however, if he has authority

enough to prevail upon his own friends to act with proper temper and

moderation (which he frequently has not), may sometimes render to his

country a service much more essential and important than the greatest

victories and the most extensive conquests. He may re-establish and

improve the constitution, and from the very doubtful and ambiguous

character of the leader of a party, he may assume the greatest and

noblest of all characters, that of the reformer and legislator of a

great state; and, by the wisdom of his institutions, secure the

internal tranquillity and happiness of his fellow-citizens for many

succeeding generations.

Amidst the turbulence and disorder of faction, a certain spirit of

system is apt to mix itself with that public spirit which is founded

upon the love of humanity, upon a real fellow-feeling with the

inconveniencies and distresses to which some of our fellow-citizens

may be exposed. This spirit of system commonly takes the direction of

that more gentle public spirit, always animates it, and often inflames

it even to the madness of fanaticism. The leaders of the discontented

party seldom fail to hold out some plausible plan of reformation

which, they pretend, will not only remove the inconveniencies and

relieve the distresses immediately complained of, but will prevent, in

all time coming, any return of the like inconveniencies and

distresses. They often propose, upon this account, to new model the

constitution, and to alter, in some of its most essential parts, that

system of government under which the subjects of a great empire have

enjoyed, perhaps, peace, security, and even glory, during the course

of several centuries together. The great body of the party are

commonly intoxicated with the imaginary beauty of this ideal system,

of which they have no experience, but which has been represented to

them in all the most dazzling colours in which the eloquence of their

leaders could paint it. Those leaders themselves, though they

originally may have meant nothing but their own aggrandisement, become

many of them in time the dupes of their own sophistry, and are as

eager for this great reformation as the weakest and most foolish of

their followers. Even though the leaders should have preserved their

own heads, as indeed they commonly do, free from this fanaticism, yet

they dare not always disappoint the expectation of their {207}

followers; but are often obliged, though contrary to their principle

and their conscience, to act as if they were under the common

delusion. The violence of the party, refusing all palliatives, all

temperaments, all reasonable accommodations, by requiring too much

frequently obtains nothing; and those inconveniencies and distresses

which, with a little moderation, might in a great measure have been

removed and relieved, are left altogether without the hope of a

remedy.

The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and

benevolence, will respect the established powers and privileges even

of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and

societies, into which the state is divided. Though he should consider

some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with

moderating what he often cannot annihilate without great violence.

When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason

and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will

religiously observe what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim

of Plato, never to use violence to his country no more than to his

parents. He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public

arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and

will remedy, as well as he can, the inconveniencies which may flow

from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to

submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to

ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the

best system of laws, he will try to establish the best that the people

can bear.

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own

conceit: and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own

ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation

from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all

its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the

strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can

arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as

the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not

consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle

of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that,

in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a

principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which

the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two

principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human

society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be

happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will

go on miserably, and human society must be at all times in the highest

degree of disorder.

Some general, and even systematical, idea of the perfection of policy

and law, may no doubt be necessary for directing the views of the

statesman. But to insist upon establishing, and upon establishing all

{208} at once, and in spite of all opposition, every thing which that

idea may seem to require, must often be the highest degree of

arrogance. It is to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard

of right and wrong. It is to fancy himself the only wise and worthy

man in the commonwealth, and that his fellow-citizens should

accommodate themselves to him and not he to them. It is upon this

account, that of all political speculators, sovereign princes are by

far the most dangerous. This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them.

They entertain no doubt of the immense superiority of their own

judgment. When such imperial and royal reformers, therefore,

condescend to contemplate the constitution of the country which is

committed to their government, they seldom see any thing so wrong in

it as the obstructions which it may sometimes oppose to the execution

of their own will. They hold in contempt the divine maxim of Plato,

and consider the state as made for themselves, not themselves for the

state. The great object of their reformation, therefore, is to remove

those obstructions; to reduce the authority of the nobility; to take

away the privileges of cities and provinces, and to render both the

greatest individuals and the greatest orders of the state, as

incapable of opposing their commands, as the weakest and most

insignificant.

-----

CHAP. III.--_Of Universal Benevolence._

THOUGH our effectual good offices can very seldom be extended to any

wider society than that of our country; our good-will is circumscribed

by no boundary, but may embrace the immensity of the universe. We

cannot form the idea of any innocent and sensible being, whose

happiness we should not desire, or to whose misery, when distinctly

brought home to the imagination, we should not have some degree of

aversion. The idea of a mischievous, though sensible, being, indeed,

naturally provokes our hatred: but the ill-will which, in this case,

we bear to it, is really the effect of our universal benevolence. It

is the effect of the sympathy which we feel with the misery and

resentment of those other innocent and sensible beings, whose

happiness is disturbed by its malice.

This universal benevolence, how noble and generous soever, can be the

source of no solid happiness to any man who is not thoroughly

convinced that all the inhabitants of the universe, the meanest as

well as the greatest, are under the immediate care and protection of

that great, benevolent, and all-wise Being, who directs all the

movements of nature; and who is determined, by his own unalterable

perfections, to maintain in it, at all times, the greatest possible

quantity of happiness. To this universal benevolence, on the contrary,

the very suspicion of a fatherless world, must be the most melancholy

of all reflections; from the {209} thought that all the unknown

regions of infinite and incomprehensible space may be filled with

nothing but endless misery and wretchedness. All the splendour of the

highest prosperity can never enlighten the gloom with which so

dreadful an idea must necessarily overshadow the imagination; nor, in

a wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the most afflicting

adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the

habitual and thorough conviction of the truth of the contrary system.

The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private

interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own

particular order or society. He is at all times willing, too, that the

interest of this order or society should be sacrificed to the greater

interest of the state or sovereignty, of which it is only a

subordinate part. He should, therefore, be equally willing that all

those inferior interests should be sacrificed to the greater interest

of the universe, to the interest of that great society of all sensible

and intelligent beings, of which God himself is the immediate

administrator and director. If he is deeply impressed with the

habitual and thorough conviction that this benevolent and all-wise

Being can admit into the system of his government, no partial evil

which is not necessary for the universal good, he must consider all

the misfortunes which may befal himself, his friends, his society, or

his country, as necessary for the prosperity of the universe, and

therefore as what he ought, not only to submit to with resignation,

but as what he himself, if he had known all the connexions and

dependencies of things, ought sincerely and devoutly to have wished

for.

Nor does this magnanimous resignation to the will of the great

Director of the universe, seem in any respect beyond the reach of

human nature. Good soldiers, who both love and trust their general,

frequently march with more gaiety and alacrity to the forlorn station,

from which they never expect to return, than they would to one where

there was neither difficulty nor danger. In marching to the latter,

they could feel no other sentiment than that of the dulness of

ordinary duty; in marching to the former, they feel that they are

making the noblest exertion which it is possible for man to make. They

know that their general would not have ordered them upon this station,

had it not been necessary for the safety of the army, for the success

of the war. They cheerfully sacrifice their own little systems to the

prosperity of a greater system. They take an affectionate leave of

their comrades, to whom they wish all happiness and success; and march

out, not only with submissive obedience, but often with shouts of the

most joyful exultation, to that fatal, but splendid and honourable

station to which they are appointed. No conductor of an army can

deserve more unlimited trust, more ardent and zealous affection, than

the great Conductor of the universe. In the greatest public as well as

private disasters, a wise man ought to consider that he himself, his

friends and countrymen, {210} have only been ordered upon the forlorn

station of the universe; that had it not been necessary for the good

of the whole, they would not have been so ordered; and that it is

their duty, not only with humble resignation to submit to this

allotment, but to endeavour to embrace it with alacrity and joy. A

wise man should surely be capable of doing what a good soldier holds

himself at all times in readiness to do.

The idea of that divine Being, whose benevolence and wisdom have, from

all eternity, contrived and conducted the immense machine of the

universe, so as at all times to produce the greatest possible quantity

of happiness, is certainly of all the objects of human contemplation

by far the most sublime. Every other thought necessarily appears mean

in the comparison. The man whom we believe to be principally occupied

in this sublime contemplation, seldom fails to be the object of our

highest veneration; and though his life should be altogether

contemplative, we often regard him with a sort of religious respect

much superior to that with which we look upon the most active and

useful servant of the commonwealth. The Meditations of Marcus

Antoninus, which turn principally upon this subject, have contributed

more, perhaps, to the general admiration of his character, than all

the different transactions of his just, merciful, and beneficent

reign.

The administration of the great system of the universe, however, the

care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings,

is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much

humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his

powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension; the care of his

own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country: that

he is occupied in contemplating the more sublime, can never be an

excuse for his neglecting the more humble department; and he must not

expose himself to the charge which Avidius Cassius is said to have

brought, perhaps unjustly, against Marcus Antoninus; that while he

employed himself in philosophical speculations, and contemplated the

prosperity of the universe, he neglected that of the Roman empire. The

most sublime speculation of the contemplative philosopher can scarce

compensate the neglect of the smallest active duty.

-----

SEC. III.--OF SELF-COMMAND.

THE man who acts according to the rules of perfect prudence, of strict

justice, and of proper benevolence, may be said to be perfectly

virtuous. But the most perfect knowledge of those rules will not alone

enable him to act in this manner: his own passions are very apt to

mislead him: sometimes to drive him and sometimes to seduce him to

violate all the rules which he himself, in all his sober and cool

hours, approves of. The most perfect knowledge, if it is not supported

by the most perfect self-command, will not always enable him to do his

duty.

{211} Some of the best of the ancient moralists seem to have

considered those passions as divided into two different classes:

first, into those which it requires a considerable exertion of

self-command to restrain even for a single moment; and secondly, into

those which it is easy to restrain for a single moment, or even for a

short period of time; but which, by their continual and almost

incessant solicitations, are, in the course of a life, very apt to

mislead into great deviations.

