That the tendency of virtue to promote, and of vice to disturb the

order of society, when we consider it coolly and philosophically,

reflects a very great beauty upon the one, and a very great deformity

upon the other, cannot, as I have observed upon a former occasion, be

called in question. Human society, when we contemplate it in a certain

abstract and philosophical light, appears like a great, an immense

machine, whose regular and harmonious movements produce a thousand

agreeable effects. As in any other beautiful and noble machine that

was the production of human art, whatever tended to render its

movements more smooth and easy, would derive a beauty from this

effect, and, on the contrary, whatever tended to obstruct them would

displease upon that account: so virtue, which is, as it were, the fine

polish to the wheels of society, necessarily pleases; while vice, like

the vile rust, which makes them jar and grate upon one another, is as

necessarily offensive. This account, therefore, of the origin of

approbation and disapprobation, so far as it derives them from a

regard to the order of society, runs into that principle which gives

beauty to utility, and which I have explained upon a former occasion;

and it is from thence that this system derives all that appearance of

probability which it possesses. When those authors describe the

innumerable advantages of a cultivated and social, above a savage and

solitary life; when they expatiate upon the necessity of virtue and

good order for the maintenance of the one, and demonstrate how

infallibly the prevalence of vice and disobedience to the laws tend to

bring back the other, the reader is charmed with the novelty and

grandeur of those views which they open to him: he sees plainly a new

beauty in virtue, and a new deformity in vice, which he had never

taken notice of before, and is commonly so delighted with the

discovery, that he seldom takes time to reflect, that this political

view having never occurred to him in his life before, cannot possibly

be the ground of that approbation and disapprobation with which he has

been accustomed to consider those different qualities.

When those authors, on the other hand, deduce from self-love the

interest which we take in the welfare of society, and the esteem which

upon that account we bestow upon virtue, they do not mean, that when

we in this age applaud the virtue of Cato, and detest the villany of

Cataline, our sentiments are influenced by the notion of any benefit

we receive from the one, or of any detriment we suffer from the other.

It was not because the prosperity or subversion of society, in those

remote {281} ages and nations, was apprehended to have any influence

upon our happiness or misery in the present times; that according to

those philosophers, we esteemed the virtuous and blamed the disorderly

character. They never imagined that our sentiments were influenced by

any benefit or damage which we **supposed actually to redound to us,

from either; but by that which might have redounded to us, had we

lived in those distant ages and countries; or by that which might

still redound to us, if in our own times we should meet with

characters of the same kind. The idea, in short, which those authors

were groping about, but which they were never able to unfold

distinctly, was that indirect sympathy which we feel with the

gratitude or resentment of those who received the benefit or suffered

the damage resulting from such opposite characters: and it was this

which they were indistinctly pointing at, when they said, that it was

not the thought of what we had gained or suffered which prompted our

applause or indignation, but the conception or imagination of what we

might gain or suffer if we were to act in society with such

associates.

Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish

principle. When I sympathize with your sorrow or your indignation, it

may be pretended, indeed, that my emotion is founded in self-love,

because it arises from bringing your case home to myself, from putting

myself in your situation, and thence conceiving what I should feel in

the like circumstances. But though sympathy is very properly said to

arise from an imaginary change of situations with the person

principally concerned, yet this imaginary change is not supposed to

happen to me in my own person and character, but in that of the person

with whom I sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your

only son, in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I,

a person of such a character and profession, should suffer, if I had a

son, and if that son was unfortunately to die; but I consider what I

should suffer if I was really you, and I not only change circumstances

with you, but I change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is

entirely upon your account, and not in the least upon my own. It is

not, therefore in the least selfish. How can that be regarded as a

selfish passion, which does not arise even from the imagination of any

thing that has befallen, or that relates to myself, in my own proper

person and character, but which is entirely occupied about what

relates to you? A man may sympathize with a woman in child-bed; though

it is impossible that he should conceive himself as suffering her

pains in his own proper person and character. That whole account of

human nature, however, which deduces all sentiments and affections

from self-love, which has made so much noise in the world, but which,

as far as I know, has never yet been fully and distinctly explained,

seems to me to have arisen from some confused misapprehension of the

system of sympathy.

{282}

CHAP. II.--_Of those Systems which make Reason the Principle of

Approbation._

IT is well known to have been the doctrine of Mr. Hobbes, that a state

of nature is a state of war; and that antecedent to the institution of

civil government, there could be no safe or peaceable society among

men. To preserve society, therefore, according to him, was to support

civil government, and to destroy civil government was the same thing

as to put an end to society. But the existence of civil government

depends upon the obedience that is paid to the supreme magistrate. The

moment he loses his authority, all government is at an end. As

self-preservation, therefore, teaches men to applaud whatever tends to

promote the welfare of society, and to blame whatever is likely to

hurt it; so the same principle, if they would think and speak

consistently, ought to teach them to applaud upon all occasions

obedience to the civil magistrate, and to blame all disobedience and

rebellion. The very ideas of laudable and blamable, ought to be the

same with those of obedience and disobedience. The laws of the civil

magistrate, therefore, ought to be regarded as the sole ultimate

standards of what was just and unjust, of what was right and wrong.

It was the avowed intention of Mr. Hobbes, by propagating these

notions, to subject the consciences of men immediately to the civil,

and not to the ecclesiastical powers, whose turbulence and ambition,

he had been taught, by the example of his own times, to regard as the

principal source of the disorders of society. His doctrine, upon this

account, was peculiarly offensive to theologians, who accordingly did

not fail to vent their indignation against him with great asperity and

bitterness. It was likewise offensive to all sound moralists, as it

supposed that there was no natural distinction between right and

wrong, that these were mutable and changeable, and depended upon the

mere arbitrary will of the civil magistrate. This account of things,

therefore, was attacked from all quarters, and by all sorts of

weapons, by sober reason as well as by furious declamation.

In order to confute so odious a doctrine, it was necessary to prove,

that antecedent to all law or positive institution, the mind was

naturally endowed with a faculty, by which it distinguished in certain

actions and affections, the qualities of right, laudable, and

virtuous, and in others those of wrong, blamable, and vicious.

Law, it was justly observed by Dr. Cudworth (Immutable Morality, 1.

1), could not be the original source of those distinctions; since upon

the supposition of such a law, it must either be right to obey it, and

wrong to disobey it, or indifferent whether we obeyed it or disobeyed

it. That law which it was indifferent whether we obeyed or disobeyed,

could not, it was evident, be the source of those distinctions;

neither {283} could that which it was right to obey and wrong to

disobey, since even this still supposed the antecedent notions or

ideas of right and wrong, and that obedience to the law was

conformable to the idea of right, and disobedience to that of wrong.

Since the mind, therefore, had a notion of those distinctions

antecedent to all law, it seemed necessarily to follow, that it

derived this notion from reason, which pointed out the difference

between right and wrong, in the same manner in which it did that

between truth and falsehood: and this conclusion, which, though true

in some respects, is rather hasty in others, was more easily received

at a time when the abstract science of human nature was but in its

infancy, and before the distinct offices and powers of the different

faculties of the human mind had been carefully examined and

distinguished from one another. When this controversy with Mr. Hobbes

was carried on with the greatest warmth and keenness, no other faculty

had been thought of from which any such ideas could possibly be

supposed to arise. It became at this time, therefore, the popular

doctrine, that the essence of virtue and vice did not consist in the

conformity or disagreement of human actions with the law of a

superior, but in their conformity or disagreement with reason, which

was thus considered as the original source and principle of

approbation and disapprobation.

That virtue consists in conformity to reason, is true in some

respects, and this faculty may very justly be considered as, in some

sense, the source and principle of approbation and disapprobation, and

of all solid judgments concerning right and wrong. It is by reason

that we discover those general rules of justice by which we ought to

regulate our actions: and it is by the same faculty that we form those

more vague and indeterminate ideas of what is prudent, of what is

decent, of what is generous or noble, which we carry constantly about

with us, and according to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to

model the tenor of our conduct. The general maxims of morality are

formed, like all other general maxims, from experience and induction.

We observe in a great variety of particular cases what pleases or

displeases our moral faculties, what these approve or disapprove of,

and, by induction from this experience, we establish those general

rules. But induction is always regarded as one of the operations of

reason. From reason, therefore, we are very properly said to derive

all those general maxims and ideas. It is by these, however, that we

regulate the greater part of our moral judgments, which would be

extremely uncertain and precarious if they depended altogether upon

what is liable to so many variations as immediate sentiment and

feeling, which the different states of health and humour are capable

of altering so essentially. As our most solid judgments, therefore,

with regard to right and wrong, are regulated by maxims and ideas

derived from an induction of reason, virtue may very properly be said

to consist in a conformity to {284} reason, and so far this faculty

may be considered as the source and principle of approbation and

disapprobation.

But though reason is undoubtedly the source of the general rules of

morality, and of all the moral judgments which we form by means of

them; it is altogether absurd and unintelligible to suppose that the

first perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason, even

in those particular cases upon the experience of which the general

rules are formed. These first perceptions, as well as all other

experiments upon which any general rules are founded, cannot be the

object of reason, but of immediate sense and feeling. It is by finding

in a vast variety of instances that one tenor of conduct constantly

pleases in a certain manner, and that another as constantly displeases

the mind, that we form the general rules of morality. But reason

cannot render any particular object either agreeable or disagreeable

to the mind for its own sake. Reason may show that this object is the

means of obtaining some other which is naturally either pleasing or

displeasing, and in this manner may render it either agreeable or

disagreeable for the sake of something else. But nothing can be

agreeable or disagreeable for its own sake, which is not rendered

such by immediate sense and feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every

particular instance, necessarily pleases for its own sake, and if vice

as certainly displeases the mind, it cannot be reason, but immediate

sense and feeling, which thus reconciles us to the one, and alienates

us from the other.

Pleasure and pain are the great objects of desire and aversion: but

these are distinguished, not by reason, but by immediate sense and

feeling. If virtue, therefore, be desirable for its own sake, and if

vice be, in the same manner, the object of aversion, it cannot be

reason which originally distinguishes those different qualities, but

immediate sense and feeling.

As reason, however, in a certain sense, may justly be considered as

the principle of approbation and disapprobation, these sentiments

were, through inattention, long regarded as originally flowing from

the operations of this faculty. Dr. Hutcheson had the merit of being

the first who distinguished with any degree of precision in what

respect all moral distinctions may be said to arise from reason, and

in what respect they are founded upon immediate sense and feeling. In

his illustrations upon the moral sense he has explained this so fully,

and, in my opinion, so unanswerably, that, if any controversy is still

kept up about this subject, I can impute it to nothing, but either to

inattention to what that gentleman has written, or to a superstitious

attachment to certain forms of expression, a weakness not very

uncommon among the learned, especially in subjects so deeply

interesting as the present, in which a man of virtue is often loath to

abandon even the propriety of a single phrase which he has been

accustomed to.

