The
Theory of Moral Sentiments
by Adam
Smith
1759
The
Theory of Moral Sentiments.
by Adam
Smith
Professor
of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow.
London:
Printed
for A. Millar, in the Strand;
And A.
Kincaid and J. Bell in Edinburgh.
MDCCLIX
Part I
Of the
Propriety of Action
Consisting
of Three Sections
Section
I
Of the
Sense of Propriety
Chap. I
Of
Sympathy
How selfish soever man may be supposed,
there are evidently
some
principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune
of
others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he
derives
nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this
kind is
pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the
misery
of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive
it in a
very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the
sorrow
of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any
instances
to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other
original
passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the
virtuous
and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the
most
exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most
hardened
violator of the laws of society, is not altogether
without
it.
As we have no immediate experience of what
other men feel, we
can
form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by
conceiving
what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.
Though
our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are
at our
ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers.
They
never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person,
and it
is by the imagination only that we can form any conception
of what
are his sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to
this any
other way, than by representing to us what would be our
own, if
we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own
senses
only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By
the
imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive
ourselves
enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were
into
his body, and become in some measure the same person with
him,
and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel
something
which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether
unlike
them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home to
ourselves,
when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin
at last
to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the
thought
of what he feels. For as to be in pain or distress of any
kind
excites the most excessive sorrow, so to conceive or to
imagine
that we are in it, excites some degree of the same
emotion,
in proportion to the vivacity or dulness of the
conception.
That this is the source of our
fellow-feeling for the misery
of
others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the
sufferer,
that we come either to conceive or to be affected by
what he
feels, may be demonstrated by many obvious observations,
if it
should not be thought sufficiently evident of itself. When
we see
a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm
of
another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg
or our
own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some
measure,
and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob,
when
they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally
writhe
and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him
do, and
as they feel that they themselves must do if in his
situation.
Persons of delicate fibres and a weak constitution of
body
complain, that in looking on the sores and ulcers which are
exposed
by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an
itching
or uneasy sensation in the correspondent part of their
own
bodies. The horror which they conceive at the misery of those
wretches
affects that particular part in themselves more than any
other;
because that horror arises from conceiving what they
themselves
would suffer, if they really were the wretches whom
they
are looking upon, and if that particular part in themselves
was
actually affected in the same miserable manner. The very
force
of this conception is sufficient, in their feeble frames,
to
produce that itching or uneasy sensation complained of. Men of
the
most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they
often
feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds
from
the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more
delicate,
than any other part of the body is in the weakest.
Neither is it those circumstances only,
which create pain or
sorrow,
that call forth our fellow-feeling. Whatever is the
passion
which arises from any object in the person principally
concerned,
an analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his
situation,
in the breast of every attentive spectator. Our joy
for the
deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who
interest
us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress, and
our
fellow-feeling with their misery is not more real than that
with
their happiness. We enter into their gratitude towards those
faithful
friends who did not desert them in their difficulties;
and we
heartily go along with their resentment against those
perfidious
traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived them. In
every
passion of which the mind of man is susceptible, the
emotions
of the by-stander always correspond to hat, by bringing
the
case home to himself, he imagines should be the sentiments of
the
sufferer.
Pity and compassion are words appropriated
to signify our
fellow-feeling
with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, though its
meaning
was, perhaps, originally the same, may now, however,
without
much impropriety, be made use of to denote our
fellow-feeling
with any passion whatever.
Upon some occasions sympathy may seen to
arise merely from
the
view of a certain emotion in another person. The passions,
upon
some occasions, may seem to be transfused from one man to
another,
instantaneously and antecedent to any knowledge of what
excited
them in the person principally concerned. Grief and joy,
for
example, strongly expressed in the look and gestures of any
one, at
once affect the spectator with some degree of a like
painful
or agreeable emotion. A smiling face is, to every body
that
sees it, a cheerful object; as a sorrowful countenance, on
the
other hand, is a melancholy one.
This, however, does not hold universally,
or with regard to
every
passion. There are some passions of which the expressions
excite
no sort of sympathy, but before we are acquainted with
what
gave occasion to them, serve rather to disgust and provoke
us
against them. The furious behaviour of an angry man is more
likely
to exasperate us against himself than against his enemies.
As we
are unacquainted with his provocation, we cannot bring his
case
home to ourselves, nor conceive any thing like the passions
which
it excites. But we plainly see what is the situation of
those
with whom he is angry, and to what violence they may be
exposed
from so enraged an adversary. We readily, therefore,
sympathize
with their fear or resentment, and are immediately
disposed
to take part against the man from whom they appear to be
in so
much danger.