Fear and anger, together with some other passions which are mixed or

connected with them, constitute the first class. The love of ease, of

pleasure, of applause, and of many other selfish gratifications,

constitute the second. Extravagant fear and furious anger, it is often

difficult to restrain even for a single moment. The love of ease, of

pleasure, of applause, and other selfish gratifications, it is always

easy to restrain for a single moment, or even for a short period of

time; but, by their continual solicitations, they often mislead us

into many weaknesses which we have afterwards much reason to be

ashamed of. The former set of passions may often be said to drive, the

latter to seduce us, from our duty. The command of the former was, by

the ancient moralists above alluded to, denominated fortitude,

manhood, and strength of mind; that of the latter, temperance,

decency, modesty, and moderation.

The command of each of those two sets of passions, independent of the

beauty which it derives from its utility; from its enabling us upon

all occasions to act according to the dictates of prudence, of

justice, and of proper benevolence; has a beauty of its own, and seems

to deserve for its own sake a certain degree of esteem and admiration.

In the one case, the strength and greatness of the exertion excites

some degree of that esteem and admiration. In the other, the

uniformity, the equality and unremitting steadiness of that exertion.

The man who, in danger, in torture, upon the approach of death,

preserves his tranquillity unaltered, and suffers no word, no gesture

to escape him which does not perfectly accord with the feelings of the

most indifferent spectator, necessarily commands a very high degree of

admiration. If he suffers in the cause of liberty and justice, for the

sake of humanity and the love of his country, the most tender

compassion for his sufferings, the strongest indignation against the

injustice of his persecutors, the warmest sympathetic gratitude for

his beneficent intentions, the highest sense of his merit, all join

and mix themselves with the admiration of his magnanimity, and often

inflame that sentiment into the most enthusiastic and rapturous

veneration. The heroes of ancient and modern history, who are

remembered with the most peculiar favour and affection, are many of

them those who, in the cause of truth, liberty, and justice, have

perished upon the scaffold, and who behaved there with that ease and

dignity which became them. Had the enemies of Socrates suffered him to

die quietly in his bed, the {212} glory even of that great philosopher

might possibly never have acquired that dazzling splendour in which it

has been beheld in all succeeding ages. In the English history, when

we look over the illustrious heads which have been engraven by Vertue

and Howbraken, there is scarce any body, I imagine, who does not feel

that the axe, the emblem of having been beheaded, which is engraved

under some of the most illustrious of them, under those of the Sir

Thomas Mores, of the Raleighs, the Russels, the Sydneys, &c., sheds a

real dignity and depth of interest over the characters to which it is

affixed, much superior to what they can derive from all the futile

ornaments of heraldry, with which they are sometimes accompanied.

Nor does this magnanimity give lustre only to the characters of

innocent and virtuous men. It draws some degree of favourable regard

even upon those of the greatest criminals; and when a robber or

highwayman is brought to the scaffold, and behaves there with decency

and firmness, though we perfectly approve of his punishment, we often

cannot help regretting that a man who possessed such great and noble

powers should have been capable of such mean enormities.

War is the great school both for acquiring and exercising this species

of magnanimity. Death, as we say, is the king of terrors; and the man

who has conquered the fear of death, is not likely to lose his

presence of mind at the approach of any other natural evil. In war,

men become familiar with death, and are thereby necessarily cured of

that superstitious horror with which it is viewed by the weak and

inexperienced. They consider it merely as the loss of life, and as no

further the object of aversion than as life may happen to be that of

desire. They learn from experience, too, that many seemingly great

dangers are not so great as they appear; and that, with courage,

activity, and presence of mind, there is often a good probability of

extricating themselves with honour from situations where at first they

could see no hope. The dread of death is thus greatly diminished; and

the confidence or hope of escaping it, augmented. They learn to expose

themselves to danger with less reluctance. They are less anxious to

get out of it, and less apt to lose their presence of mind while they

are in it. It is this habitual contempt of danger and death which

ennobles the profession of a soldier, and bestows upon it, in the

natural apprehensions of mankind, a rank and dignity superior to that

of any other profession; and the skilful and successful exercise of

this profession, in the service of their country, seems to have

constituted the most distinguishing feature in the character of the

favourite heroes of all ages.

Great warlike exploit, though undertaken contrary to every principle

of justice, and carried on without any regard to humanity, sometimes

interests us, and commands even some degree of a certain sort of

esteem for the very worthless characters which conduct it. We are

{213} interested even in the exploits of the buccaneers; and read with

some sort of esteem and admiration, the history of the most worthless

men, who, in pursuit of the most criminal purposes, endured greater

hardships, surmounted greater difficulties, and encountered greater

dangers, than perhaps any which the course of history gives an account

of.

The command of anger appears upon many occasions not less generous and

noble than that of fear. The proper expression of just indignation

composes many of the most splendid and admired passages both of

ancient and modern eloquence. The Philippics of Demosthenes, the

Catalinarians of Cicero, derive their whole beauty from the noble

propriety with which this passion is expressed. But this just

indignation is nothing but anger restrained and properly attempered to

what the impartial spectator can enter into. The blustering and noisy

passion which goes beyond this, is always odious and offensive, and

interests us, not for the angry man, but for the man with whom he is

angry. The nobleness of pardoning appears, upon many occasions,

superior even to the most perfect propriety of resenting. When either

proper acknowledgments have been made by the offending party, or even

without any such acknowledgments, when the public interest requires

that the most mortal enemies should unite for the discharge of some

important duty, the man who can cast away all animosity, and act with

confidence and cordiality towards the person who had most grievously

offended him, does seem most justly to merit our highest admiration.

The command of anger, however, does not always appear in such splendid

colours. Fear is contrary to anger, and is often the motive which

restrains it; and in such cases the meanness of the motive takes away

all the nobleness of the restraint. Anger prompts to attack, and the

indulgence of it seems sometimes to show a sort of courage and

superiority to fear. The indulgence of anger is sometimes an object of

vanity. That of fear never is. Vain and weak men, among their

inferiors, or those who dare not resist them, often affect to be

ostentatiously passionate, and fancy that they show, what is called,

spirit in being so. A bully tells many stories of his own insolence,

which are not true, and imagines that he thereby renders himself, if

not more amiable and respectable, at least more formidable to his

audience. Modern manners, which, by favouring the practice of

duelling, may be said, in some cases, to encourage private revenge,

contribute, perhaps, a good deal to render, in modern times, the

restraint of anger by fear still more contemptible than it might

otherwise appear to be. There is always something dignified in the

command of fear, whatever may be the motive upon which it is founded.

It is not so with the command of anger. Unless it is founded

altogether in the sense of decency, of dignity, and propriety, it

never is perfectly agreeable.

To act according to the dictates of prudence, of justice, and proper

{214} beneficence, seems to have no great merit where there is no

temptation to do otherwise. But to act with cool deliberation in the

midst of the greatest dangers and difficulties; to observe religiously

the sacred rules of justice in spite both of the greatest interests

which might tempt, and the greatest injuries which might provoke us to

violate them; never to suffer the benevolence of our temper to be

damped or discouraged by the malignity and ingratitude of the

individuals towards whom it may have been exercised; is the character

of the most exalted wisdom and virtue. Self-command is not only itself

a great virtue, but from it all the other virtues seem to derive their

principal lustre.

The command of fear, the command of anger, are always great and noble

powers. When they are directed by justice and benevolence, they are

not only great virtues, but increase the splendour of those other

virtues. They may, however, sometimes be directed by very different

motives; and in this case, though still great and respectable, they

may be excessively dangerous. The most intrepid valour may be employed

in the cause of the greatest injustice. Amidst great provocations,

apparent tranquillity and good humour may sometimes conceal the most

determined and cruel resolution to revenge. The strength of mind

requisite for such dissimulation, though always and necessarily

contaminated by the baseness of falsehood, has, however, been often

much admired by many people of no contemptible judgment. The

dissimulation of Catherine of Medicis is often celebrated by the

profound historian Davila; that of Lord Digby, afterwards Earl of

Bristol, by the grave and conscientious Lord Clarendon; that of the

first Ashley Earl of Shaftesbury, by the judicious Mr. Locke. Even

Cicero seems to consider this deceitful character, not indeed as of

the highest dignity, but as not unsuitable to a certain flexibility of

manners, which, he thinks may, notwithstanding, be, upon the whole,

both agreeable and respectable. He exemplifies it by the characters of

Homer's Ulysses, of the Athenian Themistocles, of the Spartan

Lysander, and of the Roman Marcus Crassus. This character of dark and

deep dissimulation occurs most commonly in times of great public

disorder; amidst the violence of faction and civil war. When law has

become in a great measure impotent, when the most perfect innocence

cannot alone insure safety, regard to self-defence obliges the

greatest part of men to have recourse to dexterity, to address, and to

apparent accommodation to whatever happens to be, at the moment, the

prevailing party. This false character, too, is frequently accompanied

with the coolest and most determined courage. The proper exercise of

it supposes that courage, as death is commonly the certain consequence

of detection. It may be employed indifferently, either to exasperate

or to allay those furious animosities of adverse factions which impose

the necessity of assuming it; and though it may sometimes be useful,

it is at least equally liable to be excessively pernicious.

{215} The command of the less violent and turbulent passions seems

much less liable to be abused to any pernicious purpose. Temperance,

decency, modesty, and moderation, are always amiable, and can seldom

be directed to any bad end. It is from the unremitting steadiness of

those gentler exertions of self-command, that the amiable virtue of

chastity, that the respectable virtues of industry and frugality,

derive all that sober lustre which attends them. The conduct of all

those who are contented to walk in the humble paths of private and

peaceable life, derives from the same principle the greater part of

the beauty and grace which belong to it; a beauty and grace, which,

though much less dazzling, is not always less pleasing than those

which accompany the more splendid actions of the hero, the statesman,

or the legislator.

After what has already been said, in several different parts of this

discourse, concerning the nature of self-command, I judge it

unnecessary to enter into any further detail concerning those virtues.