{285}

CHAP. III.--_Of those Systems which make Sentiment the Principle of

Approbation._

THOSE systems which make sentiment the principle of approbation may be

divided into two different classes.

I. According to some the principle of approbation is founded upon a

sentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of perception

exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or affections; some

of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable and others in a

disagreeable manner, the former are stamped with the characters of

right, laudable, and virtuous; the latter with those of wrong,

blamable, and vicious. This sentiment being of a peculiar nature

distinct from every other, and the effect of a particular power of

perception, they give it a particular name, and call it a moral sense.

II. According to others, in order to account for the principle of

approbation, there is no occasion for supposing any new power of

perception which had never been heard of before: Nature, they imagine

acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest oeconomy, and

produces a multitude of effects from one and the same cause; and

sympathy, a power which has always been taken notice of, and with

which the mind is manifestly endowed, is, they think, sufficient to

account for all the effects ascribed to this peculiar faculty.

I. Dr. Hutcheson (Inquiry concerning Virtue) had been at great pains

to prove that the principle of approbation was not founded on

self-love. He had demonstrated, too, that it could not arise from any

operation of reason. Nothing remained, he thought, but to suppose it a

faculty of a peculiar kind, with which Nature had endowed the human

mind, in order to produce this one particular and important effect.

When self-love and reason were both excluded, it did not occur to him

that there was any other known faculty of the mind which could in any

respect answer this purpose.

This new power of perception he called a moral sense, and supposed it

to be somewhat analogous to the external senses. As the bodies around

us, by affecting these in a certain manner, appear to possess the

different qualities of sound, taste, odour, colour; so the various

affections of the human mind, by touching this particular faculty in a

certain manner, appear to possess the different qualities of amiable

and odious, of virtuous and vicious, of right and wrong.

The various senses or powers of perception (Treatise of the Passions)

from which the human mind derives all its simple ideas, were,

according to this system, of two different kinds, of which the one

were called the direct or antecedent, the other, the reflex or

consequent senses. The direct senses were those faculties from which

the mind derived the perception of such species of things as did not

presuppose {286} the antecedent perception of any other. Thus sounds

and colours were objects of the direct senses. To hear a sound or to

see a colour does not presuppose the antecedent perception of any

other quality or object. The reflex or consequent senses, on the other

hand, were those faculties from which the mind derived the perception

of such species of things as presupposed the antecedent perception of

some other. Thus harmony and beauty were objects of the reflex senses.

In order to perceive the harmony of a sound, or the beauty of a

colour, we must first perceive the sound or the colour. The moral

sense was considered as a faculty of this kind. That faculty, which

Mr. Locke calls reflection, and from which he derived the simple ideas

of the different passions and emotions of the human mind, was,

according to Dr. Hutcheson, a direct internal sense. That faculty

again by which we perceived the beauty or deformity, the virtue or

vice, of those different passions and emotions, was a reflex, internal

sense.

Dr. Hutcheson endeavoured still further to support this doctrine, by

showing that it was agreeable to the analogy of nature, and that the

mind was endowed with a variety of other reflex senses exactly similar

to the moral sense; such as a sense of beauty and deformity in

external objects; a public sense, by which we sympathize with the

happiness or misery of our fellow-creatures; a sense of shame and

honour, and a sense of ridicule.

But notwithstanding all the pains which this ingenious philosopher has

taken to prove that the principle of approbation is founded in a

peculiar power of perception, somewhat analogous to the external

senses, there are some consequences, which he acknowledges to follow

from this doctrine, that will, perhaps, be regarded by many as a

sufficient confutation of it. The qualities, he allows,[8] which

belong to the objects of any sense, cannot, without the greatest

absurdity, be ascribed to the sense itself. Who ever thought of

calling the sense of seeing black or white, the sense of hearing loud

or low, or the sense of tasting sweet or bitter? And, according to

him, it is equally absurd to call our moral faculties virtuous or

vicious, morally good or evil. These qualities belong to the objects

of those faculties, not to the faculties themselves. If any man,

therefore, was so absurdly constituted as to approve of cruelty and

injustice as the highest virtues, and to disapprove of equity and

humanity as the most pitiful vices, such a constitution of mind might

indeed be regarded as inconvenient both to the individual and to the

society, and likewise as strange, surprising, and unnatural in itself;

but it could not, without the greatest absurdity, be denominated

vicious or morally evil.

[Footnote 8: Illustrations upon the Moral Sense, sect. i. p. 237, et

seq.; third edition.]

Yet surely if we saw any man shouting with admiration and applause at

a barbarous and unmerited execution, which some insolent tyrant had

ordered, we should not think we were guilty of any great absurdity

{287} in denominating this behaviour vicious and morally evil in the

highest degree, though it expressed nothing but depraved moral

faculties, or an absurd approbation of this horrid action, as of what

was noble, magnanimous, and great. Our heart, I imagine, at the sight

of such a spectator, would forget for a while its sympathy with the

sufferer, and feel nothing but horror and detestation, at the thought

of so execrable a wretch. We should abominate him even more than the

tyrant who might be goaded on by the strong passions of jealousy,

fear, and resentment, and upon that account be more excusable. But the

sentiments of the spectator would appear altogether without cause or

motive, and therefore most perfectly and completely detestable. There

is no perversion of sentiment or affection which our heart would be

more averse to enter into, or which it would reject with greater

hatred and indignation than one of this kind; and so far from

regarding such a constitution of mind as being merely something

strange or inconvenient, and not in any respect vicious or morally

evil, we should rather consider it as the very last and most dreadful

stage of depravity.

Correct moral sentiments, on the contrary, naturally appear in some

degree laudable and morally good. The man, whose censure and applause

are upon all occasions suited with the greatest accuracy to the value

or unworthiness of the object, seems to deserve a degree even of moral

approbation. We admire the delicate precision of his moral sentiments:

they lead our own judgments, and, upon account of their uncommon and

surprising justness, they even excite our wonder and applause. We

cannot indeed be always sure that the conduct of such a person would

be in any respect correspondent to the precision and accuracy of his

judgment concerning the conduct of others. Virtue requires habit and

resolution of mind, as well as delicacy of sentiment; and

unfortunately the former qualities are sometimes wanting, where the

latter is in the greatest perfection. This disposition of mind,

however, though it may sometimes be attended with imperfections, is

incompatible with any thing that is grossly criminal, and is the

happiest foundation upon which the superstructure of perfect virtue

can be built. There are many men who mean very well, and seriously

purpose to do what they think their duty, who notwithstanding are

disagreeable because of the coarseness of their moral sentiments.

It may be said, perhaps, that though the principle of approbation is

not founded upon any perception that is in any respect analogous to

the external senses, it may still be founded upon a peculiar sentiment

which answers this one particular purpose and no other. Approbation

and disapprobation, it may be pretended, are certain feelings or

emotions which arise in the mind upon the view of different characters

and actions; and as resentment might be called a sense of injuries, or

gratitude a sense of benefits, so these may very properly receive the

name of a sense of right and wrong, or of a moral sense.

{288} But this account of things, though it may not be liable to the

same objections with the foregoing, is exposed to others which may be

equally unanswerable.

First of all, whatever variations any particular emotion may undergo,

it still preserves the general features which distinguish it to be an

emotion of such a kind, and these general features are always more

striking and remarkable than any variation which it may undergo in

particular cases. Thus anger is an emotion of a particular kind: and

accordingly its general features are always more distinguishable than

all the variations it undergoes in particular cases. Anger against a

man is, no doubt, somewhat different from anger against a woman, and

that again from anger against a child. In each of those three cases,

the general passion of anger receives a different modification from

the particular character of its object, as may easily be observed by

the attentive. But still the general features of the passion

predominate in all these cases. To distinguish these, requires no nice

observation: a very delicate attention, on the contrary, is necessary

to discover their variations: every body takes notice of the former;

scarce any body observes the latter. If approbation and

disapprobation, therefore, were, like gratitude and resentment,

emotions of a particular kind, distinct from every other, we should

expect that in all the variations which either of them might undergo,

it would still retain the general features which mark it to be an

emotion of such a particular kind, clear, plain and easily

distinguishable. But in fact it happens quite otherwise. If we attend

to what we really feel when upon different occasions we either approve

or disapprove, we shall find that our emotion in one case is often

totally different from that in another, and that no common features

can possibly be discovered between them. Thus the approbation with

which we view a tender, delicate, and humane sentiment, is quite

different from that with which we are struck by one that appears

great, daring, and magnanimous. Our approbation of both may, upon

different occasions, be perfect and entire; but we are softened by the

one, and we are elevated by the other, and there is no sort of

resemblance between the emotions which they excite in us. But,

according to that system which I have been endeavouring to establish,

this must necessarily be the case. As the emotions of the person whom

we approve of, are, in those two cases, quite opposite to one another,

and as our approbation arises from sympathy with those opposite

emotions, what we feel upon the one occasion, can have no sort of

resemblance to what we feel upon the other. But this could not happen

if approbation consisted in a peculiar emotion which had nothing in

common with the sentiments we approved of, but which arose at the view

of those sentiments, like any other passion at the view of its proper

object. The same thing holds true with regard to disapprobation. Our

horror for cruelty has no sort of resemblance to our contempt for

{289} mean-spiritedness. It is quite a different species of discord

which we feel at the view of those two different vices, between our

own minds and those of the person whose sentiments and behaviour we

consider.

Secondly, I have already observed, that not only the different

passions or affections of the human mind which are approved or

disapproved of, appear morally good or evil, but that proper and

improper approbation appear, to our natural sentiments, to be stamped

with the same characters. I would ask, therefore, how it is, that,

according to this system, we approve or disapprove of proper or

improper approbation? To this question there is, I imagine, but one

reasonable answer which can possibly be given. It must be said, that

when the approbation with which our neighbour regards the conduct of a

third person coincides with our own, we approve of his approbation,

and consider it as, in some measure, morally good; and that, on the

contrary, when it does not coincide with our own sentiments, we

disapprove of it, and consider it as, in some measure, morally evil.

It must be allowed, therefore, that, at least in this one case, the

coincidence or opposition of sentiment, between the observer and the

person observed, constitutes moral approbation or disapprobation. And

if it does so in this one case, I would ask, why not in every other?

to what purpose imagine a new power of perception in order to account

for those sentiments?