If the very appearances of grief and joy
inspire us with some
degree
of the like emotions, it is because they suggest to us the
general
idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the
person
in whom we observe them: and in these passions this is
sufficient
to have some little influence upon us. The effects of
grief
and joy terminate in the person who feels those emotions,
of
which the expressions do not, like those of resentment,
suggest
to us the idea of any other person for whom we are
concerned,
and whose interests are opposite to his. The general
idea of
good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some concern for
the
person who has met with it, but the general idea of
provocation
excites no sympathy with the anger of the man who has
received
it. Nature, it seems, teaches us to be more averse to
enter
into this passion, and, till informed of its cause, to be
disposed
rather to take part against it.
Even our sympathy with the grief or joy of
another, before we
are
informed of the cause of either, is always extremely
imperfect.
General lamentations, which express nothing but the
anguish
of the sufferer, create rather a curiosity to inquire
into
his situation, along with some disposition to sympathize
with
him, than any actual sympathy that is very sensible. The
first
question which we ask is, What has befallen you? Till this
be
answered, though we are uneasy both from the vague idea of his
misfortune,
and still more from torturing ourselves with
conjectures
about what it may be, yet our fellow-feeling is not
very
considerable.
Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so
much from the view of
the passion,
as from that of the situation which excites it. We
sometimes
feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems
to be
altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his
case,
that passion arises in our breast from the imagination,
though
it does not in his from the reality. We blush for the
impudence
and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to
have no
sense of the impropriety of his own behaviour; because we
cannot
help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be
covered,
had we behaved in so absurd a manner.
Of all the calamities to which the
condition of mortality
exposes
mankind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have
the
least spark of humanity, by far the most dreadful, and they
behold
that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper
commiseration
than any other. But the poor wretch, who is in it,
laughs
and sings perhaps, and is altogether insensible of his own
misery.
The anguish which humanity feels, therefore, at the sight
of such
an object, cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of
the
sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must arise
altogether
from the consideration of what he himself would feel
if he
was reduced to the same unhappy situation, and, what
perhaps
is impossible, was at the same time able to regard it
with
his present reason and judgment.
What are the pangs of a mother, when she
hears the moanings
of her
infant that during the agony of disease cannot express
what it
feels? In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its
real
helplessness, her own consciousness of that helplessness,
and her
own terrors for the unknown consequences of its disorder;
and out
of all these, forms, for her own sorrow, the most
complete
image of misery and distress. The infant, however, feels
only
the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be
great.
With regard to the future, it is perfectly secure, and in
its
thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an antidote
against
fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human
breast,
from which reason and philosophy will, in vain, attempt
to
defend it, when it grows up to a man.
We sympathize even with the dead, and
overlooking what is of
real
importance in their situation, that awful futurity which
awaits
them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which
strike
our senses, but can have no influence upon their
happiness.
It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light
of the
sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid
in the
cold grave, a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the
earth;
to be no more thought of in this world, but to be
obliterated,
in a little time, from the affections, and almost
from
the memory, of their dearest friends and relations. Surely,
we
imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have
suffered
so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our
fellow-feeling
seems doubly due to them now, when they are in
danger
of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours
which
we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery,
artificially
to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their
misfortune.
That our sympathy can afford them no consolation
seems
to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all
we can
do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other
distress,
the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their
friends,
can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate
our
sense of their misery. The happiness of the dead, however,
most
assuredly, is affected by none of these circumstances; nor
is it
the thought of these things which can ever disturb the
profound
security of their repose. The idea of that dreary and
endless
melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their
condition,
arises altogether from our joining to the change which
has
been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that
change,
from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from
our
lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls
in
their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be
our
emotions in this case. It is from this very illusion of the
imagination,
that the foresight of our own dissolution is so
terrible
to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which
undoubtedly
can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us
miserable
while we are alive. And from thence arises one of the
most
important principles in human nature, the dread of death,
the
great poison to the happiness, but the great restraint upon
the
injustice of mankind, which, while it afflicts and mortifies
the
individual, guards and protects the society.
Chap.
II
Of the
Pleasure of mutual Sympathy
But whatever may be the cause of sympathy,
or however it may
be
excited, nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men
a
fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast; nor are
we ever
so much shocked as by the appearance of the contrary.
Those
who are fond of deducing all our sentiments from certain
refinements
of self-love, think themselves at no loss to account,
according
to their own principles, both for this pleasure and
this
pain. Man, say they, conscious of his own weakness, and of
the
need which he has for the assistance of others, rejoices
whenever
he observes that they adopt his own passions, because he
is then
assured of that assistance; and grieves whenever he
observes
the contrary, because he is then assured of their
opposition.