I shall only observe at present, that the point of propriety, the

degree of any passion which the impartial spectator approves of, is

differently situated in different passions. In some passions the

excess is less disagreeable than the defect; and in such passions the

point of propriety seems to stand high, or nearer to the excess than

to the defect. In other passions, the defect is less disagreeable than

the excess; and in such passions the point of propriety seems to stand

low, or nearer to the defect than to the excess. The former are the

passions which the spectator is most, the latter, those which he is

least disposed to sympathize with. The former, too, are the passions

of which the immediate feeling or sensation is agreeable to the person

principally concerned; the latter, those of which it is disagreeable.

It may be laid down as a general rule, that the passions which the

spectator is most disposed to sympathize with, and in which, upon that

account, the point of propriety may be said to stand high, are those

of which the immediate feeling or sensation is more or less agreeable

to the person principally concerned: and that, on the contrary, the

passions which the spectator is least disposed to sympathize with, and

in which, upon that account, the point of propriety may be said to

stand low, are those of which the immediate feeling or sensation is

more or less disagreeable, or even painful, to the person principally

concerned. This general rule, so far as I have been able to observe,

admits not of a single exception. A few examples will at once both

sufficiently explain it and demonstrate the truth of it.

The disposition to the affections which tend to unite men in society

to humanity, kindness, natural affection, friendship, esteem, may

sometimes be excessive. Even the excess of this disposition, however,

renders a man interesting to every body. Though we blame it, we still

regard it with compassion, and even with kindness, and never with

dislike. We are more sorry for it than angry at it. To the person

{216} himself, the indulgence even of such excessive affections is,

upon many occasions, not only agreeable, but delicious. Upon some

occasions, indeed, especially when directed, as is too often the case,

towards unworthy objects, it exposes him to much real and heartfelt

distress. Even upon such occasions, however, a well-disposed mind

regards him with the most exquisite pity, and feels the highest

indignation against those who affect to despise him for his weakness

and imprudence. The defect of this disposition, on the contrary, what

is called hardness of heart, while it renders a man insensible to the

feelings and distresses of other people, renders other people equally

insensible to his; and, by excluding him from the friendship of all

the world, excludes him from the best and most comfortable of all

social enjoyments.

The disposition to the affections which drive men from one another,

and which tend, as it were, to break the bands of human society; the

disposition to anger, hatred, envy, malice, revenge; is, on the

contrary, much more apt to offend by its excess than by its defect.

The excess renders a man wretched and miserable in his own mind, and

the object of hatred, and sometimes even of horror, to other people.

The defect is very seldom complained of. It may, however, be

defective. The want of proper indignation is a most essential defect

in the manly character, and, upon many occasions, renders a man

incapable of protecting either himself or his friends from insult and

injustice. Even that principle, in the excess and improper direction

of which consists the odious and detestable passion of envy, may be

defective. Envy is that passion which views with malignant dislike the

superiority of those who are really entitled to all the superiority

they possess. The man, however, who, in matters of consequence, tamely

suffers other people, who are entitled to no such superiority, to rise

above him or get before him, is justly condemned as mean-spirited.

This weakness is commonly founded in indolence, sometimes in good

nature, in an aversion to opposition, to bustle and solicitation, and

sometimes, too, in a sort of ill-judged magnanimity, which fancies

that it can always continue to despise the advantage which it then

despises, and, therefore, so easily gives up. Such weakness, however,

is commonly followed by much regret and repentance; and what had some

appearance of magnanimity in the beginning frequently gives place to a

most malignant envy in the end, and to a hatred of that superiority,

which those who have once attained it, may often become really

entitled to, by the very circumstance of having attained it. In order

to live comfortably in the world, it is, upon all occasions, as

necessary to defend our dignity and rank, as it is to defend our life

or our fortune.

Our sensibility to personal danger and distress, like that to personal

provocation, is much more apt to offend by its excess than by its

defect. No character is more contemptible than that of a coward; no

character is more admired than that of the man who faces death with

intrepidity, {217} and maintains his tranquillity and presence of mind

amidst the most dreadful dangers. We esteem the man who supports pain

and even torture with manhood and firmness; and we can have little

regard for him who sinks under them, and abandons himself to useless

outcries and womanish lamentations. A fretful temper, which feels,

with too much sensibility, every little cross accident, renders a man

miserable in himself and offensive to other people. A calm one, which

does not allow its tranquillity to be disturbed, either by the small

injuries, or by the little disasters incident to the usual course of

human affairs; but which, amidst the natural and moral evils infesting

the world, lays its account and is contented to suffer a little from

both, is a blessing to the man himself, and gives ease and security to

all his companions.

Our sensibility, however, both to our own injuries and to our own

misfortunes, though generally too strong, may likewise be too weak.

The man who feels little for his own misfortunes, must always feel

less for those of other people, and be less disposed to relieve them.

The man who has little resentment for the injuries which are done to

himself, must always have less for those which are done to other

people, and be less disposed either to protect or to avenge them. A

stupid insensibility to the events of human life necessarily

extinguishes all that keen and earnest attention to the propriety of

our own conduct, which constitutes the real essence of virtue. We can

feel little anxiety about the propriety of our own actions, when we

are indifferent about the events which may result from them. The man

who feels the full distress of the calamity which has befallen him,

who feels the whole baseness of the injustice which has been done to

him, but who feels still more strongly what the dignity of his own

character requires; who does not abandon himself to the guidance of

the undisciplined passions which his situation might naturally

inspire; but who governs his whole behaviour and conduct according to

those restrained and corrected emotions which the great inmate, the

great demi-god within the breast prescribes and approves of; is alone

the real man of virtue, the only real and proper object of love,

respect, and admiration. Insensibility and that noble firmness, that

exalted self-command, which is founded in the sense of dignity and

propriety, are so far from being altogether the same, that in

proportion as the former takes place, the merit of the latter is, in

many cases, entirely taken away.

But though the total want of sensibility to personal injury, to

personal danger and distress, would, in such situations, take away the

whole merit of self-command, that sensibility, however, may very

easily be too exquisite, and it frequently is so. When the sense of

propriety, when the authority of the judge within the breast, can

control this extreme sensibility, that authority must no doubt appear

very noble and very great. But the exertion of it may be too

fatiguing; it may have too much to do. The individual, by a great

effort, may behave perfectly {218} well. But the contest between the

two principles, the warfare within the breast, may be too violent to

be at all consistent with internal tranquillity and happiness. The

wise man whom Nature has endowed with this too exquisite sensibility,

and whose too lively feelings have not been sufficiently blunted and

hardened by early education and proper exercise, will avoid, as much

as duty and propriety will permit, the situations for which he is not

perfectly fitted. The man whose feeble and delicate constitution

renders him too sensible to pain, to hardship, and to every sort of

bodily distress, should not wantonly embrace the profession of a

soldier. The man of too much sensibility to injury, should not rashly

engage in the contests of faction. Though the sense of propriety

should be strong enough to command all those sensibilities, the

composure of the mind must always be disturbed in the struggle. In

this disorder the judgment cannot always maintain its ordinary

acuteness and precision; and though he may always mean to act

properly, he may often act rashly and imprudently, and in a manner

which he himself will, in the succeeding part of his life, be for ever

ashamed of. A certain intrepidity, a certain firmness of nerves and

hardiness of constitution, whether natural or acquired, are

undoubtedly the best preparatives for all the great exertions of

self-command.

Though war and faction are certainly the best schools for forming

every man to this hardiness and firmness of temper, though they are

the best remedies for curing him of the opposite weaknesses, yet, if

the day of trial should happen to come before he has completely

learned his lesson, before the remedy has had time to produce its

proper effect, the consequences might not be agreeable.

Our sensibility to the pleasures, to the amusements, and enjoyments of

human life, may offend, in the same manner, either by its excess or by

its defect. Of the two, however, the excess seems less disagreeable

than the defect. Both to the spectator and to the person principally

concerned, a strong propensity to joy is certainly more pleasing than

a dull insensibility to the objects of amusement and diversion. We are

charmed with the gaiety of youth, and even with the playfulness of

childhood: but we soon grow weary of the flat and tasteless gravity

which too frequently accompanies old age. When this propensity,

indeed, is not restrained by the sense of propriety, when it is

unsuitable to the time or to the place, to the age or to the situation

of the person, when, to indulge it, he neglects either his interest or

his duty; it is justly blamed as excessive, and as hurtful both to the

individual and to the society. In the greater part of such cases,

however, what is chiefly to be found fault with is, not so much the

strength of the propensity to joy, as the weakness of the sense of

propriety and duty. A young man who has no relish for the diversions

and amusements that are natural and suitable to his age, who talks of

nothing but his book or his business, is disliked as formal and

pedantic; and we give him no credit {219} for his abstinence even from

improper indulgences, to which he seems to have so little inclination.

The principle of self-estimation may be too high, and it may likewise

be too low. It is so very agreeable to think highly, and so very

disagreeable to think meanly of ourselves, that, to the person

himself, it cannot well be doubted, but that some degree of excess

must be much less disagreeable than any degree of defect. But to the

impartial spectator, it may perhaps be thought, things must appear

quite differently, and that to him, the defect must always be less

disagreeable than the excess. And in our companions, no doubt, we much

more frequently complain of the latter than of the former. When they

assume upon us, or set themselves before us, their self-estimation

mortifies our own. Our own pride and vanity prompt us to accuse them

of pride and vanity, and we cease to be the impartial spectators of

their conduct. When the same companions, however, suffer any other man

to assume over them a superiority which does not belong to him, we not

only blame them, but often despise them as mean-spirited. When, on the

contrary, among other people, they push themselves a little more

forward, and scramble to an elevation disproportioned, as we think, to

their merit, though we may not perfectly approve of their conduct, we

are often, upon the whole, diverted with it; and, where there is no

envy in the case, we are almost always much less displeased with them,

than we should have been, had they only suffered themselves to sink

below their proper station.