Against every account of the principle of approbation, which makes it

depend upon a peculiar sentiment, distinct from every other, I would

object that it is strange that this sentiment, which Providence

undoubtedly intended to be the governing principle of human nature,

should hitherto have been so little taken notice of, as not to have

got a name in any language. The word Moral Sense is of very late

formation, and cannot yet be considered as making part of the English

tongue. The word Approbation has but within these few years been

appropriated to denote peculiarly any thing of this kind. In propriety

of language we approve of whatever is entirely to our satisfaction, of

the form of a building, of the contrivance of a machine, of the

flavour of a dish of meat. The word Conscience does not immediately

denote any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove. Conscience

supposes, indeed, the existence of some such faculty, and properly

signifies our consciousness of having acted agreeably or contrary to

its directions. When love, hatred, joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment,

with so many other passions which are all supposed to be the subjects

of this principle, have made themselves considerable enough to get

titles to know them by, is it not surprising that the sovereign of

them all should hitherto have been so little heeded, that, a few

philosophers excepted, nobody has yet thought it worth while to bestow

a name upon that principle.

When we approve of any character or action, the sentiments which we

feel, are, according to the foregoing system, derived from four {290}

sources, which are in some respects different from one another. First,

we sympathize with the motives of the agent; secondly, we enter into

the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions;

thirdly, we observe that his conduct has been agreeable to the general

rules by which those two sympathies generally act; and, last of all,

when we consider such actions as making a part of a system of

behaviour which tends to promote the happiness either of the

individual or of the society, they appear to derive a beauty from this

utility, not unlike that which we ascribe to any well-contrived

machine. After deducting, in any one particular case, all that must be

acknowledged to proceed from some one or other of these four

principles, I should be glad to know what remains, and I shall

freely allow this overplus to be ascribed to a moral sense, or to any

other peculiar faculty, provided any body will ascertain precisely

what this overplus is. It might be expected, perhaps, that if there

was any such peculiar principle, such as this moral sense is supposed

to be, we should feel it, in some particular cases, separated and

detached from every other, as we often feel joy, sorrow, hope, and

fear, pure and unmixed with any other emotion. This, however, I

imagine, cannot even be pretended. I have never heard any instance

alleged in which this principle could be said to exert itself alone

and unmixed with sympathy or antipathy, with gratitude or resentment,

with the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any action to

an established rule, or last of all, with that general taste for

beauty and order which is excited by inanimated as well as by animated

objects.

II. There is another system which attempts to account for the origin

of our moral sentiments from sympathy, distinct from that which I have

been endeavouring to establish. It is that which places virtue in

utility, and accounts for the pleasure with which the spectator

surveys the utility of any quality from sympathy with the happiness of

those who are affected by it. This sympathy is different both from

that by which we enter into the motives of the agent, and from that by

which we go along with the gratitude of the persons who are benefited

by his actions. It is the same principle with that by which we approve

of a well-contrived machine. But no machine can be the object of

either of those two last-mentioned sympathies. I have already, in the

fourth part of this discourse, given some account of this system.

-----

SEC. IV.--OF THE MANNER IN WHICH DIFFERENT AUTHORS HAVE TREATED OF THE

PRACTICAL RULES OF MORALITY.

IT was observed in the third part of this discourse, that the rules of

justice are the only rules of morality which are precise and accurate;

that those of all the other virtues are loose, vague, and

indeterminate; {291} that the first may be compared to the rules of

grammar; the others to those which critics lay down for the attainment

of what is sublime and elegant in composition, and which present us

rather with a general idea of the perfection we ought to aim at, than

afford us any certain and infallible directions for acquiring it.

As the different rules of morality admit such different degrees of

accuracy, those authors who have endeavoured to collect and digest

them into systems have done it in two different manners; and one set

has followed through the whole that loose method to which they were

naturally directed by the consideration of one species of virtues;

while another has as universally endeavoured to introduce into their

precepts that sort of accuracy of which only some of them are

susceptible. The first have written like critics, the second like

grammarians.

I. The first, among whom we may count all the ancient moralists, have

contented themselves with describing in a general manner the different

vices and virtues, and with pointing out the deformity and misery of

the one disposition, as well as the propriety and happiness of the

other, but have not affected to lay down many precise rules that are

to hold good unexceptionally in all particular cases. They have only

endeavoured to ascertain, as far as language is capable of

ascertaining, first, wherein consists the sentiment of the heart, upon

which each particular virtue is founded, what sort of internal feeling

or emotion it is which constitutes the essence of friendship, of

humanity, of generosity, of justice, of magnanimity, and of all the

other virtues, as well as of the vices which are opposed to them: and,

secondly, what is the general way of acting, the ordinary tone and

tenor of conduct to which each of those sentiments would direct us, or

how it is that a friendly, a generous, a brave, a just, and a humane

man, would upon ordinary occasions, choose to act.

To characterize the sentiment of the heart, upon which each particular

virtue is founded, though it requires both a delicate and an accurate

pencil, is a task, however, which may be executed with some degree of

exactness. It is impossible, indeed, to express all the variations

which each sentiment either does or ought to undergo, according to

every possible variation of circumstances. They are endless, and

language wants names to mark them by. The sentiment of friendship, for

example, which we feel for an old man is different from that which we

feel for a young: that which we entertain for an austere man different

from that which we feel for one of softer and gentler manners: and

that again from what we feel for one of gay vivacity and spirit. The

friendship which we conceive for a man is different from that with

which a woman affects us, even where there is no mixture of any

grosser passion. What author could enumerate and ascertain these and

all the other infinite varieties which this sentiment is capable of

undergoing? But still the general sentiment of friendship and familiar

{292} attachment which is common to them all, may be ascertained with

a sufficient degree of accuracy. The picture which is drawn of it,

though it will always be in many respects incomplete, may, however,

have such a resemblance as to make us know the original when we meet

with it, and even distinguish it from other sentiments to which it has

a considerable resemblance, such as good-will, respect, admiration.

To describe, in a general manner, what is the ordinary way of acting

to which each virtue would prompt us, is still more easy. It is,

indeed, scarce possible to describe the internal sentiment or emotion

upon which it is founded, without doing something of this kind. It is

impossible by language to express, if I may say so, the invisible

features of all the different modifications of passion as they show

themselves within. There is no other way of marking and distinguishing

them from one another, but by describing the effects which they

produce without, the alterations which they occasion in the

countenance, in the air and external behaviour, the resolutions they

suggest, the actions they prompt to. It is thus that Cicero, in the

first book of his Offices, endeavours to direct us to the practice of

the four cardinal virtues, and that Aristotle in the practical parts

of his Ethics, points out to us the different habits by which he would

have us regulate our behaviour, such as liberality, magnificence,

magnanimity, and even jocularity and good humour, qualities which that

indulgent philosopher has thought worthy of a place in the catalogue

of the virtues, though the lightness of that approbation which we

naturally bestow upon them, should not seem to entitle them to so

venerable a name.

Such works present us with agreeable and lively pictures of manners.

By the vivacity of their descriptions they inflame our natural love of

virtue, and increase our abhorrence of vice: by the justness as well

as delicacy of their observations they may often help both to correct

and to ascertain our natural sentiments with regard to the propriety

of conduct, and suggesting many nice and delicate attentions, form us

to a more exact justness of behaviour, than what, without such

instruction, we should have been apt to think of. In treating of the

rules of morality, in this manner, consists the science which is

properly called Ethics, a science which, though like criticism, it

does not admit of the most accurate precision, is, however, both

highly useful and agreeable. It is of all others the most susceptible

of the embellishments of eloquence, and by means of them of bestowing,

if that be possible, a new importance upon the smallest rules of duty.

Its precepts, when thus dressed and adorned, are capable of producing

upon the flexibility of youth, the noblest and most lasting

impressions, and as they fall in with the natural magnanimity of that

generous age, they are able to inspire, for a time at least, the most

heroic resolutions, and thus tend both to establish and confirm the

best and most useful habits of which the mind of man is susceptible.

Whatever precept and exhortation can do to {293} animate us to the

practice of virtue, is done by this science delivered in this manner.

II. The second set of moralists, among whom we may count all the

casuists of the middle and latter ages of the Christian church, as

well as all those who in this and in the preceding century have

treated of what is called natural jurisprudence, do not content

themselves with characterizing in this general manner that tenor of

conduct which they would recommend to us, but endeavour to lay down

exact and precise rules for the direction of every circumstance of our

behaviour. As justice is the only virtue with regard to which such

exact rules can properly be given; it is this virtue, that has chiefly

fallen under the consideration of those two different sets of writers.

They treat of it, however, in a very different manner.

Those who write upon the principles of jurisprudence, consider only

what the person to whom the obligation is due, ought to think himself

entitled to exact by force; what every impartial spectator would

approve of him for exacting, or what a judge or arbiter, to whom he

had submitted his case, and who had undertaken to do him justice,

ought to oblige the other person to suffer or to perform. The

casuists, on the other hand, do not so much examine what it is, that

might properly be exacted by force, as what it is, that the person who

owes the obligation ought to think himself bound to perform from the

most sacred and scrupulous regard to the general rules of justice, and

from the most conscientious dread, either of wronging his neighbour,

or of violating the integrity of his own character. It is the end of

jurisprudence to prescribe rules for the decisions of judges and

arbiters. It is the end of casuistry to prescribe rules for the

conduct of a good man. By observing all the rules of jurisprudence,

supposing them ever so perfect, we should deserve nothing but to be

free from external punishment. By observing those of casuistry,

supposing them such as they ought to be, we should be entitled to

considerable praise by the exact and scrupulous delicacy of our

behaviour.

It may frequently happen that a good man ought to think himself bound,

from a sacred and conscientious regard to the general rules of

justice, to perform many things which it would be the highest

injustice to extort from him, or for any judge or arbiter to impose

upon him by force. To give a trite example; a highwayman, by the fear

of death, obliges a traveller to promise him a certain sum money.

Whether such a promise, extorted in this manner by force, ought to be

regarded as obligatory, is a question that has been much debated.

If we consider it merely as a question of jurisprudence, the decision

can admit of no doubt. It would be absurd to suppose that the

highwayman can be entitled to use force to constrain the other to

perform. To extort the promise was a crime which deserved the highest

punishment, and to extort the performance would only be adding a new

crime {294} to the former. He can complain of no injury who has been

only deceived by the person by whom he might justly have been killed.

To suppose that a judge ought to enforce the obligation of such

promises, or that the magistrate ought to allow them to sustain action

at law, would be the most ridiculous of all absurdities. If we

consider this question, therefore, as a question of jurisprudence, we

can be at no loss about the decision.

But if we consider it as a question of casuistry, it will not be so

easily determined. Whether a good man, from a conscientious regard to

that most sacred rule of justice, which commands the observance of all

serious promises, would not think himself bound to perform, is at

least much more doubtful. That no regard is due to the disappointment

of the wretch who brings him into this situation, that no injury is

done to the robber, and consequently that nothing can be extorted by

force, will admit of no sort of dispute. But whether some regard is

not, in this case, due to his own dignity and honour, to the

inviolable sacredness of that part of his character which makes him

reverence the law of truth and abhor every thing that approaches to

treachery and falsehood, may, perhaps, more reasonably be made a

question. The casuists accordingly are greatly divided about it. One

party, with whom we may count Cicero among the ancients, among the

moderns, Puffendorf, Barbeyrac his commentator, and above all the late

Dr. Hutcheson, one who in most cases was by no means a loose casuist,

determine, without any hesitation, that no sort of regard is due to

any such promise, and that to think otherwise is mere weakness and

superstition. Another party, among whom we may reckon (St. Augustine,

La Placette) some of the ancient fathers of the church, as well as

some very eminent modern casuists, have been of another opinion, and

have judged all such promises obligatory.