But both the pleasure and the pain are always felt so
instantaneously,
and often upon such frivolous occasions, that it
seems
evident that neither of them can be derived from any such
self-interested
consideration. A man is mortified when, after
having
endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and sees
that
nobody laughs at his jests but himself. On the contrary, the
mirth
of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards
this
correspondence of their sentiments with his own as the
greatest
applause.
Neither does his pleasure seem to arise
altogether from the
additional
vivacity which his mirth may receive from sympathy
with
theirs, nor his pain from the disappointment he meets with
when he
misses this pleasure; though both the one and the other,
no
doubt, do in some measure. When we have read a book or poem so
often
that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by
ourselves,
we can still take pleasure in reading it to a
companion.
To him it has all the graces of novelty; we enter into
the
surprise and admiration which it naturally excites in him,
but
which it is no longer capable of exciting in us; we consider
all the
ideas which it presents rather in the light in which they
appear
to him, than in that in which they appear to ourselves,
and we
are amused by sympathy with his amusement which thus
enlivens
our own. On the contrary, we should be vexed if he did
not
seem to be entertained with it, and we could no longer take
any
pleasure in reading it to him. It is the same case here. The
mirth
of the company, no doubt, enlivens our own mirth, and their
silence,
no doubt, disappoints us. But though this may contribute
both to
the pleasure which we derive from the one, and to the
pain
which we feel from the other, it is by no means the sole
cause
of either; and this correspondence of the sentiments of
others
with our own appears to be a cause of pleasure, and the
want of
it a cause of pain, which cannot be accounted for in this
manner.
The sympathy, which my friends express with my joy,
might,
indeed, give me pleasure by enlivening that joy: but that
which
they express with my grief could give me none, if it served
only to
enliven that grief. Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and
alleviates
grief. It enlivens joy by presenting another source of
satisfaction;
and it alleviates grief by insinuating into the
heart
almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that
time
capable of receiving.
It is to be observed accordingly, that we
are still more
anxious
to communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our
agreeable
passions, that we derive still more satisfaction from
their
sympathy with the former than from that with the latter,
and
that we are still more shocked by the want of it.
How are the unfortunate relieved when they
have found out a
person
to whom they can communicate the cause of their sorrow?
Upon
his sympathy they seem to disburthen themselves of a part of
their
distress: he is not improperly said to share it with them.
He not
only feels a sorrow of the same kind with that which they
feel,
but as if he had derived a part of it to himself, what he
feels
seems to alleviate the weight of what they feel. Yet by
relating
their misfortunes they in some measure renew their
grief.
They awaken in their memory the remembrance of those
circumstances
which occasioned their affliction. Their tears
accordingly
flow faster than before, and they are apt to abandon
themselves
to all the weakness of sorrow. They take pleasure,
however,
in all this, and, it is evident, are sensibly relieved
by it;
because the sweetness of his sympathy more than
compensates
the bitterness of that sorrow, which, in order to
excite
this sympathy, they had thus enlivened and renewed. The
cruelest
insult, on the contrary, which can be offered to the
unfortunate,
is to appear to make light of their calamities. To
seem
not to be affected with the joy of our companions is but
want of
politeness; but not to wear a serious countenance when
they
tell us their afflictions, is real and gross inhumanity.
Love is an agreeable; resentment, a disagreeable
passion; and
accordingly
we are not half so anxious that our friends should
adopt
our friendships, as that they should enter into our
resentments.
We can forgive them though they seem to be little
affected
with the favours which we may have received, but lose
all
patience if they seem indifferent about the injuries which
may
have been done to us: nor are we half so angry with them for
not
entering into our gratitude, as for not sympathizing with our
resentment.
They can easily avoid being friends to our friends,
but can
hardly avoid being enemies to those with whom we are at
variance.
We seldom resent their being at enmity with the first,
though
upon that account we may sometimes affect to make an
awkward
quarrel with them; but we quarrel with them in good
earnest
if they live in friendship with the last. The agreeable
passions
of love and joy can satisfy and support the heart
without
any auxiliary pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions
of
grief and resentment more strongly require the healing
consolation
of sympathy.
As the person who is principally
interested in any event is
pleased
with our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we,
too,
seem to be pleased when we are able to sympathize with him,
and to
be hurt when we are unable to do so. We run not only to
congratulate
the successful, but to condole with the afflicted;
and the
pleasure which we find in the conversation of one whom in
all the
passions of his heart we can entirely sympathize with,
seems
to do more than compensate the painfulness of that sorrow
with
which the view of his situation affects us. On the contrary,
it is
always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with
him,
and instead of being pleased with this exemption from
sympathetic
pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his
uneasiness.