In estimating our own merit, in judging of our own character and

conduct, there are two different standards to which we naturally

compare them. The one is the idea of exact propriety and perfection,

so far as we are each of us capable of comprehending that idea. The

other is that degree of approximation to this idea which is commonly

attained in the world, and which the greater part of our friends and

companions, of our rivals and competitors, may have actually arrived

at. We very seldom (I am disposed to think, we never) attempt to judge

of ourselves without giving more or less attention to both these

different standards. But the attention of different men, and even of

the same man at different times, is often very unequally divided

between them; and is sometimes principally directed towards the one,

and sometimes towards the other.

So far as our attention is directed towards the first standard, the

wisest and best of us all, can, in his own character and conduct, see

nothing but weakness and imperfection; can discover no ground for

arrogance and presumption, but a great deal for humility, regret, and

repentance. So far as our attention is directed towards the second, we

may be affected either in the one way or in the other, and feel

ourselves, either really above, or really below, the standard with

which we seek to compare ourselves.

{220} The wise and virtuous man directs his principal attention to the

first standard; the idea of exact propriety and perfection. There

exists in the mind of every man, an idea of this kind, gradually

formed from his observations upon the character and conduct both of

himself and of other people. It is the slow, gradual, and progressive

work of the great demigod within the breast, the great judge and

arbiter of conduct. This idea is in every man more or less accurately

drawn, its colouring is more or less just, its outlines are more or

less exactly designed, according to the delicacy and acuteness of that

sensibility, with which those observations were made, and according to

the care and attention employed in making them. In the wise and

virtuous man they have been made with the most acute and delicate

sensibility, and the utmost care and attention have been employed in

making them. Every day some feature is improved; every day some

blemish is corrected. He has studied this idea more than other people,

he comprehends it more distinctly, he has formed a much more correct

image of it, and is much more deeply enamoured of its exquisite and

divine beauty. He endeavours, as well as he can, to assimilate his own

character to this archetype of perfection. But he imitates the work of

a divine artist, which can never be equalled. He feels the imperfect

success of all his best endeavours, and sees, with grief and

affliction, in how many different features the mortal copy falls short

of the immortal original. He remembers, with concern and humiliation,

how often, from want of attention, from want of judgment, from want of

temper, he has, both in words and actions, both in conduct and

conversation, violated the exact rules of perfect propriety; and has

so far departed from that model, according to which he wished to

fashion his own character and conduct. When he directs his attention

towards the second standard, indeed, that degree of excellence which

his friends and acquaintances have commonly arrived at, he may be

sensible of his own superiority. But, as his principal attention is

always directed towards the first standard, he is necessarily much

more humbled by the one comparison, than he ever can be elevated by

the other. He is never so elated as to look down with insolence even

upon those who are really below him. He feels so well his own

imperfection, he knows so well the difficulty with which he attained

his own distant approximation to rectitude, that he cannot regard with

contempt the still greater imperfections of other people. Far from

insulting over their inferiority, he views it with the most indulgent

commiseration, and, by his advice as well as example, is at all times

willing to promote their further advancement. If, in any particular

qualification, they happen to be superior to him (for who is so

perfect as not to have many superiors in many different

qualifications?), far from envying their superiority, he, who knows

how difficult it is to excel, esteems and honours their excellence,

and never fails to bestow upon it the full measure of applause {221}

which it deserves. His whole mind, in short, is deeply impressed, his

whole behaviour and deportment are distinctly stamped with the

character of real modesty; with that of a very moderate estimation of

his own merit, and, at the same time, with a very full sense of the

merit of other people.

In all the liberal and ingenious arts, in painting, in poetry, in

music, in eloquence, in philosophy, the great artist feels always the

real imperfection of his own best works, and is more sensible than any

man how much they fall short of that ideal perfection of which he has

formed some conception, which he imitates as well as he can, but which

he despairs of ever equalling. It is the inferior artist only, who is

ever perfectly satisfied with his own performances. He has little

conception of this ideal perfection, about which he has little

employed his thoughts; and it is chiefly to the works of other

artists, of, perhaps, a still lower order, that he deigns to compare

his own works. Boileau, the great French poet (in some of his works,

perhaps not inferior to the greatest poet of the same kind, either

ancient or modern), used to say, that no great man was ever completely

satisfied with his own works. His acquaintance Santeuil (a writer of

Latin verses, and who, on account of that school-boy accomplishment,

had the weakness to fancy himself a poet), assured him that he himself

was always completely satisfied with _his_ own. Boileau replied,

with, perhaps, an arch ambiguity, that he certainly was the only great

man that ever was so. Boileau, in judging of his own works, compared

them with the standard of ideal perfection, which, in his own

particular branch of the poetic art, he had, I presume, meditated as

deeply, and conceived as distinctly, as it is possible for man to

conceive it. Santeuil, in judging of _his_ own works, compared

them, I suppose, chiefly to those of the other Latin poets of his own

time, to the great part of whom he was certainly very far from being

inferior. But to support and finish off, if I may say so, the conduct

and conversation of a whole life to some resemblance of this ideal

perfection, is surely much more difficult than to work up to an equal

resemblance any of the productions of any of the ingenious arts. The

artist sits down to his work undisturbed, at leisure, in the full

possession and recollection of all his skill, experience, and

knowledge. The wise man must support the propriety of his own conduct

in health and sickness, in success and in disappointment, in the hour

of fatigue and drowsy indolence, as well as in that of the most

awakened attention. The most sudden and unexpected assaults of

difficulty and distress must never surprise him. The injustice of

other people must never provoke him to injustice. The violence of

faction must never confound him. All the hardships and hazards of war

must never either dishearten or appal him.

Of the persons who, in estimating their own merit, in judging of their

own character and conduct, direct by far the greater part of their

{222} attention to the second standard, to that ordinary degree of

excellence which is commonly attained by other people, there are some

who really and justly feel themselves very much above it, and who, by

every intelligent and impartial spectator, are acknowledged to be so.

The attention of such persons, however, being always principally

directed, not to the standard of ideal, but to that of ordinary

perfection, they have little sense of their own weaknesses and

imperfections; they have little modesty; and are often assuming,

arrogant, and presumptuous; great admirers of themselves, and great

contemners of other people. Though their characters are in general

much less correct, and their merit much inferior to that of the man of

real and modest virtue; yet their excessive presumption, founded upon

their own excessive self-admiration, dazzles the multitude, and often

imposes even upon those who are much superior to the multitude. The

frequent, and often wonderful, success of the most ignorant quacks and

impostors, both civil and religious, sufficiently demonstrate how

easily the multitude are imposed upon by the most extravagant and

groundless pretensions. But when those pretensions are supported by a

very high degree of real and solid merit, when they are displayed with

all the splendour which ostentation can bestow upon them, when they

are supported by high rank and great power, when they have often been

successfully exerted, and are, upon that account, attended by the loud

acclamations of the multitude; even the man of sober judgment often

abandons himself to the general admiration. The very noise of those

foolish acclamations often contributes to confound his understanding,

and while he sees those great men only at a certain distance, he is

often disposed to worship them with a sincere admiration, superior

even to that with which they appear to worship themselves. When there

is no envy in the case, we all take pleasure in admiring, and are,

upon that account, naturally disposed, in our own fancies, to render

complete and perfect in every respect the characters which, in many

respects, are so very worthy of admiration. The excessive

self-admiration of those great men is well understood, perhaps, and

even seen through, with some degree of derision, by those wise men who

are much in their familiarity, and who secretly smile at those lofty

pretensions, which, by people at a distance, are often regarded with

reverence, and almost with adoration. Such, however, have been, in all

ages, the greater part of those men who have procured to themselves

the most noisy fame, the most extensive reputation; a fame and

reputation, too, which have too often descended to the remotest

posterity.

Great success in the world, great authority over the sentiments and

opinions of mankind, have very seldom been acquired without some

degree of this excessive self-admiration. The most splendid

characters, the men who have performed the most illustrious actions,

who have brought about the greatest revolutions, both in the

situations and {223} opinions of mankind; the most successful

warriors, the greatest statesmen and legislators, the eloquent

founders and leaders of the most numerous and most successful sects

and parties; have many of them been, not more distinguished for their

very great merit, than for a degree of presumption and self-admiration

altogether disproportioned even to that very great merit. This

presumption was, perhaps, necessary, not only to prompt them to

undertakings which a more sober mind would never have thought of, but

to command the submission and obedience of their followers to support

them in such undertakings. When crowned with success, accordingly,

this presumption has often betrayed them into a vanity that approached

almost to insanity and folly. Alexander the Great appears, not only to

have wished that other people should think him a god, but to have been

at least very well-disposed to fancy himself such. Upon his deathbed,

the most ungodlike of all situations, he requested of his friends

that, to the respectable list of deities, into which himself had long

before been inserted, his old mother Olympia might likewise have the

honour of being added. Amidst the respectful admiration of his

followers and disciples, amidst the universal applause of the public,

after the oracle, which probably had followed the voice of that

applause, had pronounced him the wisest of men, the great wisdom of

Socrates, though it did not suffer him to fancy himself a god, yet was

not great enough to hinder him from fancying that he had secret and

frequent intimations from some invisible and divine being. The sound

head of Cæsar was not so perfectly sound as to hinder him from being

much pleased with his divine genealogy from the goddess Venus; and,

before the temple of this pretended great-grandmother, to receive,

without rising from his seat, the Roman senate, when that illustrious

body came to present him with some decrees conferring upon him the

most extravagant honours. This insolence, joined to some other acts of

an almost childish vanity, little to be expected from an understanding

at once so very acute and comprehensive, seems, by exasperating the

public jealousy, to have emboldened his assassins, and to have

hastened the execution of their conspiracy. The religion and manners

of modern times give our great men little encouragement to fancy

themselves either gods or even prophets. Success, however, joined to

great popular favour, has often so far turned the heads of the

greatest of them, as to make them ascribe to themselves both an

importance and an ability much beyond what they really possessed; and,

by this presumption, to precipitate themselves into many rash and

sometimes ruinous adventures. It is a characteristic almost peculiar

to the great Duke of Marlborough, that ten years of such uninterrupted

and such splendid success as scarce any other general could boast of,

never betrayed him into a a single rash action, scarce into a single

rash word or expression. The same temperate coolness and self-command

cannot, I think, be ascribed to any other great warrior of later

times; not to Prince Eugene, not to {224} the late King of Prussia,

not **the great Prince of Condé, not even to Gustavus Adolphus.