If we consider the matter according to the common sentiments of

mankind, we shall find that some regard would be thought due even to a

promise of this kind; but that it is impossible to determine how much,

by any general rule that will apply to all cases without exception.

The man who was quite frank and easy in making promises of this kind,

and who violated them with as little ceremony, we should not choose

for our friend and companion. A gentleman who should promise a

highwayman five pounds and not perform, would incur some blame. If the

sum promised, however, was very great, it might be more doubtful what

was proper to be done. If it was such, for example, that the payment

of it would entirely ruin the family of the promiser, if it was so

great as to be sufficient for promoting the most useful purposes, it

would appear in some measure criminal, at least extremely improper, to

throw it for the sake of a punctilio into such worthless hands. The

man who should beggar himself, or who should throw away an hundred

thousand pounds, though he could afford that {295} vast sum, for the

sake of observing such a parole with a thief, would appear to the

common sense of mankind, absurd and extravagant in the highest degree.

Such profusion would seem inconsistent with his duty, with what he

owed both to himself and others, and what, therefore, regard to a

promise extorted in this manner, could by no means authorise. To fix,

however, by any precise rule, what degree of regard ought to be paid

to it, or what might be the greatest sum which could be due from it,

is evidently impossible. This would vary according to the characters

of the persons, according to their circumstances, according to the

solemnity of the promise, and even according to the incidents of the

rencounter: and if the promiser had been treated with a great deal of

that sort of gallantry, which is sometimes to be met with in persons

of the most abandoned characters, more would seem due than upon other

occasions. It may be said in general, that exact propriety requires

the observance of all such promises, wherever it is not inconsistent

with some other duties that are more sacred; such as regard to the

public interest, to those whom gratitude, whom natural affection, or

whom the laws of proper beneficence should prompt us to provide for.

But, as was formerly taken notice of, we have no precise rules to

determine what external actions are due from a regard to such motives,

nor, consequently, when it is that those virtues are inconsistent with

the observance of such promises.

It is to be observed, however, that whenever such promises are

violated, though for the most necessary reasons, it is always with

some degree of dishonour to the person who made them. After they are

made, we may be convinced of the impropriety of observing them. But

still there is some fault in having made them. It is at least a

departure from the highest and noblest maxims of magnanimity and

honour. A brave man ought to die, rather than make a promise which he

can neither keep without folly, nor violate without ignominy. For some

degree of ignominy always attends a situation of this kind. Treachery

and falsehood are vices so dangerous, so dreadful, and, at the same

time, such as may so easily, and, upon many occasions, so safely be

indulged, that we are more jealous of them than of almost any other.

Our imagination therefore attaches the idea of shame to all violations

of faith, in every circumstance and in every situation. They resemble,

in this respect, the violations of chastity in the fair sex, a virtue

of which, for the like reasons, we are excessively jealous; and our

sentiments are not more delicate with regard to the one, than with

regard to the other. Breach of chastity dishonours irretrievably. No

circumstances, no solicitation can excuse it; no sorrow, no repentance

atone for it. We are so nice in this respect that even a rape

dishonours, and the innocence of the mind cannot, in our imagination,

wash out the pollution of the body. It is the same case with the

violation of faith, when it has been solemnly pledged, even to the

most {296} worthless of mankind. Fidelity is so necessary a virtue,

that we apprehend it in general to be due even to those to whom

nothing else is due, and whom we think it lawful to kill and destroy.

It is to no purpose that the person who has been guilty of the breach

of it, urges that he promised in order to save his life, and that he

broke his promise because it was inconsistent with some other

respectable duty to keep it. These circumstances may alleviate, but

cannot entirely wipe out his dishonour. He appears to have been guilty

of an action with which, in the imaginations of men, some degree of

shame is inseparably connected. He has broken a promise which he had

solemnly averred he would maintain; and his character, if not

irretrievably stained and polluted, has at least a ridicule affixed to

it, which it will be very difficult entirely to efface; and no man, I

imagine, who had gone through an adventure of this kind would be fond

of telling the story.

This instance may serve to show wherein consists the difference

between casuistry and jurisprudence, even when both of them consider

the obligations of the general rules of justice.

But though this difference be real and essential, though those two

sciences propose quite different ends, the sameness of the subject has

made such a similarity between them, that the greater part of authors

whose professed design was to treat of jurisprudence, have determined

the different questions they examine, sometimes according to the

principles of that science, and sometimes according to those of

casuistry, without distinguishing, and, perhaps, without being

themselves aware, when they did the one, and when the other.

The doctrine of the casuists, however, is by no means confined to the

consideration of what a conscientious regard to the general rules of

justice would demand of us. It embraces many other parts of Christian

and moral duty. What seems principally to have given occasion to the

cultivation of this species of science was the custom of auricular

confession, introduced by the Roman Catholic superstition, in times of

barbarism and ignorance. By that institution, the most secret actions,

and even the thoughts of every person, which could be suspected of

receding in the smallest degree from the rules of Christian purity,

were to be revealed to the confessor. The confessor informed his

penitents whether, and in what respect, they had violated their duty,

and what penance it behoved them to undergo, before he could absolve

them in the name of the offended Deity.

The consciousness, or even the suspicion of having done wrong, is a

load upon every mind, and is accompanied with anxiety and terror in

all those who are not hardened by long habits of iniquity. Men, in

this, as in all other distresses, are naturally eager to disburthen

themselves of the oppression which they feel upon their thoughts, by

unbosoming the agony of their mind to some person whose secrecy and

discretion they can confide in. The shame, which they suffer from this

{297} acknowledgment, is fully compensated by that alleviation of

their uneasiness which the sympathy of their confidence seldom fails

to occasion. It relieves them to find that they are not altogether

unworthy of regard, and that however their past conduct may be

censured, their present disposition is at least approved of, and is

perhaps sufficient to compensate the other, at least to maintain them

in some degree of esteem with their friend. A numerous and artful

clergy had, in those times of superstition, insinuated themselves into

the confidence of almost every private family. They possessed all the

little learning which the times could afford, and their manners,

though in many respects rude and disorderly, were polished and regular

compared with those of the age they lived in. They were regarded,

therefore, not only as the great directors of all religious, but of

all moral duties. Their familiarity gave reputation to whoever was so

happy as to possess it, and every mark of their disapprobation stamped

the deepest ignominy upon all who had the misfortune to fall under it.

Being considered as the great judges of right and wrong, they were

naturally consulted about all scruples that occurred, and it was

reputable for any person to have it known that he made those holy men

the confidants of all such secrets, and took no important or delicate

step in his conduct without their advice and approbation. It was not

difficult for the clergy, therefore, to get it established as a

general rule, that they should be entrusted with what it had already

become fashionable to entrust them, and with what they generally would

have been entrusted, though no such rule had been established. To

qualify themselves for confessors became thus a necessary part of the

study of churchmen and divines, and they were thence led to collect

what are called cases of conscience, nice and delicate situations in

which it is hard to determine whereabouts the propriety of conduct may

lie. Such works, they imagined, might be of use both to the directors

of consciences and to those who were to be directed; and hence the

origin of books of casuistry.

The moral duties which fell under the consideration of the casuists

were chiefly those which can, in some measure at least, be

circumscribed within general rules, and of which the violation is

naturally attended with some degree of remorse and some dread of

suffering punishment. The design of that institution which gave

occasion to their works, was to appease those terrors of conscience

which attend upon the infringement of such duties. But it is not every

virtue of which the defect is accompanied with any very severe

compunctions of this kind, and no man applies to his confessor for

absolution, because he did not perform the most generous, the most

friendly, or the most magnanimous action which, in his circumstances,

it was possible to perform. In failures of this kind, the rule that is

violated is commonly not very determinate, and is generally of such a

nature too, that though the observance of it might entitle to honour

and reward, the violation {298} seems to expose to no positive blame,

censure, or punishment. The exercise of such virtues the casuists seem

to have regarded as a sort of works of supererogation, which could not

be very strictly exacted, and which it was therefore unnecessary for

them to treat of.

The breaches of moral duty, therefore, which came before the tribunal

of the confessor, and upon that account fell under the cognisance of

the casuists, were chiefly of three different kinds.

First and principally, breaches of the rules of justice. The rules

here are all express and positive, and the violation of them is

naturally attended with the consciousness of deserving, and the dread

of suffering punishment both from God and man.

Secondly, breaches of the rules of chastity. These in all grosser

instances are real breaches of the rules of justice, and no person can

be guilty of them without doing the most unpardonable injury to some

other. In smaller instances, when they amount only to a violation of

those exact decorums which ought to be observed in the conversation of

the two sexes, they cannot indeed justly be considered as violations

of the rules of justice. They are generally, however, violations of a

pretty plain rule, and, at least in one of the sexes, tend to bring

ignominy upon the person who has been guilty of them, and consequently

to be attended in the scrupulous with some degree of shame and

contrition of mind.

Thirdly, breaches of the rules of veracity. The violation of truth,

it is to be observed, is not always a breach of justice, though it is

so upon many occasions, and consequently cannot always expose to any

external punishment. The vice of common lying, though a most miserable

meanness, may frequently do hurt to nobody, and in this case no claim

of vengeance or satisfaction can be due either to the persons imposed

upon, or to others. But though the violation of truth is not always a

breach of justice, it is always a breach of a very plain rule, and

what does naturally tend to cover with shame the person who has been

guilty of it.

There seems to be in young children an instinctive disposition to

believe whatever they are told. Nature seems to have judged it

necessary for their preservation that they should, for some time at

least, put implicit confidence in those to whom the care of their

childhood, and of the earliest and most necessary parts of their

education, is intrusted. Their credulity, accordingly, is excessive,

and it requires long and much experience of the falsehood of mankind

to reduce them to a reasonable degree of diffidence and distrust. In

grown-up people the degrees of credulity are, no doubt, very

different. The wisest and most experienced are generally the least

credulous. But the man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he

ought to be, and who does not, upon many occasions, give credit to

tales, which not only turn out to be perfectly false, but which a very

moderate degree of reflection and {299} attention might have taught

him could not well be true. The natural disposition is always to

believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach

incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most

cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself

is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think

of believing.