If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes,
which,
however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we
feel,
can produce no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked
at his
grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it
pusillanimity
and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other
hand,
to see another too happy or too much elevated, as we call
it,
with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even
with his
joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it
levity
and folly. We are even put out of humour if our companion
laughs
louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves; that
is,
than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.
Chap.
III
Of the
manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety
of the
affections of other men, by their concord or dissonance
with
out own.
When the original passions of the person
principally
concerned
are in perfect concord with the sympathetic emotions of
the
spectator, they necessarily appear to this last just and
proper,
and suitable to their objects; and, on the contrary,
when,
upon bringing the case home to himself, he finds that they
do not
coincide with what he feels, they necessarily appear to
him
unjust and improper, and unsuitable to the causes which
excite
them. To approve of the passions of another, therefore, as
suitable
to their objects, is the same thing as to observe that
we
entirely sympathize with them; and not to approve of them as
such,
is the same thing as to observe that we do not entirely
sympathize
with them. The man who resents the injuries that have
been
done to me, and observes that I resent them precisely as he
does,
necessarily approves of my resentment. The man whose
sympathy
keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the
reasonableness
of my sorrow. He who admires the same poem, or the
same
picture, and admires them exactly as I do, must surely allow
the
justness of my admiration. He who laughs at the same joke,
and
laughs along with me, cannot well deny the propriety of my
laughter.
On the contrary, the person who, upon these different
occasions,
either feels no such emotion as that which I feel, or
feels
none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot avoid
disapproving
my sentiments on account of their dissonance with
his
own. If my animosity goes beyond what the indignation of my
friend
can correspond to; if my grief exceeds what his most
tender
compassion can go along with; if my admiration is either
too
high or too low to tally with his own; if I laugh loud and
heartily
when he only smiles, or, on the contrary, only smile
when he
laughs loud and heartily; in all these cases, as soon as
he
comes from considering the object, to observe how I am
affected
by it, according as there is more or less disproportion
between
his sentiments and mine, I must incur a greater or less
degree
of his disapprobation: and upon all occasions his own
sentiments
are the standards and measures by which he judges of
mine.
To approve of another man's opinions is to
adopt those
opinions,
and to adopt them is to approve of them. If the same
arguments
which convince you convince me likewise, I necessarily
approve
of your conviction; and if they do not, I necessarily
disapprove
of it: neither can I possibly conceive that I should
do the
one without the other. To approve or disapprove,
therefore,
of the opinions of others is acknowledged, by every
body,
to mean no more than to observe their agreement or
disagreement
with our own. But this is equally the case with
regard
to our approbation or disapprobation of the sentiments or
passions
of others.
There are, indeed, some cases in which we
seem to approve
without
any sympathy or correspondence of sentiments, and in
which,
consequently, the sentiment of approbation would seem to
be
different from the perception of this coincidence. A little
attention,
however, will convince us that even in these cases our
approbation
is ultimately founded upon a sympathy or
correspondence
of this kind. I shall give an instance in things
of a
very frivolous nature, because in them the judgments of
mankind
are less apt to be perverted by wrong systems. We may
often
approve of a jest, and think the laughter of the company
quite
just and proper, though we ourselves do not laugh, because,
perhaps,
we are in a grave humour, or happen to have our
attention
engaged with other objects. We have learned, however,
from
experience, what sort of pleasantry is upon most occasions
capable
of making us laugh, and we observe that this is one of
that
kind. We approve, therefore, of the laughter of the company,
and
feel that it is natural and suitable to its object; because,
though
in our present mood we cannot easily enter into it, we are
sensible
that upon most occasions we should very heartily join in
it.
The same thing often happens with regard
to all the other
passions.
A stranger passes by us in the street with all the
marks
of the deepest affliction; and we are immediately told that
he has
just received the news of the death of his father. It is
impossible
that, in this case, we should not approve of his
grief.
Yet it may often happen, without any defect of humanity on
our
part, that, so far from entering into the violence of his
sorrow,
we should scarce conceive the first movements of concern
upon
his account. Both he and his father, perhaps, are entirely
unknown
to us, or we happen to be employed about other things,
and do
not take time to picture out in our imagination the
different
circumstances of distress which must occur to him. We
have
learned, however, from experience, that such a misfortune
naturally
excites such a degree of sorrow, and we know that if we
took
time to consider his situation, fully and in all its parts,
we
should, without doubt, most sincerely sympathize with him. It
is upon
the consciousness of this conditional sympathy, that our
approbation
of his sorrow is founded, even in those cases in
which
that sympathy does not actually take place; and the general
rules
derived from our preceding experience of what our
sentiments
would commonly correspond with, correct upon this, as
upon
many other occasions, the impropriety of our present
emotions.