Turenne seems to have approached the nearest to it; but several

different transactions of his life sufficiently demonstrate that it

was in him by no means so perfect as it was in the great Duke of

Marlborough.

In the humble projects of private life, as well as in the ambitious

and proud pursuits of high stations, great abilities and successful

enterprise, in the beginning, have frequently encouraged to

undertakings which necessarily led to bankruptcy and ruin in the end.

The esteem and admiration which every impartial spectator conceives

for the real merit of those spirited, magnanimous, and high-minded

persons, as it is a just and well-founded sentiment, so it is a steady

and permanent one, and altogether independent of their good or bad

fortune. It is otherwise with that admiration which he is apt to

conceive for their excessive self-estimation and presumption. While

they are successful, indeed, he is often perfectly conquered and

overborne by them. Success covers from his eyes, not only the great

imprudence, but frequently the great injustice of their enterprises;

and far from blaming this defective part of their character, he often

views it with the most enthusiastic admiration. When they are

unfortunate, however, things change their colours and their names.

What was before heroic magnanimity, resumes its proper appellation of

extravagant rashness and folly; and the blackness of that avidity and

injustice, which was before hid under the splendour of prosperity,

comes full into view, and blots the whole lustre of their enterprise.

Had Cæsar, instead of gaining, lost the battle of Pharsalia, his

character would, at this hour, have ranked a little above that of

Cataline, and the weakest man would have viewed his enterprise against

the laws of his country in blacker colours, than, perhaps even Cato,

with all the animosity of a party-man, ever viewed it at the time. His

real merit, the justness of his taste, the simplicity and elegance of

his writings, the propriety of his eloquence, his skill in war, his

resources in distress, his cool and sedate judgment in danger, his

faithful attachment to his friends, his unexampled generosity to his

enemies, would all have been acknowledged; as the real merit of

Cataline, who had many great qualities, is acknowledged at this day.

But the insolence and injustice of his all-grasping ambition would

have darkened and extinguished the glory of all that real merit.

Fortune has in this, as well as in some other respects already

mentioned, great influence over the moral sentiments of mankind, and,

according as she is either favourable or adverse, can render the same

character the object, either of general love and admiration, or of

universal hatred and contempt. This great disorder in our moral

sentiments is by no means, however, without its utility; and we may on

this, as well as on many other occasions, admire the wisdom of God

even in the weakness and folly of man. Our admiration of {225} success

is founded upon the same principle with our respect for wealth and

greatness, and is equally necessary for establishing the distinction

of ranks and the order of society. By this admiration of success we

are taught to submit more easily to those superiors, whom the course

of human affairs may assign to us; to regard with reverence, and

sometimes even with a sort of respectful affection, that fortunate

violence which we are no longer capable of resisting; not only the

violence of such splendid characters as those of a Cæsar or an

Alexander, but often that of the most brutal and savage barbarians, of

an Attila, a Gengis, or a Tamerlane. To all such mighty conquerors the

great mob of mankind are naturally disposed to look up with a

wondering, though, no doubt, with a very weak and foolish admiration.

By this admiration, however, they are taught to acquiesce with less

reluctance under that government which an irresistible force imposes

upon them, and from which no reluctance could deliver them.

Though in prosperity, however, the man of excessive self-estimation

may sometimes appear to have some advantage over the man of correct

and modest virtue; though the applause of the multitude, and of those

who see them both only at a distance, is often much louder in favour

of the one than it ever is in favour of the other; yet, all things

fairly computed, the real balance of advantage is, perhaps in all

cases, greatly in favour of the latter and against the former. The man

who neither ascribes to himself, nor wishes that other people should

ascribe to him, any other merit besides that which really belongs to

him, fears no humiliation, dreads no detection; but rests contented

and secure upon the genuine truth and solidity of his own character.

His admirers may neither be very numerous nor very loud in their

applauses; but the wisest man who sees him the nearest and who knows

him the best, admires him the most. To a real wise man the judicious

and well-weighed approbation of a single wise man, gives more

heartfelt satisfaction than all the noisy applauses of ten thousand

ignorant though enthusiastic admirers. He may say with Parmenides,

who, upon reading a philosophical discourse before a public assembly

at Athens, and observing, that, except Plato, the whole company had

left him, continued, notwithstanding, to read on, and said that Plato

alone was audience sufficient for him.

It is otherwise with the man of excessive self-estimation. The wise

men who see him the nearest, admire him the least. Amidst the

intoxication of prosperity, their sober and just esteem falls so far

short of the extravagance of his own self-admiration, that he regards

it as mere malignity and envy. He suspects his best friends. Their

company becomes offensive to him. He drives them from his presence,

and often rewards their services, not only with ingratitude, but with

cruelty and injustice. He abandons his confidence to flatterers and

traitors, who pretend to idolize his vanity and presumption; and that

{226} character which in the beginning, though in some respects

defective, was, upon the whole, both amiable and respectable, becomes

contemptible and odious in the end. Amidst the intoxication of

prosperity, Alexander killed Clytus, for having preferred the exploits

of his father Philip to his own; put Calisthenes to death in torture,

for having refused to adore him in the Persian manner; and murdered

the great friend of his father, the venerable Parmenio, after having,

upon the most groundless suspicions, sent first to the torture and

afterwards to the scaffold the only remaining son of that old man, the

rest having all before died in his own service. This was that Parmenio

of whom Philip used to say, that the Athenians were very fortunate who

could find ten generals every year, while he himself, in the whole

course of his life, could never find one but Parmenio. It was upon the

vigilance and attention of this Parmenio that he reposed at all times

with confidence and security, and, in his hours of mirth and jollity,

used to say, 'Let us drink, my friends: we may do it with safety, for

Parmenio never drinks.' It was this same Parmenio, with whose presence

and counsel, it had been said, Alexander had gained all his victories;

and without his presence and counsel, he had never gained a single

victory. The humble, admiring, and flattering friends, whom Alexander

left in power and authority behind him, divided his empire among

themselves, and after having thus robbed his family and kindred of

their inheritance, put, one after another, every single surviving

individual of them, whether male or female, to death.

We frequently, not only pardon, but thoroughly enter into and

sympathize with the excessive self-estimation of those splendid

characters in which we observe a great and distinguished superiority

above the common level of mankind. We call them spirited, magnanimous,

and high-minded; words which all involve in their meaning a

considerable degree of praise and admiration. But we cannot enter into

and sympathize with the excessive self-estimation of those characters

in which we can discern no such distinguished superiority. We are

disgusted and revolted by it; and it is with some difficulty that we

can either pardon or suffer it. We call it pride or vanity; two words,

of which the latter always, and the former for the most part, involve

in their meaning a considerable degree of blame.

Those two vices, however, though resembling, in some respects, as

being both modifications of excessive self-estimation, are yet, in

many respects, very different from one another.

The proud man is sincere, and, in the bottom of his heart, is

convinced of his own superiority; though it may sometimes be difficult

to guess upon what that conviction is founded. He wishes you to view

him in no other light than that in which, when he places himself in

your situation, he really views himself. He demands no more of you

than, what he thinks, justice. If you appear not to respect him as he

{227} respects himself, he is more offended than mortified, and feels

the same indignant resentment as if he had suffered a real injury. He

does not even then, however, deign to explain the grounds of his own

pretensions. He disdains to court your esteem. He affects even to

despise it, and endeavours to maintain his assumed station, not so

much by making you sensible of his superiority, as of your own

meanness. He seems to wish not so much to excite your esteem for

_himself_, as to mortify _that_ for _yourself_.

The vain man is not sincere, and, in the bottom of his heart, is very

seldom convinced of that superiority which he wishes you to ascribe to

him. He wishes you to view him in much more splendid colours than

those in which, when he places himself in your situation, and supposes

you to know all that he knows, he can really view himself. When you

appear to view him, therefore, in different colours, perhaps in his

proper colours, he is much more mortified than offended. The grounds

of his claim to that character which he wishes you to ascribe to him,

he takes every opportunity of displaying, both by the most

ostentatious and unnecessary exhibition of the good qualities and

accomplishments which he possesses in some tolerable degree, and

sometimes even by false pretensions to those which he either possesses

in no degree, or in so very slender a degree that he may well enough

be said to possess them in no degree. Far from despising your esteem,

he courts it with the most anxious assiduity. Far from wishing to

mortify your self-estimation, he is happy to cherish it, in hopes that

in return you will cherish his own. He flatters in order to be

flattered. He studies to please, and endeavours to bribe you into a

good opinion of him by politeness and complaisance, and sometimes even

by real and essential good offices, though often displayed, perhaps,

with unnecessary ostentation.

The vain man sees the respect which is paid to rank and fortune, and

wishes to usurp this respect, as well as that for talents and virtues.

His dress, his equipage, his way of living, accordingly, all announce

both a higher rank and a greater fortune than really belong to him;

and in order to support this foolish imposition for a few years in the

beginning of his life, he often reduces himself to poverty and

distress long before the end of it. As long as he can continue his

expense, however, his vanity is delighted with viewing himself, not in

the light in which you would view him if you knew all that he knows;

but in that in which, he imagines, he has, by his own address, induced

you actually to view him. Of all the illusions of vanity that is,

perhaps, the most common. Obscure strangers who visit foreign

countries, or who, from a remote province, come to visit, for a short

time, the capital of their own country, most frequently attempt to

practise it. The folly of the attempt, though always very great and

most unworthy of a man of sense, may not be altogether so great upon

such as upon most other {228} occasions. If their stay is short, they

may escape any disgraceful detection; and, after indulging their

vanity for a few months or a few years, they may return to their own

homes, and repair, by future parsimony, the waste of their past

profusion.