The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which

we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a

certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other

people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and

directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders

and directors. And as we cannot always be satisfied merely with being

admired, unless we can at the same time persuade ourselves that we are

in some degree really worthy of admiration; so we cannot always be

satisfied merely with being believed, unless we are at the same time

conscious that we are really worthy of belief. As the desire of praise

and that of praise-worthiness, though very much akin, are yet distinct

and separate desires; so the desire of being believed and that of

being worthy of belief, though very much akin too, are equally

distinct and separate desires.

The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and

directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our

natural desires. It is, perhaps, the instinct upon which is founded

the faculty of speech, the characteristical faculty of human nature.

No other animal possesses this faculty, and we cannot discover in any

other animal any desire to lead and direct the judgment and conduct of

its fellows. Great ambition, the desire of real, superiority, of

leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and

speech is the great instrument of ambition, of real superiority, of

leading and directing the judgments and conduct of other people.

It is always mortifying not to be believed, and it is doubly so when

we suspect that it is because we are supposed to be unworthy of

belief and capable of seriously and wilfully deceiving. To tell a man

that he lies, is of all affronts the most mortal. But whoever

seriously and wilfully deceives is necessarily conscious to himself

that he merits this affront, that he does not deserve to be believed,

and that he forfeits all title to that sort of credit from which alone

he can derive any sort of ease, comfort, or satisfaction in the

society of his equals. The man who had the misfortune to imagine that

nobody believed a single word he said, would feel himself the outcast

of human society, would dread the very thought of going into it, or of

presenting himself before it, and could scarce fail, I think, to die

of despair. It is probable, however, that no man ever had just reason

to entertain this humiliating opinion of himself. The most notorious

liar, I am disposed to believe, tells the fair truth at least twenty

times for once that he seriously and {300} deliberately lies; and, as

in the most cautious the disposition to believe is apt to prevail over

that to doubt and distrust; so in those who are the most regardless of

truth, the natural disposition to tell it prevails upon most occasions

over that to deceive, or in any respect to alter or to disguise it.

We are mortified when we happen to deceive other people, though

unintentionally, and from having been ourselves deceived. Though this

involuntary falsehood may frequently be no mark of any want of

veracity, of any want of the most perfect love of truth, it is always

in some degree a mark of want of judgment, of want of memory, of

improper credulity, of some degree of precipitancy and rashness. It

always diminishes our authority to persuade, and always brings some

degree of suspicion upon our fitness to lead and direct. The man who

sometimes misleads from mistake, however, is widely different from him

who is capable of wilfully deceiving. The former may be trusted upon

many occasions; the latter very seldom upon any.

Frankness and openness conciliate confidence. We trust the man, who

seems willing to trust us. We see clearly, we think, the road by which

he means to conduct us, and we abandon ourselves with pleasure to his

guidance and direction. Reserve and concealment, on the contrary, call

forth diffidence. We are afraid to follow the man who is going we do

not know where. The great pleasure of conversation and society,

besides, arises from a certain correspondence of sentiments and

opinions, from a certain harmony of minds, which like so many musical

instruments coincide and keep time with one another. But this most

delightful harmony cannot be obtained unless there is a free

communication of sentiments and opinions. We all desire, upon this

account, to feel how each other is affected, to penetrate into each

other's bosoms, and to observe the sentiments and affections which

really subsist there. The man who indulges us in this natural passion,

who invites us into his heart, who, as it were, sets open the gates of

his breast to us, seems to exercise a species of hospitality more

delightful than any other. No man, who is in ordinary good temper, can

fail of pleasing, if he has the courage to utter his real sentiments

as he feels them, and because he feels them. It is this unreserved

sincerity which renders even the prattle of a child agreeable. How

weak and imperfect soever the views of the open-hearted, we take

pleasure to enter into them, and endeavour, as much as we can, to

bring down our own understanding to the level of their capacities, and

to regard every subject in the particular light in which they appear

to have considered it. This passion to discover the real sentiments of

others is naturally so strong, that it often degenerates into a

troublesome and impertinent curiosity to pry into those secrets of our

neighbours which they have very justifiable reasons for concealing;

and, upon many occasions, it requires prudence and a strong sense of

propriety to govern this, as {301} well as all the other passions of

human nature, and to reduce it to that pitch which any impartial

spectator can approve of. To disappoint this curiosity, however, when

it is kept within proper bounds, and aims at nothing which there can

be any just reason for concealing, is equally disagreeable in its

turn. The man who eludes our most innocent questions, who gives no

satisfaction to our most inoffensive inquiries, who plainly wraps

himself up in impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a

wall about his breast. We run forward to get within it, with all the

eagerness of harmless curiosity; and feel ourselves all at once pushed

back with rude and offensive violence.

The man of reserve and concealment, though seldom a very amiable

character, is not disrespected or despised. He seems to feel coldly

towards us, and we feel as coldly towards him. He is not much praised

or beloved, but he is as little hated or blamed. He very seldom,

however, has occasion to repent of his caution, and is generally

disposed rather to value himself upon the prudence of his reserve.

Though his conduct, therefore, may have been very faulty, and

sometimes even hurtful, he can very seldom be disposed to lay his case

before the casuists, or to fancy that he has any occasion for their

acquittal or for their approbation.

It is not always so with the man, who, from false information, from

inadvertency, from precipitancy and rashness, has involuntarily

deceived. Though it should be in a matter of little consequence, in

telling a piece of common news, for example, if he is a real lover of

truth, he is ashamed of his own carelessness, and never fails to

embrace the first opportunity of making the fullest acknowledgments.

If it is in a matter of some consequence, his contrition is still

greater; and if any unlucky or fatal consequence has followed from his

misinformation, he can scarce ever forgive himself. Though not guilty,

he feels himself to be in the highest degree, what the ancients

called, piacular, and is anxious and eager to make every sort of

atonement in his power. Such a person might frequently be disposed to

lay his case before the casuists, who have in general been very

favourable to him, and though they have sometimes justly condemned him

for rashness, they have universally acquitted him of the ignominy of

falsehood.

But the man who had the most frequent occasion to consult them, was

the man of equivocation and mental reservation, the man who seriously

and deliberately meant to deceive, but who, at the same time, wished

to flatter himself that he had really told the truth. With him they

have dealt variously. When they approved very much of the motives of

his deceit, they have sometimes acquitted him, though, to do the

casuists justice, they have in general and much more frequently

condemned him.

The chief subjects of the works of the casuists, therefore, were the

conscientious regard that is due to the rules of justice; how far we

{302} ought to respect the life and property of our neighbour; the

duty of restitution; the laws of chastity and modesty, and wherein

consisted what, in the language of the casuists, were called the sins

of concupiscence; the rules of veracity, and the obligation of oaths,

promises, and contracts of all kinds.

It may be said in general of the works of the casuists that they

attempted, to no purpose, to direct by precise rules what it belongs

to feeling and sentiment only to judge of. How is it possible to

ascertain by rules the exact point at which, in every case, a delicate

sense of justice begins to run into a frivolous and weak scrupulosity

of conscience? When is it that secrecy and reserve begin to grow into

dissimulation? How far may an agreeable irony be carried, and at what

precise point it begins to degenerate into a detestable lie? What is

the highest pitch of freedom and ease of behaviour which can be

regarded as graceful and becoming, and when is it that it first begins

to run into a negligent and thoughtless licentiousness? With regard to

all such matters, what would hold good in any one case would scarce do

so exactly in any other, and what constitutes the propriety and

happiness of behaviour varies in every case with the smallest variety

of situation. Books of casuistry, therefore, are generally as useless

as they are commonly tiresome. They could be of little use to one who

should consult them upon occasion, even supposing their decisions to

be just; because, notwithstanding the multitude of cases collected in

them, yet upon account of the still greater variety of possible

circumstances, it is a chance, if among all those cases there be found

one exactly parallel to that under consideration. One, who is really

anxious to do his duty, must be very weak, if he can imagine that he

has much occasion for them; and with regard to one who is negligent of

it, the very style of those writings is not such as is likely to

awaken him to more attention. None of them tend to animate us to what

is generous and noble. None of them do tend to soften us to what is

gentle and humane. Many of them, on the contrary, tend rather to teach

us to chicane with our own consciences, and by their vain subtilties

serve to authorise innumerable evasive refinements with regard to the

most essential articles of our duty. That frivolous accuracy which

they attempted to introduce into subjects which do not admit of it,

almost necessarily betrayed them into those dangerous errors, and at

the same time rendered their works dry and disagreeable, abounding in

abstruse and metaphysical distinctions, but incapable of exciting in

the heart any of those emotions which it is the principal use of books

of morality to excite in the readers.

The two useful parts of moral philosophy, therefore, are Ethics and

Jurisprudence: casuistry ought to be rejected altogether; and the

ancient moralists appear to have judged much better, who, in treating

of the same subjects, did not affect any such nice exactness, but

{303} contented themselves with describing, in a general manner, what

is the sentiment upon which justice, modesty, and veracity are

founded, and what is the ordinary way of acting to which those great

virtues would commonly prompt us.

Something indeed, not unlike the doctrine of the casuists, seems to

have been attempted by several philosophers. There is something of

this kind in the third book of Cicero's Offices, where he endeavours

like a casuist, to give rules for our conduct in many nice cases, in

which it is difficult to determine whereabouts the point of propriety

may lie. It appears too, from many passages in the same book, that

several other philosophers had attempted something of the same kind

before him. Neither he nor they, however, appear to have aimed at

giving a complete system of this sort, but only meant to show how

situations may occur, in which it is doubtful, whether the highest

propriety of conduct consists in observing or in receding from what,

in ordinary cases, are the rules of our duty.

Every system of positive law may be regarded as a more or less

imperfect attempt towards a system of natural jurisprudence, or

towards an enumeration of the particular rules of justice. As the

violation of justice is what men will never submit to from one

another, the public magistrate is under a necessity of employing the

power of the commonwealth to enforce the practice of this virtue.

Without this precaution, civil society would become a scene of

bloodshed and disorder, every man revenging himself at his own hand

whenever he fancied he was injured. To prevent the confusion which

would attend upon every man's doing justice to himself, the

magistrate, in all governments that have acquired any considerable

authority, undertakes to do justice to all, and promises to hear and

to redress every complaint of injury. In all well-governed states,

too, not only judges are appointed for determining the controversies

of individuals, but rules are prescribed for regulating the decisions

of those judges; and these rules are, in general, intended to

coincide with those of natural justice. It does not, indeed, always

happen that they do so in every instance. Sometimes what is called the

constitution of the state, that is, the interest of the government;

sometimes the interest of particular orders of men who tyrannize the

government, warp the positive laws of the country from what natural

justice would prescribe. In some countries, the rudeness and barbarism

of the people hinder the natural sentiments of justice from arriving

at that accuracy and precision which, in more civilized nations, they

naturally attain to. Their laws are, like their manners, gross and

rude and undistinguishing. In other countries the unfortunate

constitution of their courts of judicature hinders any regular system

of jurisprudence from ever establishing itself among them, though the

improved manners of the people may be such as would admit of the most

accurate. In no country do the decisions of positive {304} law

coincide exactly, in every case, with the rules which the natural

sense of justice would dictate. Systems of positive law, therefore,

though they deserve the greatest authority, as the records of the

sentiments of mankind in different ages and nations, yet can never be

regarded as accurate systems of the rules of natural justice.