The proud man can very seldom be accused of this folly. His sense of

his own dignity renders him careful to preserve his independency, and,

when his fortune happens not to be large, though he wishes to be

decent, he studies to be frugal and attentive in all his expenses. The

ostentatious expense of the vain man is highly offensive to him. It

outshines, perhaps, his own. It provokes his indignation as an

insolent assumption of a rank which is by no means due; and he never

talks of it without loading it with the harshest and severest

reproaches.

The proud man does not always feel himself at his ease in the company

of his equals, and still less in that of his superiors. He cannot lay

down his lofty pretensions, and the countenance and conversation of

such company overawe him so much that he dare not display them. He has

recourse to humbler company, for which he has little respect, which he

would not willingly choose, and which is by no means agreeable to him;

that of his inferiors, his flatterers, and dependants. He seldom

visits his superiors, or, if he does, it is rather to show that he is

entitled to live in such company, than for any real satisfaction that

he enjoys in it. It is as Lord Clarendon says of the Earl of Arundel,

that he sometimes went to court, because he could there only find a

greater man than himself; but that he went very seldom, because he

found there a greater man than himself.

It is quite otherwise with the vain man. He courts the company of his

superiors as much as the proud man shuns it. Their splendour, he seems

to think, reflects a splendour upon those who are much about them. He

haunts the courts of kings and the levees of ministers, and gives

himself the air of being a candidate for fortune and preferment, when

in reality he possesses the much more precious happiness, if he knew

how to enjoy it, of not being one. He is fond of being admitted to the

tables of the great, and still more fond of magnifying to other people

the familiarity with which he is honoured there. He associates

himself, as much as he can, with fashionable people, with those who

are supposed to direct the public opinion, with the witty, with the

learned, with the popular; and he shuns the company of his best

friends whenever the very uncertain current of public favour happens

to run in any respect against them. With the people to whom he wishes

to recommend himself, he is not always very delicate about the means

which he employs for that purpose; unnecessary ostentation, groundless

pretensions, constant assentation, frequently flattery, though for the

most part a pleasant and sprightly flattery, and very seldom the gross

and fulsome flattery of a parasite. The proud man, on the contrary,

never flatters, and is frequently scarce civil to any body.

{229} Notwithstanding all its groundless pretensions, however, vanity

is almost always a sprightly and a gay, and very often a good-natured

passion. Pride is always a grave, a sullen, and a severe one. Even the

falsehoods of the vain man are all innocent falsehoods, meant to raise

himself, not to lower other people. To do the proud man justice he

very seldom stoops to the baseness of falsehood. When he does,

however, his falsehoods are by no means so innocent. They are all

mischievous, and meant to lower other people. He is full of

indignation at the unjust superiority, as he thinks it, which is given

to them. He views them with malignity and envy, and, in talking of

them, often endeavours, as much as he can, to extenuate and lessen

whatever are the grounds upon which their superiority is supposed to

be founded. Whatever tales are circulated to their disadvantage,

though he seldom forges them himself, yet he often takes pleasure in

believing them, is by no means unwilling to repeat them, and even

sometimes with some degree of exaggeration. The worst falsehoods of

vanity are what we call white lies: those of pride, whenever it

condescends to falsehood, are all of the opposite complexion.

Our dislike to pride and vanity generally disposes us to rank the

persons whom we accuse of those vices rather below than above the

common level. In this judgment however, I think, we are most

frequently in the wrong, and that both the proud and the vain man are

often (perhaps for the most part) a good deal above it; though not

near so much as either the one really thinks himself, or as the other

wishes you to think him. If we compare them with their own

pretensions, they may appear the just objects of contempt. But when we

compare them with what the greater part of their rivals and

competitors really are, they may appear quite otherwise, and very much

above the common level. Where there is this real superiority, pride is

frequently attended with many respectable virtues; with truth, with

integrity, with a high sense of honour, with cordial and steady

friendship, with the most inflexible firmness and resolution. Vanity,

with many amiable ones; with humanity, with politeness, with a desire

to oblige in all little matters, and sometimes with a real generosity

in great ones; a generosity, however, which it often wishes to display

in the most splendid colours that it can. By their rivals and enemies,

the French, in the last century, were accused of vanity; the

Spaniards, of pride; and foreign nations were disposed to consider the

one as the more amiable; the other, as the more respectable people.

The words _vain_ and _vanity_ are never taken in a good

sense. We sometimes say of a man, when we are talking of him in good

humour, that he is the better for his vanity, or that his vanity is

more diverting than offensive; but we still consider it as a foible

and a ridiculous feature in his character.

The words _proud_ and _pride_, on the contrary, are

sometimes taken in {230} a good sense. We frequently say of a man,

that he is too proud, or that he has too much noble pride, ever to

suffer himself to do a mean thing. Pride is, in this case, confounded

with magnanimity. Aristotle, a philosopher who certainly knew the

world, in drawing the character of the magnanimous man, paints him

with many features which, in the two last centuries, were commonly

ascribed to the Spanish character: that he was deliberate in all his

resolutions; slow, and even tardy, in all his actions; that his voice

was grave, his speech deliberate, his step and motion slow; that he

appeared indolent and even slothful, not at all disposed to bustle

about little matters, but to act with the most determined and vigorous

resolution upon all great and illustrious occasions: that he was not a

lover of danger, or forward to expose himself to little dangers, but

to great dangers; and that, when he exposed himself to danger, he was

altogether regardless of his life.

The proud man is commonly too well contented with himself to think

that his character requires any amendment. The man who feels himself

all-perfect, naturally enough despises all further improvement. His

self-sufficiency and absurd conceit of his own superiority, commonly

attend him from his youth to his most advanced age; and he dies, as

Hamlet says, 'with all his sins upon his head, unanointed, unanealed.'

It is frequently quite otherwise with the vain man. The desire of the

esteem and admiration of other people, when for qualities and talents

which are the natural and proper objects of esteem and admiration, is

the real love of true glory; a passion which, if not the very best

passion of human nature, is certainly one of the best. Vanity is very

frequently no more than an attempt prematurely to usurp that glory

before it is due. Though your son, under five-and-twenty years of age,

should be but a coxcomb; do not, upon that account, despair of his

becoming, before he is forty, a very wise and worthy man, and a real

proficient in all those talents and virtues to which, at present, he

may only be an ostentatious and empty pretender. The great secret of

education is to direct vanity to proper objects. Never suffer him to

value himself upon trivial accomplishments. But do not always

discourage his pretensions to those that are of real importance. He

would not pretend to them if he did not earnestly desire to possess

them. Encourage this desire; afford him every means to facilitate the

acquisition; and do not take too much offence, although he should

sometimes assume the air of having attained it a little before the

time.

Such, I say, are the distinguishing characteristics of pride and

vanity, when each of them acts according to its proper character. But

the proud man is often vain; and the vain man is often proud. Nothing

can be more natural than that the man, who thinks much more highly of

himself than he deserves, should wish that other people should think

still more highly of him: or that the man, who wishes that other

people {231} should think more highly of him than he thinks of

himself, should, at the same time, think much more highly of himself

than he deserves. Those two vices being frequently blended in the same

character, the characteristics of both are necessarily confounded; and

we sometimes find the superficial and impertinent ostentation of

vanity joined to the most malignant and derisive insolence of pride.

We are sometimes, upon that account, at a loss how to rank a

particular character, or whether to place it among the proud or among

the vain.

Men of merit considerably above the common level, sometimes underrate

as well as over-rate themselves. Such characters, though not very

dignified, are often, in private society, far from being disagreeable.

His companions all feel themselves much at their ease in the society

of a man so perfectly modest and unassuming. If those companions,

however, have not both more discernment and more generosity than

ordinary, though they may have some kindness for him, they have seldom

much respect; and the warmth of their kindness is very seldom

sufficient to compensate the coldness of their respect. Men of no more

than ordinary discernment never rate any person higher than he appears

to rate himself. He seems doubtful himself, they say, whether he is

perfectly fit for such a situation or such an office; and immediately

give the preference to some impudent blockhead who entertains no doubt

about his own qualifications. Though they should have discernment,

yet, if they want generosity, they never fail to take advantage of his

simplicity, and to assume over him an impertinent superiority which

they are by no means entitled to. His good nature may enable him to

bear this for some time; but he grows weary at last, and frequently

when it is too late, and when that rank, which he ought to have

assumed, is lost irrecoverably, and usurped, in consequence of his own

backwardness, by some of his more forward, though much less

meritorious companions. A man of this character must have been very

fortunate in the early choice of his companions, if, in going through

the world, he meets always with fair justice, even from those whom,

from his own past kindness, he might have some reason to consider as

his best friends; and a youth, who may be too unassuming and too

unambitious, is frequently followed by an insignificant, complaining,

and discontented old age.

Those unfortunate persons whom nature has formed a good deal below the

common level, seem oftentimes to rate themselves still more below it

than they really are. This humility appears sometimes to sink them

into idiotism. Whoever has taken the trouble to examine idiots with

attention, will find that, in many of them, the faculties of the

understanding are by no means weaker than in several other people,

who, though acknowledged to be dull and stupid, are not, by any body,

accounted idiots. Many idiots, with no more than ordinary education,

have been taught to read, write, and account tolerably well. Many

{232} persons, never accounted idiots, notwithstanding the most

careful education, and notwithstanding that, in their advanced age,

they have had spirit enough to attempt to learn what their early

education had not taught them, have never been able to acquire, in any

tolerable degree, any one of those three accomplishments. By an

instinct of pride, however, they set themselves upon a level with

their equals in age and situation; and, with courage and firmness,

maintain their proper station among their companions. By an opposite

instinct, the idiot feels himself below every company into which you

can introduce him. Ill-usage, to which he is extremely liable, is

capable of throwing him into the most violent fits of rage and fury.