It might have been expected that the reasonings of lawyers, upon the

different imperfections and improvements of the laws of different

countries, should have given occasion to an inquiry into what were the

natural rules of justice independent of all positive institution. It

might have been expected that these reasonings should have led them to

aim at establishing a system of what might properly be called natural

jurisprudence, or a theory of the general principles which ought to

run through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations. But

though the reasonings of lawyers did produce something of this kind,

and though no man has treated systematically of the laws of any

particular country, without intermixing in his work many observations

of this sort; it was very late in the world before any such general

system was thought of, or before the philosophy of law was treated of

by itself, and without regard to the particular institutions of any

one nation. In none of the ancient moralists, do we find any attempt

towards a particular enumeration of the rules of justice. Cicero in

his Offices, and Aristotle in his Ethics, treat of justice in the same

general manner in which they treat of all the other virtues. In the

laws of Cicero and Plato, where we might naturally have expected some

attempts towards an enumeration of those rules of natural equity,

which ought to be enforced by the positive laws of every country,

there is, however, nothing of this kind. Their laws are laws of

police, not of justice. Grotius seems to have been the first who

attempted to give the world any thing like a system of those

principles which ought to run through, and be the foundation of the

laws of all nations; and his treatise of the laws of war and peace,

with all its imperfections, is perhaps at this day the most complete

work that has yet been given upon this subject. I shall in another

discourse endeavour to give an account of the general principles of

law and government, and of the different revolutions they have

undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in

what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms,

and whatever else is the object of law. I shall not, therefore, at

present, enter into any further detail concerning the history of

jurisprudence.

-----

CONSIDERATIONS

CONCERNING THE FIRST

FORMATION OF LANGUAGES, ETC., ETC.

THE assignation of particular names to denote particular objects, that

is, the institution of nouns substantive, would, probably, be one of

the first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages, who

had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the

societies of men, would naturally begin to form that language by which

they would endeavour to make their mutual wants intelligible to each

other, by uttering certain sounds, whenever they meant to denote

certain objects. Those objects only which were most familiar to them,

and which they had most frequent occasion to mention would have

particular names assigned to them. The particular cave whose covering

sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit

relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed

their thirst, would first be denominated by the words _cave_, _tree_,

_fountain_, or by whatever other appellations they might think proper,

in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterwards, when the more

enlarged experience of these savages had led them to observe, and

their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention of other caves,

and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow,

upon each of those new objects, the same name, by which they had been

accustomed to express the similar objects they were first acquainted

with. The new objects had none of them any name of its own, but each

of them exactly resembled another object, which had such an

appellation. It was impossible that those savages could behold the new

objects, without recollecting the old ones; and the name of the old

ones, to which the new bore so close a resemblance. When they had

occasion, therefore, to mention or to point out to each other, any of

the new objects, they would naturally utter the name of the

correspondent old one, of which the idea could not fail, at that

instant, to present itself to their memory in the strongest and

liveliest manner. And thus, those words, which were originally the

proper names of individuals, would each of them insensibly become the

common name of a multitude. A child that is just learning to speak,

calls every person who comes to the house its papa or its mamma; and

thus bestows upon the whole species those names which it had been

taught to apply to two individuals. I have {306} known a clown, who

did not know the proper name of the river which ran by his own door.

It was _the river_, he said, and he never heard any other name for it.

His experience, it seems, had not led him to observe any other river.

The general word _river_, therefore, was, it is evident, in his

acceptance of it, a proper name, signifying an individual object. If

this person had been carried to another river, would he not readily

have called it a river? Could we suppose any person living on the

banks of the Thames so ignorant as not to know the general word

_river_ but to be acquainted only with the particular word _Thames_,

if he was brought to any other river, would he not readily call it _a

Thames_? This, in reality, is no more than what they, who are well

acquainted with the general word, are very apt to do. An Englishman,

describing any great river which he may have seen in some foreign

country, naturally says, that it is another Thames. The Spaniards,

when they first arrived upon the coast of Mexico, and observed the

wealth, populousness, and habitations of that fine country, so much

superior to the savage nations which they had been visiting for some

time before, cried out, that it was another Spain. Hence it was called

New Spain; and this name has stuck to that unfortunate country ever

since. We say, in the same manner, of a hero, that he is an Alexander;

of an orator, that he is a Cicero; of a philosopher, that he is a

Newton. This way of speaking, which the grammarians call an

Antonomasia, and which is still extremely common, though now not at

all necessary, demonstrates how mankind are disposed to give to one

object the name of any other, which nearly resembles it, and thus to

denominate a multitude, by what originally was intended to express an

individual.

It is this application of the name of an individual to a great

multitude of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the idea of

that individual, and of the name which expresses it, that seems

originally to have given occasion to the formation of those classes

and assortments, which, in the schools, are called genera and species,

and of which the ingenious and eloquent M. Rousseau of Geneva finds

himself so much at a loss to account for the origin. What constitutes

a species is merely a number of objects, bearing a certain degree of

resemblance to one another, and on that account denominated by a

single appellation, which may be applied to express any one of them.

When the greater part of objects had thus been arranged under their

proper classes and assortments, distinguished by such general names,

it was impossible that the greater part of that almost infinite number

of individuals, comprehended under each particular assortment or

species, could have any peculiar or proper names of their own,

distinct from the general name of the species. When there was

occasion, therefore, to mention any particular object, it often became

necessary to distinguish it from the other objects comprehended under

the same general name, either, first, by its peculiar qualities; or,

secondly, by the {307} peculiar relation which it stood in to some

other things. Hence the necessary origin of two other sets of words,

of which the one should express quality; the other, relation.

Nouns adjective are the words which express quality considered as

qualifying, or, as the schoolmen say, in concrete with, some

particular subject. Thus the word _green_ expresses a certain quality

considered as qualifying, or as in concrete with, the particular

subject to which it may be applied. Words of this kind, it is evident,

may serve to distinguish particular objects from others comprehended

under the same general appellation. The words _green tree_, for

example, might serve to distinguish a particular tree from others that

were withered or that were blasted.

Prepositions are the words which express relation considered, in the

same manner, in concrete with the co-relative object. Thus the

prepositions _of_, _to_, _for_, _with_, _by_, _above_, _below_, &c.,

denote some relation subsisting between the objects expressed by the

words between which the prepositions are placed; and they denote that

this relation is considered in concrete with the co-relative object.

Words of this kind serve to distinguish particular objects from others

of the same species, when those particular objects cannot be so

properly marked out by any peculiar qualities of their own. When we

say, _the green tree of the meadow_, for example, we distinguish a

particular tree, not only by the quality which belongs to it, but by

the relation which it stands in to another object.

As neither quality nor relation can exist in abstract, it is natural

to suppose that the words which denote them considered in concrete,

the way in which we always see them subsist, would be of much earlier

invention than those which express them considered in abstract, the

way in which we never see them subsist. The words _green_ and _blue_

would, in all probability, be sooner invented than the words

_greenness_ and _blueness_; the words _above_ and _below_, than the

words _superiority_ and _inferiority_. To invent words of the latter

kind requires a much greater effort of abstraction than to invent

those of the former. It is probable therefore, that such abstract

terms would be of much later institution. Accordingly, their

etymologies generally show that they are so, they being generally

derived from others that are concrete.

But though the invention of nouns adjective be much more natural than

that of the abstract nouns substantive derived from them, it would

still, however, require a considerable degree of abstraction and

generalization. Those, for example, who first invented the words

_green_, _blue_, _red_, and the other names of colours, must have

observed and compared together a great number of objects, must have

remarked their resemblances and dissimilitudes in respect of the

quality of colour, and must have arranged them, in their own minds,

into different classes and assortments, according to those

resemblances and {308} dissimilitudes. An adjective is by nature a

general, and in some measure an abstract word, and necessarily

pre-supposes the idea of a certain species or assortment of things, to

all of which it is equally applicable. The word _green_ could not, as

we were supposing might be the case of the word _cave_, have been

originally the name of an individual, and afterwards have become, by

what grammarians call an Antonomasia, the name of a species. The word

_green_ denoting, not the name of a substance, but the peculiar

quality of a substance, must from the very first have been a general

word, and considered as equally applicable to any other substance

possessed of the same quality. The man who first distinguished a

particular object by the epithet of _green_, must have observed other

objects that were not _green_, from which he meant to separate it by

this appellation. The institution of this name, therefore, supposes

comparison. It likewise supposes some degree of abstraction. The

person who first invented this appellation must have distinguished the

quality from the object to which it belonged, and must have conceived

the object as capable of subsisting without the quality. The

invention, therefore, even of the simplest nouns adjective must have

required more metaphysics than we are apt to be aware of. The

different mental operations, of arrangement or classing, of

comparison, and of abstraction, must all have been employed, before

even the names of the different colours, the least metaphysical of all

nouns adjective, could be instituted. From all which I infer, that

when languages were beginning to be formed, nouns adjective would by

no means be the words of the earliest invention.

There is nothing expedient for denoting the different qualities of

different substance, which as it requires no abstraction, nor any

conceived separation of the quality from the subject, seems more

natural than the invention of nouns adjective, and which, upon this

account, could hardly fail, in the first formation of language, to be

thought of before them. This expedient is to make some variation upon

the noun substantive itself, according to the different qualities

which it is endowed with. Thus in many languages, the qualities both

of sex and of the want of sex are expressed by different terminations

in the nouns substantive, which denote objects so qualified. In Latin,

for example, _lupus_, _lupa_; _equus_, _equa_; _juvencus_, _juvenca_;

_Julius_, _Julia_; _Lucretius_, _Lucretia_, &c., denote the qualities

of male and female in the animals and persons to whom such

appellations belong, without needing the addition of any adjective for

this purpose. On the other hand, the words, _forum_, _pratum_,

_plaustrum_, denote by their peculiar termination the total absence of

sex in the different substances which they stand for. Both sex, and

the want of all sex, being naturally considered as qualities modifying

and inseparable from the particular substances to which they belong,

it was natural to express them rather by a modification in the noun

substantive, than by any general and abstract word {309} expressive of

this particular species of quality. The expression bears, it is

evident, in this way, a much more exact analogy to the idea or object

which it denotes than in the other. The quality appears, in nature, as

a modification of the substance, and as it is thus expressed in

language, by a modification of the noun substantive, which denotes

that substance, the quality and the subject are, in this case, blended

together, if I may say so, in the expression, in the same manner as

they appear to be in the object and in the idea. Hence the origin of

the masculine, feminine, and neutral genders, in all the ancient

languages. By means of these, the most important of all distinctions,

that of substances into animated and inanimated, and that of animals

into male and female, seem to have been sufficiently marked without

the assistance of adjectives, or of any general names denoting this

most extensive species of qualifications.