But no good usage, no kindness or indulgence, can ever raise him to

converse with you as your equal. If you can bring him to converse with

you at all, however, you will frequently find his answers sufficiently

pertinent, and even sensible. But they are always stamped with a

distinct consciousness of his own great inferiority. He seems to

shrink and, as it were, to retire from your look and conversation; and

to feel, when he places himself in your situation, that,

notwithstanding your apparent condescension, you cannot help

considering him as immensely below you. Some idiots, perhaps the

greater part, seem to be so, chiefly or altogether, from a certain

numbness or torpidity in the faculties of the understanding. But there

are others, in whom those faculties do not appear more torpid or

benumbed than in many other people who are not accounted idiots. But

that instinct of pride, necessary to support them upon an equality

with their brethren, seems to be totally wanting in the former and not

in the latter.

That degree of self-estimation, therefore, which contributes most to

the happiness and contentment of the person himself, seems likewise

most agreeable to the impartial spectator.

The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he ought,

seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he

himself thinks due. He desires no more than is due to him, and he

rests upon it with complete satisfaction.

The proud and the vain man, on the contrary, are constantly

dissatisfied. The one is tormented with indignation at the unjust

superiority, as he thinks it, of other people. The other is in

continual dread of the shame, which, he foresees, would attend upon

the detection of his groundless pretensions. Even the extravagant

pretensions of the man of real magnanimity, though, when supported by

splendid abilities and virtues, and, above all, by good fortune, they

impose upon the multitude, whose applauses he little regards, do not

impose upon those wise men whose approbation he can only value, and

whose esteem he is most anxious to acquire. He feels that they see

through, and suspects that they despise his excessive presumption; and

he often suffers the cruel misfortune of becoming, first the jealous

{233} and secret, and at last the open, furious, and vindictive enemy

of those very persons, whose friendship it would have given him the

greatest happiness to enjoy with unsuspicious security.

Though our dislike to the proud and the vain often disposes us to rank

them rather below than above their proper station, yet, unless we are

provoked by some particular and personal impertinence, we very seldom

venture to use them ill. In common cases, we endeavour, for our own

ease, rather to acquiesce, and, as well as we can, to accommodate

ourselves to their folly. But, to the man who under-rates himself,

unless we have both more discernment and more generosity than belong

to the greater part of men, we seldom fail to do, at least, all the

injustice which he does to himself, and frequently a great deal more.

He is not only more unhappy in his own feelings than either the proud

or the vain, but he is much more liable to every sort of ill-usage

from other people. In almost all cases, it is better to be a little

too proud, than, in any respect, too humble; and, in the sentiment of

self-estimation, some degree of excess seems, both to the person

himself and to the impartial spectator, to be less disagreeable than

any degree of defect of that feeling.

In this, therefore, as well as in every other emotion, passion, and

habit, the degree that is most agreeable to the impartial spectator is

likewise most agreeable to the person himself; and according as either

the excess or the defect is least offensive to the former, so, either

the one or the other is in proportion least disagreeable to the

latter.

-----

CONCLUSION OF THE SIXTH PART.

CONCERN for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of prudence:

concern for that of other people, the virtues of justice and

beneficence; of which, the one restrains us from hurting, the other

prompts us to promote that happiness. Independent of any regard either

to what are, or to what ought to be, or to what upon a certain

condition would be, the sentiments of other people, the first of those

three virtues is originally recommended to us by our selfish, the

other two by our benevolent affections. Regard to the sentiments of

other people, however, comes afterwards both to enforce and to direct

the practice of all those virtues; and no man during, either the whole

course of his life, or that of any considerable part of it, ever trod

steadily and uniformly in the paths of prudence, of justice, or of

proper beneficence, whose conduct was not principally directed by a

regard to the sentiments of the supposed impartial spectator, of the

great inmate of the breast, the great judge and arbiter of conduct. If

in the course of the day we have swerved in any respect from the rules

which he prescribes to us; if we have either exceeded or relaxed in

our frugality; {234} if we have either exceeded or relaxed in our

industry; if through passion or inadvertency, we have hurt in any

respect the interest or happiness of our neighbour; if we have

neglected a plain and proper opportunity of promoting that interest

and happiness; it is this inmate who, in the evening, calls us to an

account for all those omissions and violations, and his reproaches

often make us blush inwardly both for our folly and inattention to our

own happiness, and for our still greater indifference and inattention,

perhaps, to that of other people.

But though the virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence, may,

upon different occasions, be recommended to us almost equally by two

different principles; those of self-command are, upon most occasions,

principally and almost entirely recommended to us by one; by the sense

of propriety, by regard to the sentiments of the supposed impartial

spectator. Without the restraint which this principle imposes, every

passion would, upon most occasions, rush headlong, if I may say so, to

its own gratification. Anger would follow the suggestions of its own

fury; fear those of its own violent agitations. Regard to no time or

place would induce vanity to refrain from the loudest and most

impertinent ostentation; or voluptuousness from the most open,

indecent, and scandalous indulgence. Respect for what are, or for what

ought to be, or for what upon a certain condition would be, the

sentiments of other people, is the sole principle which, upon most

occasions, over-awes all those mutinous and turbulent passions into

that tone and temper which the impartial spectator can enter into and

cordially sympathize with.

Upon some occasions, indeed, those passions are restrained, not so

much by a sense of their impropriety, as by prudential considerations

of the bad consequences which might follow from their indulgence. In

such cases, the passions, though restrained, are not always subdued,

but often remain lurking in the breast with all their original fury.

The man whose anger is restrained by fear, does not always lay aside

his anger, but only reserves its gratification for a more safe

opportunity. But the man who, in relating to some other person the

injury which has been done to him, feels at once the fury of his

passion cooled and becalmed by sympathy with the more moderate

sentiments of his companion, who at once adopts those more moderate

sentiments, and comes to view that injury, not in the black and

atrocious colours in which he had originally beheld it, but in the

much milder and fairer light in which his companion naturally views

it; not only restrains, but in some measure subdues, his anger. The

passion becomes really less than it was before, and less capable of

exciting him to the violent and bloody revenge which at first,

perhaps, he might have thought of inflicting on his enemy.

Those passions which are restrained by the sense of propriety, are all

in some degree moderated and subdued by it. But those which are {235}

restrained only by prudential considerations of any kind, are, on the

contrary, frequently inflamed by the restraint, and sometimes (long

after the provocation given, and when nobody is thinking about it)

burst out absurdly and unexpectedly, and that with tenfold fury and

violence.

Anger, however, as well as every other passion, may, upon many

occasions, be very properly restrained by prudential considerations.

Some exertion of manhood and self-command is even necessary for this

sort of restraint; and the impartial spectator may sometimes view it

with that sort of cold esteem due to that species of conduct which he

considers as a mere matter of vulgar prudence; but never with that

affectionate admiration with which he surveys the same passions, when,

by the sense of propriety, they are moderated and subdued to what he

himself can readily enter into. In the former species of restraint, he

may frequently discern some degree of propriety, and, if you will,

even of virtue; but it is a propriety and virtue of a much inferior

order to those which he always feels with transport and admiration in

the latter.

The virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence, have no tendency to

produce any but the most agreeable effects. Regard to those effects,

as it originally recommends them to the actor, so does it afterwards

to the impartial spectator. In our approbation of the character of the

prudent man, we feel, with peculiar complacency, the security which he

must enjoy while he walks under the safeguard of that sedate and

deliberate virtue. In our approbation of the character of the just

man, we feel, with equal complacency, the security which all those

connected with him, whether in neighbourhood, society, or business

must derive from his scrupulous anxiety never either to hurt or

offend. In our approbation of the character of the beneficent man, we

enter into the gratitude of all those who are within the sphere of his

good offices, and conceive with them the highest sense of his merit.

In our approbation of all those virtues, our sense of their agreeable

effects, of their utility, either to the person who exercises them, or

to some other persons, joins with our sense of their propriety, and

constitutes always a considerable, frequently the greater part of that

approbation.

But in our approbation of the virtues of self-command, complacency

with their effects sometimes constitutes no part, and frequently but a

small part, of that approbation. Those effects may sometimes be

agreeable, and sometimes disagreeable; and though our approbation is

no doubt stronger in the former case, it is by no means altogether

destroyed in the latter. The most heroic valour may be employed

indifferently in the cause either of justice or of injustice; and

though it is no doubt much more loved and admired in the former case,

it still appears a great and respectable quality even in the latter.

In that, and in all the other Virtues of self-command, the splendid

and dazzling {236} quality seems always to be the greatness and

steadiness of the exertion, and the strong sense of propriety which is

necessary in order to make and to maintain that exertion. The effects

are too often but too little regarded.

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_Part VII.--Of Systems of Moral Philosophy._

SEC. I.--OF THE QUESTIONS WHICH OUGHT TO BE EXAMINED IN A THEORY OF

MORAL SENTIMENTS.

IF we examine the most celebrated and remarkable of the different

theories which have been given concerning the nature and origin of our

moral sentiments, we shall find that almost all of them coincide with

some part or other of that which I have been endeavouring to give an

account of; and that if every thing which has already been said be

fully considered, we shall be at no loss to explain what was the view

or aspect of nature which led each particular author to form his

particular system. From some one or other of those principles which I

have been endeavouring to unfold, every system of morality that ever

had any reputation in the world has, perhaps, ultimately been derived.

As they are all of them, in this respect, founded upon natural

principles, they are all of them in some measure in the right. But as

many of them are derived from a partial and imperfect view of nature,

there are many of them too in some respects in the wrong.