There are no more than these three genders in any of the languages

with which I am acquainted; that is to say, the formation of nouns

substantive can, by itself, and without the accompaniment of

adjectives, express no other qualities but those three above

mentioned, the qualities of male, of female, of neither male nor

female. I should not, however, be surprised, if, in other languages

with which I am unacquainted, the different formations of nouns

substantive should be capable of expressing many other different

qualities. The different diminutives of the Italian, and of some other

languages, do, in reality, sometimes express a great variety of

different modifications in the substances denoted by those nouns which

undergo such variations.

It was impossible, however, that nouns substantive could, without

losing altogether their original form, undergo so great a number of

variations, as would be sufficient to express that almost infinite

variety of qualities, by which it might, upon different occasions, be

necessary to specify and distinguish them. Though the different

formation of nouns substantive, therefore, might, for some time,

forestall the necessity of inventing nouns adjective, it was

impossible that this necessity could be forestalled altogether. When

nouns adjective came to be invented, it was natural that they should

be formed with some similarity to the substantives to which they were

to serve as epithets or qualifications. Men would naturally give them

the same terminations with the substantives to which they were first

applied, and from that love of similarity of sound, from that delight

in the returns of the same syllables, which is the foundation of

analogy in all languages, they would be apt to vary the termination of

the same adjective, according as they had occasion to apply it to a

masculine, to a feminine, or to a neutral substantive. They would say,

_magnus lupus_, _magna lupa_, _magnum pratum_, when they meant to

express a great _he wolf_, a great _she wolf_, or a great _meadow_.

This variation, in the termination of the noun adjective, according to

{310} the gender of the substantive, which takes place in all the

ancient languages, seems to have been introduced chiefly for the sake

of a certain similarity of sound, of a certain species of rhyme, which

is naturally so very agreeable to the human ear. Gender, it is to

observed, cannot properly belong to a noun adjective, the

signification of which is always precisely the same, to whatever

species of substantives it is applied. When we say, _a great man_, _a

great woman_, the word _great_ has precisely the same meaning in both

cases, and the difference of the sex in the subjects to which it may

be applied, makes no sort of difference in its signification.

_Magnus_, _magna_, _magnum_, in the same manner, are words which

express precisely the same quality, and the change of the termination

is accompanied with no sort of variation in the meaning. Sex and

gender are qualities which belong to substances, but cannot belong to

the qualities of substances. In general, no quality, when considered

in concrete, or as qualifying some particular subject, can itself be

conceived as the subject of any other quality; though when considered

in abstract it may. No adjective therefore can qualify any other

adjective. A _great good man_, means a man who is both _great_ and

_good_. Both the adjectives qualify the substantive; they do not

qualify one another. On the other hand, when we say, the _great

goodness_ of the man, the word _goodness_ denoting a quality

considered in abstract, which may itself be the subject of other

qualities, is upon that account capable of being qualified by the word

_great_.

If the original invention of nouns adjective would be attended with so

much difficulty, that of prepositions would be accompanied with yet

more. Every preposition, as I have already observed, denotes some

relation considered in concrete with the co-relative object. The

preposition _above_, for example, denotes the relation of superiority,

not in abstract, as it is expressed by the word _superiority_, but in

concrete with some co-relative object. In this phrase, for example,

_the tree above the cave_, the word _above_ expresses a certain

relation between the _tree_ and the _cave_, and it expresses this

relation in concrete with the co-relative object, _the cave_. A

preposition always requires, in order to complete the sense, some

other word to come after it; as may be observed in this particular

instance. Now, I say, the original invention of such words would

require a yet greater effort of abstraction and generalization, than

that of nouns adjective. First of all, the relation is, in itself, a

more metaphysical object than a quality. Nobody can be at a loss to

explain what is meant by a quality; but few people will find

themselves able to express, very distinctly, what is understood by a

relation. Qualities are almost always the objects of our external

senses; relations never are. No wonder therefore, that the one set of

objects should be so much more comprehensible than the other.

Secondly, though prepositions always express the relation which they

stand for, in concrete with the co-relative object, they could not

have {311} originally been formed without a considerable effort of

abstraction. A preposition denotes a relation, and nothing but a

relation. But before men could institute a word, which signified a

relation, and nothing but a relation, they must have been able, in

some measure, to consider this relation abstractedly from the related

objects; since the idea of those objects does not, in any respect,

enter into the signification of the preposition. The invention of such

a word, therefore, must have required a considerable degree of

abstraction. Thirdly, a preposition is from its nature a general word,

which, from its very first institution, must have been considered as

equally applicable to denote any other similar relation. The man who

first invented the word _above_, must not only have distinguished, in

some measure, the relation of _superiority_ from the objects which

were so related, but he must also have distinguished this relation

from other relations, such as, from the relation of _inferiority_

denoted by the word _below_, from the relation of _juxta-position_,

expressed by the word _beside_, and the like. He must have conceived

this word, therefore, as expressive of a particular sort or species of

relation distinct from every other, which could not be done without a

considerable effort of comparison and generalization.

Whatever were the difficulties, therefore, which embarrassed the first

invention of nouns adjective, the same, and many more, must have

embarrassed that of prepositions. If mankind, therefore, in the first

formation of languages, seem to have, for some time, evaded the

necessity of nouns adjective, by varying the termination of the names

of substances, according as these varied in some of their most

important qualities, they would much more find themselves under the

necessity of evading, by some similar contrivance, the yet more

difficult invention of prepositions. The different cases in the

ancient languages is a contrivance of precisely the same kind. The

genitive and dative cases, in Greek and Latin, evidently supply the

place of the prepositions; and by a variation in the noun substantive,

which stands for the co-relative term, express the relation which

subsists between what is denoted by that noun substantive, and what is

expressed by some other word in the sentence. In these expressions,

for example, _fructus arboris_, _the fruit of the tree_; _sacer

Herculi_, _sacred to Hercules_; the variations made in the co-relative

words, arbor and Hercules, express the same relations which are

expressed in English by the prepositions _of_ and _to_.

To express a relation in this manner, did not require any effort of

abstraction. It was not here expressed by a peculiar word denoting

relation and nothing but relation, but by a variation upon the

co-relative term. It was expressed here, as it appears in nature, not

as something separated and detached, but as thoroughly mixed and

blended with the co-relative object.

To express relation in this manner, did not require any effort of

generalization. The words _arboris_ and _Herculi_, while they involve

in {312} their signification the same relation expressed by the

English prepositions _of_ and _to_, are not, like those prepositions,

general words, which can be applied to express the same relation

between whatever other objects it might be observed to subsist.

To express relation in this manner did not require any effort of

comparison. The words _arboris_ and _Herculi_ are not general words

intended to denote a particular species of relations which the

inventors of those expressions meant, in consequence of some sort of

comparison, to separate and distinguish from every other sort of

relation. The example, indeed, of this contrivance would soon probably

be followed, and whoever had occasion to express a similar relation

between any other objects would be very apt to do it by making a

similar variation on the name of the co-relative object. This, I say,

would probably, or rather certainly happen; but it would happen

without any intention or foresight in those who first set the example,

and who never meant to establish any general rule. The general rule

would establish itself insensibly, and by slow degrees, in consequence

of that love of analogy and similarity of sound, which is the

foundation of by far the greater part of the rules of grammar.

To express relation, therefore, by a variation in the name of the

co-relative object, requiring neither abstraction, nor generalization,

nor comparison of any kind, would, at first, be much more natural and

easy, than to express it by those general words called prepositions,

of of which the first invention must have demanded some degree of all

those operations.

The number of cases is different in different languages. There are

five in the Greek, six in the Latin, and there are said to be ten in

the Armenian language. It must have naturally happened that there

should be a greater or a smaller number of cases, according as in the

terminations of nouns substantive the first formers of any language

happened to have established a greater or a smaller number of

variations, in order to express the different relations they had

occasion to take notice of, before the invention of those more general

and abstract prepositions which could supply their place.

It is, perhaps, worth while to observe that those prepositions, which

in modern languages hold the place of the ancient cases, are, of all

others, the most general, and abstract, and metaphysical; and of

consequence, would probably be the last invented. Ask any man of

common acuteness, What relation is expressed by the preposition

_above_? He will readily answer, that of _superiority_. By the

preposition _below_? He will as quickly reply that of _inferiority_.

But ask him, what relation is expressed by the preposition _of_, and,

if he has not beforehand employed his thoughts a good deal upon these

subjects, you may safely allow him a week to consider of his answer.

The prepositions _above_ and _below_ do not denote any of the

relations expressed by the cases in the {313} ancient languages. But

the preposition _of_, denotes the same relation, which is in them

expressed by the genitive case; and which, it is easy to observe, is

of a very metaphysical nature. The preposition _of_, denotes relation

in general, considered in concrete with the co-relative object. It

marks that the noun substantive which goes before it, is somehow or

other related to that which comes after it, but without in any respect

ascertaining, as is done by the preposition _above_, what is the

peculiar nature of that relation. We often apply it, therefore, to

express the most opposite relations; because, the most opposite

relations agree so far that each of them comprehends in it the general

idea or nature of a relation. We say, _the father of the son_, and

_the son of the father_; _the fir-trees of the forest_, and _the

forest of the fir-trees_. The relation in which the father stands to

the son is, it is evident, a quite opposite relation to that in which

the son stands to the father; that in which the parts stand to the

whole, is quite opposite to that in which the whole stands to the

parts. The word _of_, however, serves very well to denote all those

relations, because in itself it denotes no particular relation, but

only relation in general; and so far as any particular relation is

collected from such expressions, it is inferred by the mind, not from

the preposition itself, but from the nature and arrangement of the

substantives, between which the preposition is placed.

What I have said concerning the preposition _of_, may in some measure

be applied to the prepositions _to_, _for_, _with_, _by_, and to

whatever other prepositions are made use of in modern languages, to

supply the place of the ancient cases. They all of them express very

abstract and metaphysical relations, which any man, who takes the

trouble to try it, will find it extremely difficult to express by

nouns substantive, in the same manner as we may express the relation

denoted by the preposition _above_, by the noun substantive

_superiority_. They all of them, however, express some specific

relation, and are, consequently, none of them so abstract as the

preposition _of_, which may be regarded as by far the most

metaphysical of all prepositions. The prepositions, therefore, which

are capable of supplying the place of the ancient cases, being more

abstract than the other prepositions, would naturally be of more

difficult invention. The relations at the same time which those

prepositions express, are, of all others, those which we have most

frequent occasion to mention. The prepositions _above_, _below_,

_near_, _within_, _without_, _against_, &c., are much more rarely made

use of, in modern languages, than the prepositions _of_, _to_, _for_,

_with_, _from_, _by_. A preposition of the former kind will not occur

twice in a page; we can scarce compose a single sentence without the

assistance of one or two of the latter. If these latter prepositions,

therefore, which supply the place of the cases, would be of such

difficult invention on account of their abstractedness, some expedient

to supply their place must have been of indispensable necessity, on

account of the frequent occasion {314} which men have to take notice

of the relations which they denote. But there is no expedient so

obvious, as that of varying the termination of one of the principal

words.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe, that there are some of the

cases in the ancient languages, which, for particular reasons, cannot

be represented by any prepositions. These are the nominative,

accusative, and vocative cases. In those modern languages, which do

not admit of any such variety in the terminations of their nouns

substantive, the correspondent relations are expressed by the place of

the words, and by the order and construction of the sentence.

As men have frequently occasion to make mention of multitudes as well

as of single objects, it became necessary that they should have some

method of expressing number. Number may be expressed either by a

particular word, expressing number in general, such as the words

_many_, _more_, &c., or by some variation upon the words which express

the things numbered. It is this last expedient which mankind would

probably have recourse to, in the infancy of language. Number,

considered in general, without relation to any particular set of

objects numbered, is one of the most abstract and metaphysical ideas,

which the mind of man is capable of forming; and, consequently, is not

an idea, which would readily occur to rude mortals, who were just

beginning to form a language. They would naturally, therefore,

distinguish when they talked of a single, and when they talked of a

multitude of objects, not by any metaphysical adjectives, such as the

English _a_, _an_, _many_, but by a variation upon the termination of

the word which signified the objects numbered. Hence the origin of the

singular and plural numbers, in all the ancient languages; and the

same distinction has likewise been retained in all the modern

languages, at least, in the greater part of the words.

All primitive and uncompounded languages seem to have a dual, as well

as a plural number. This is the case of the Greek, and I am told of

the Hebrew, of the Gothic, and of many other languages. In the rude

beginnings of society, _one_, _two_, and _more_, might possibly be all

the numeral distinctions which mankind would have any occasion to take

notice of. These they would find it more natural to express, by a

variation upon every particular noun substantive, than by such general

and abstract words as _one_, _two_, _three_, _four_, &c. These words,

though custom has rendered them familiar to us, express, perhaps, the

most subtile and refined abstractions, which the mind of man is

capable of forming. Let any one consider within himself, for example,

what he means by the word _three_, which signifies neither three

shillings, nor three pence, nor three men, nor three horses, but three

in general; and he will easily satisfy himself that a word, which

denotes so very metaphysical an abstraction, could not be either a

very obvious or a very early invention. I have read of some savage

nations, whose language {315} was capable of expressing no more than

the three first numeral distinctions. But whether it expressed those

distinctions by three general words, or by variations upon the nouns

substantive, denoting the things numbered, I do not remember to have

met with any thing which could clearly determine.

As all the same relations which subsist between single, may likewise

subsist between numerous objects, it is evident there would be

occasion for the same number of cases in the dual and in the plural,

as in the singular number. Hence the intricacy and complexness of the

declensions in all the ancient languages. In the Greek there are five

cases in each of the three numbers, consequently fifteen in all.

As nouns adjective, in the ancient languages, varied their

terminations according to the gender of the substantive to which they

were applied, so did they likewise according to the case and the

number. Every noun adjective in the Greek language, therefore, having

three genders, and three numbers, and five cases in each number, may

be considered as having five and forty different variations. The first

formers of language seem to have varied the termination of the

adjective, according to the case and the number of the substantive,

for the same reason which made them vary it according to the gender;

the love of analogy, and of a certain regularity of sound. In the

signification of adjectives there is neither case nor number, and the

meaning of such words is always precisely the same, notwithstanding

all the variety of termination under which they appear. _Magnus vir_,

_magni viri_, _magnorum virorum_; _a great man_, _of a great man_, _of

great men_; in all these expressions the words, _magnus_, _magni_,

_magnorum_, as well as the word _great_, have precisely one and the

same signification, though the substantives to which they are applied

have not. The difference of termination in the noun adjective is

accompanied with no sort of difference in the meaning. An adjective

denotes the qualification of a noun substantive. But the different

relations in which that noun substantive may occasionally stand, can

make no sort of difference upon its qualification. If the declensions

of the ancient languages are so very complex, their conjugations are

infinitely more so. And the complexness of the one is founded upon the

same principle with that of the other, the difficulty of forming, in

the beginnings of language, abstract and general terms.

Verbs must necessarily have been coëval with the very first attempts

towards the formation of language. No affirmation can be expressed

without the assistance of some verb. We never speak but in order to

express our opinion that something either is or is not. But the word

denoting this event, or this matter of fact, which is the subject of

our affirmation, must always be a verb.

Impersonal verbs, which express in one word a complete event, which

preserve in the expression that perfect simplicity and unity, {316}

which there always is in the object and in the idea, and which suppose

no abstraction, or metaphysical division of the event into its several

constituent members of subject and attribute, would, in all

probability, be the species of verbs first invented. The verbs

_pluit_, _it rains_; _ningit_, _it snows_; _tonat_, _it thunders_;

_lucet_, _it is day_; _turbatur_, _there is a confusion_, &c., each of

them express a complete affirmation, the whole of an event, with that

perfect simplicity and unity with which the mind conceives it in

nature. On the contrary, the phrases, _Alexander ambulat_, _Alexander

walks_; _Petrus sedet_, _Peter sits_, divide the event, as it were,

into two parts, the person or subject, and the attribute, or matter of

fact, affirmed of that subject. But in nature, the idea or conception

of Alexander walking, is as perfectly and completely one simple

conception, as that of Alexander not walking. The division of this

event, therefore, into two parts, is altogether artificial, and is the

effect of the imperfection of language, which, upon this, as upon many

other occasions, supplies, by a number of words, the want of one,

which could express at once the whole matter of fact that was meant to

be affirmed. Every body must observe how much more simplicity there is

in the natural expression, _pluit_, than in the more artificial

expressions, _imber decidit_, _the rain falls_; or _tempestas est

pluvia_, _the weather is rainy_. In these two last expressions, the

simple event, or matter of fact, is artificially split and divided in

the one, into two; in the other, into three parts. In each of them it

is expressed by a sort of grammatical circumlocution, of which the

significancy is founded upon a certain metaphysical analysis of the

component parts of the idea expressed by the word _pluit_. The first

verbs, therefore, perhaps even the first words, made use of in the

beginnings of language, would in all probability be such impersonal

verbs. It is observed accordingly, I am told, by the Hebrew

grammarians, that the radical words of their language, from which all

the others are derived, are all of them verbs, and impersonal verbs.

It is easy to conceive how, in the progress of language, those

impersonal verbs should become personal. Let us suppose, for example,

that the word _venit_, _it comes_, was originally an impersonal verb,

and that it denoted, not the coming of something in general, as at

present, but the coming of a particular object, such as _the lion_.

The first savage inventors of language, we shall suppose, when they

observed the approach of this terrible animal, were accustomed to cry

out to one another, _venit_, that is, _the lion comes_; and that

this word thus expressed a complete event, without the assistance of

any other. Afterwards, when, on the further progress of language, they

had begun to give names to particular substances, whenever they

observed the approach of any other terrible object, they would

naturally join the name of that object to the word _venit_, and cry

out, _venit ursus_, _venit lupus_. By degrees the word venit would

thus come to signify the coming of any {317} terrible object, and not

merely the coming of the lion. It would, now, therefore, express, not

the coming of a particular object, but the coming of an object of a

particular kind. Having become more general in its signification, it

could no longer represent any particular distinct event by itself, and

without the assistance of a noun substantive, which might serve to

ascertain and determine its signification. It would now, therefore,

have become a personal, instead of an impersonal verb. We may easily

conceive how, in the further progress of society, it might still grow

more general in its signification, and come to signify, as at present,

the approach of any thing whatever, whether it were good, bad, or

indifferent.

It is probably in some such manner as this, that almost all verbs have

become personal, and that mankind have learned by degrees to split and

divide almost every event into a great number of metaphysical parts,

expressed by the different parts of speech, variously combined in the

different members of every phrase and sentence.[1] The same sort of

progress seems to have been made in the art of speaking as in the art

of writing. When mankind first began to attempt to express their ideas

by writing, every character represented a whole word. But the number

of words being almost infinite, the memory found itself quite loaded

and oppressed by the multitude of characters which it was obliged to

retain. Necessity taught them, therefore, to divide words into their

elements, and to invent characters which should represent, not the

words themselves, but the elements of which they were composed. In

consequence of this invention, every particular word came to be

represented, not by one character, but by a multitude of characters;

and the expression of it in writing became much more intricate and

complex than before. But though particular words were thus represented

by a greater number of characters, the whole language was expressed by

a much smaller, and about four and twenty letters were found capable

of supplying the place of that immense multitude of characters, which

were requisite before. In the same manner, in the beginnings of

language, men seem to have attempted to express every particular

event, which they had occasion to take notice of, by a particular

word, which expressed at once the whole of that event. But as the

number of words must, in this case, have become really infinite in

consequence of the really infinite variety of events, men found

themselves partly compelled by necessity, and partly conducted by

nature, to divide {318} every event into what may be called its

metaphysical elements, and to institute words, which should denote not

so much the events, as the elements of which they were composed. The

expression of every particular event, became in this manner more

intricate and complex, but the whole system of the language became

more coherent, more connected, more easily retained and comprehended.

[Footnote 1: As the far greater part of verbs express, at present, not

an event, but the attribute of an event, and, consequently, require a

subject, or nominative case, to complete their signification, some

grammarians, not having attended to this progress of nature, and being

desirous to make their common rules quite universal, and without any

exception, have insisted that all verbs required a nominative, either

expressed or understood; and have, accordingly, put themselves to the

torture to find some awkward nominatives to those few verbs which

still expressing a complete event, plainly admit of none. _Pluit_, for

example, according to _Sanctius_, means _pluvia pluit_, in English,

_the rain rains_. See Sanctii Minerva, 1. 3. c. 1.]

When verbs, from being originally impersonal, had thus, by the

division of the event into its metaphysical elements, become personal

it is natural to suppose that they would first be made use of in the

third person singular. No verb is ever used impersonally in our

language nor, so far as I know, in any other modern tongue. But in the

ancient languages, whenever any verb is used impersonally, it is

always in the third person singular. The termination of those verbs,

which are still always impersonal, is constantly the same with that of

the third person singular of personal verbs. The consideration of

these circumstances, joined to the naturalness of the thing itself,

may therefore serve to convince us that verbs first became personal in

what is now called the third person singular.