In treating of the principles of morals there are two questions to be

considered. First, wherein does virtue consist? Or what is the tone of

temper, and tenor of conduct, which constitutes the excellent and

praise-worthy character, the character which is the natural object of

esteem, honour, and approbation? And, secondly, by what power or

faculty in the mind is it, that this character, whatever it be, is

recommended to us? Or in other words, how and by what means does it

come to pass, that the mind prefers one tenor of conduct to another,

denominates the one right and the other wrong; considers the one as

the object of approbation, honour, and reward, and the other of blame,

censure, and punishment?

We examine the first question when we consider whether virtue consists

in benevolence, as Dr. Hutcheson imagines; or in acting suitably to

the different relations we stand in, as Dr. Clark supposes; or in the

wise and prudent pursuit of our own real and solid happiness, as has

been the opinion of others.

We examine the second question, when we consider, whether the virtuous

character, whatever it consists in, be recommended to us by self-love,

which makes us perceive that this character, both in ourselves and

others, tends most to promote our own private interest; or by reason,

which points out to us the difference between one character and {237}

another, in the same manner as it does that between truth and

falsehood; or by a peculiar power of perception, called a moral sense,

which this virtuous character gratifies and pleases, as the contrary

disgusts and displeases it; or last of all, by some other principle in

human nature, such as a modification of sympathy, or the like.

I shall begin with considering the systems which have been formed

concerning the first of these questions, and shall proceed afterwards

to examine those concerning the second.

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SEC. II.--OF THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS WHICH HAVE BEEN GIVEN OF THE

NATURE OF VIRTUE.

INTRODUCTION. The different accounts which have been given of the

nature of virtue, or of the temper of mind which constitutes the

excellent and praise-worthy character, may be reduced to three

different classes. According to some, the virtuous temper of mind does

not consist in any one species of affections, but in the proper

government and direction of all our affections, which may be either

virtuous or vicious according to the objects which they pursue, and

the degree of vehemence with which they pursue them. According to

these authors, therefore, virtue consists in propriety.

According to others, virtue consists in the judicious pursuit of our

own private interest and happiness, or in the proper government and

direction of those selfish affections which aim solely at this end. In

the opinion of these, therefore, virtue consists in prudence.

Another set of authors make virtue consist in those affections only

which aim at the happiness of others, not in those which aim at our

own. According to them, therefore, disinterested benevolence is the

only motive which can stamp upon actions the character of virtue.

The character of virtue, it is evident, must either be ascribed

indifferently to all our affections, when under proper government and

direction; or be confined to some one class or division of them.

The great division of our affections is into the selfish and the

benevolent. If the character of virtue, therefore, cannot be ascribed

indifferently to all our affections, when under proper government and

direction, it must be confined either to those which aim directly at

our own private happiness, or to those which aim directly at that of

others. If virtue, therefore, does not consist in propriety, it must

consist either in prudence or in benevolence. Besides these three, it

is scarce possible to imagine that any other account can be given of

the nature of virtue. I shall endeavour to show hereafter how all the

other accounts, which are seemingly different from any of these,

coincide at bottom with some one or other of them.

{238}

CHAP. I.--_Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in

Propriety._

ACCORDING to Plato, to Aristotle, and to Zeno, virtue consists in the

propriety of conduct, or in the suitableness of the affection from

which we act to the object which excites it.

I. In the system of Plato (See Plato de Rep. lib. iv.) the soul is

considered as something like a little state or republic, composed of

three different faculties or orders.

The first is the judging faculty, the faculty which determines not

only what are the proper means for attaining any end, but also what

ends are fit to be pursued, and what degree of relative value we ought

to put upon each. This faculty Plato called, as it is very properly

called, reason, and considered it as what had a right to be the

governing principle of the whole. Under this appellation, it is

evident, he comprehended not only that faculty by which we judge of

truth and falsehood, but that by which we judge of the propriety or

the impropriety of our desires and affections.

The different passions and appetites, the natural subjects of this

ruling principle, but which are so apt to rebel against their master,

he reduced to two different classes or orders. The first consisted of

those passions, which are founded in pride and resentment, or in what

the schoolmen called the irascible part of the soul; ambition,

animosity, the love of honour, and the dread of shame, the desire of

victory, superiority, and revenge; all those passions, in short, which

are supposed either to rise from, or to denote what, by a metaphor in

our language, we commonly call spirit or natural fire. The second

consisted of those passions which are founded in the love of pleasure,

or in what the schoolmen called the concupiscible part of the soul. It

comprehended all the appetites of the body, the love of ease and of

security, and of all the sensual gratifications.

It rarely happens that we break in upon that plan of conduct, which

the governing principle prescribes, and which in all our cool hours we

had laid down to ourselves as what was most proper for us to pursue,

but when prompted by one or other of those two different sets of

passions; either by ungovernable ambition and resentment, or by the

importunate solicitations of present ease and pleasure. But though

these two orders of passions are so apt to mislead us, they are still

considered as necessary parts of human nature: the first having been

given to defend us against injuries, to assert our rank and dignity in

the world, to make us aim at what is noble and honourable, and to make

us distinguish those who act in the same manner; the second, to

provide for the support and necessities of the body.

In the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the governing principle

was placed the essential virtue of prudence, which, according to

Plato, {239} consisted in a just and clear discernment, founded upon

general and scientific ideas, of the ends which were proper to be

pursued, and of the means which were proper for attaining them.

When the first set of passions, those of the irascible part of the

soul, had that degree of strength and firmness, which enabled them,

under the direction of reason, to despise all dangers in the pursuit

of what was honourable and noble; it constituted the virtue of

fortitude and magnanimity. This order of passions, according to this

system, was of a more generous and noble nature than the other. They

were considered upon many occasions as the auxiliaries of reason, to

check and restrain the inferior and brutal appetites. We are often

angry at ourselves, it was observed, we often become the objects of

our own resentment and indignation, when the love of pleasure prompts

to do what we disapprove of; and the irascible part of our nature is

in this manner called in to assist the rational against the

concupiscible.

When all those three different parts of our nature were in perfect

concord with one another, when neither the irascible nor concupiscible

passions ever aimed at any gratification which reason did not approve

of, and when reason never commanded any thing, but what these of their

own accord were willing to perform: this happy composure, this perfect

and complete harmony of soul, constituted that virtue which in their

language is expressed by a word which we commonly translate

temperance, but which might more properly be translated good temper,

or sobriety and moderation of mind.

Justice, the last and greatest of the four cardinal virtues, took

place, according to this system, when each of those three faculties of

the mind confined itself to its proper office, without attempting to

encroach upon that of any other; when reason directed and passion

obeyed, and when each passion performed its proper duty, and exerted

itself towards its proper object easily and without reluctance, and

with that degree of force and energy, which was suitable to the value

of what it pursued. In this consisted that complete virtue, that

perfect propriety of conduct, which Plato, after some of the ancient

Pythagoreans, has well denominated Justice.

The word, it is to be observed, which expresses justice in the Greek

language, has several different meanings; and as the correspondent

word in all other languages, so far as I know, has the same, there

must be some natural affinity among those various significations. In

one sense we are said to do justice to our neighbour when we abstain

from doing him any positive harm, and do not directly hurt him, either

in his person, or in his estate, or in his reputation. This is that

justice which I have treated of above, the observance of which may be

extorted by force, and the violation of which exposes to punishment.

In another sense we are said not to do justice to our neighbour unless

we conceive for him all that love, respect, and esteem, which his

character, his {240} situation, and his connexion with ourselves,

render suitable and proper for us to feel, and unless we act

accordingly. It is in this sense that we are said to do injustice to a

man of merit who is connected with us, though we abstain from hurting

him in every respect, if we do not exert ourselves to serve him and to

place him in that situation in which the impartial spectator would be

pleased to see him. The first sense of the word coincides with what

Aristotle and the Schoolmen call commutative justice, and with what

Grotius calls the _justitia expletrix_, which consists in

abstaining from what is another's, and in doing voluntarily whatever

we can with propriety be forced to do. The second sense of the word

coincides with what some have called distributive justice,[5] and with

the _justitia attributrix_ of Grotius, which consists in proper

beneficence, in the becoming use of what is our own, and in the

applying it to those purposes, either of charity or generosity, to

which it is most suitable, in our situation, that it should be

applied. In this sense justice comprehends all the social virtues.

There is yet another sense in which the word justice is sometimes

taken, still more extensive than either of the former, though very

much akin to the last; and which runs too, so far as I know, through

all languages. It is in this last sense that we are said to be unjust,

when we do not seem to value any particular object with that degree of

esteem, or to pursue it with that degree of ardour which to the

impartial spectator it may appear to deserve or to be naturally fitted

for exciting. Thus we are said to do injustice to a poem or a picture,

when we do not admire them enough, and we are said to do them more

than justice when we admire them too much. In the same manner we are

said to do injustice to ourselves when we appear not to give

sufficient attention to any particular object of self-interest. In

this last sense, what is called justice means the same thing with

exact and perfect propriety of conduct and behaviour, and comprehends

in it, not only the offices of both commutative and distributive

justice, but of every other virtue, of prudence, of fortitude, of

temperance. It is in this last sense that Plato evidently understands

what he calls justice, and which, therefore, according to him,

comprehends in it the perfection of every sort of virtue.

[Footnote 5: The distributive justice of Aristotle is somewhat

different. It consists in the proper distribution of rewards from the

public stock of a community. See Aristotle Ethic. Nic. 1. 5. c. 2.]

Such is the account given by Plato of the nature of virtue, or of that

temper of mind which is the proper object of praise and approbation.

It consists, according to him, in that state of mind in which every

faculty confines itself within its proper sphere without encroaching

upon that of any other, and performs its proper office with that

precise degree of strength and vigour which belongs to it. His

account, it is evident, coincides in every respect with what we have

said above concerning the propriety of conduct.