The sentiment or affection of the heart
from which any action
proceeds,
and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ultimately
depend,
may be considered under two different aspects, or in two
different
relations; first, in relation to the cause which
excites
it, or the motive which gives occasion to it; and
secondly,
in relation to the end which it proposes, or the effect
which
it tends to produce.
In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in
the proportion or
disproportion
which the affection seems to bear to the cause or
object
which excites it, consists the propriety or impropriety,
the
decency or ungracefulness of the consequent action.
In the beneficial or hurtful nature of the
effects which the
affection
aims at, or tends to produce, consists the merit or
demerit
of the action, the qualities by which it is entitled to
reward,
or is deserving of punishment.
Philosophers have, of late years,
considered chiefly the
tendency
of affections, and have given little attention to the
relation
which they stand in to the cause which excites them. In
common
life, however, when we judge of any person's conduct, and
of the
sentiments which directed it, we constantly consider them
under
both these aspects. When we blame in another man the
excesses
of love, of grief, of resentment, we not only consider
the
ruinous effects which they tend to produce, but the little
occasion
which was given for them. The merit of his favourite, we
say, is
not so great, his misfortune is not so dreadful, his
provocation
is not so extraordinary, as to justify so violent a
passion.
We should have indulged, we say; perhaps, have approved
of the
violence of his emotion, had the cause been in any respect
proportioned
to it.
When we judge in this manner of any
affection, as
proportioned
or disproportioned to the cause which excites it, it
is
scarce possible that we should make use of any other rule or
canon
but the correspondent affection in ourselves. If, upon
bringing
the case home to our own breast, we find that the
sentiments
which it gives occasion to, coincide and tally with
our
own, we necessarily approve of them as proportioned and
suitable
to their objects; if otherwise, we necessarily
disapprove
of them, as extravagant and out of proportion.
Every faculty in one man is the measure by
which he judges of
the
like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight,
of your
ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your
resentment
by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither
have,
nor can have, any other way of judging about them.
Chap.
IV
The
same subject continued
We may judge of the propriety or
impropriety of the
sentiments
of another person by their correspondence or
disagreement
with our own, upon two different occasions; either,
first,
when the objects which excite them are considered without
any
peculiar relation, either to ourselves or to the person whose
sentiments
we judge of; or, secondly, when they are considered as
peculiarly
affecting one or other of us.
1.
With regard to those objects which are considered without
any
peculiar relation either to ourselves or to the person whose
sentiments
we judge of; wherever his sentiments entirely
correspond
with our own, we ascribe to him the qualities of taste
and
good judgment. The beauty of a plain, the greatness of a
mountain,
the ornaments of a building, the expression of a
picture,
the composition of a discourse, the conduct of a third
person,
the proportions of different quantities and numbers, the
various
appearances which the great machine of the universe is
perpetually
exhibiting, with the secret wheels and springs which
product
them; all the general subjects of science and taste, are
what we
and our companion regard as having no peculiar relation
to
either of us. We both look at them from the same point of
view,
and we have no occasion for sympathy, or for that imaginary
change
of situations from which it arises, in order to produce,
with
regard to these, the most perfect harmony of sentiments and
affections.
If, notwithstanding, we are often differently
affected,
it arises either from the different degrees of
attention,
which our different habits of life allow us to give
easily
to the several parts of those complex objects, or from the
different
degrees of natural acuteness in the faculty of the mind
to
which they are addressed.
When the sentiments of our companion
coincide with our own in
things
of this kind, which are obvious and easy, and in which,
perhaps,
we never found a single person who differed from us,
though
we, no doubt, must approve of them, yet he seems to
deserve
no praise or admiration on account of them. But when they
not
only coincide with our own, but lead and direct our own; when
in
forming them he appears to have attended to many things which
we had
overlooked, and to have adjusted them to all the various
circumstances
of their objects; we not only approve of them, but
wonder
and are surprised at their uncommon and unexpected
acuteness
and comprehensiveness, and he appears to deserve a very
high
degree of admiration and applause. For approbation
heightened
by wonder and surprise, constitutes the sentiment
which
is properly called admiration, and of which applause is the
natural
expression. The decision of the man who judges that
exquisite
beauty is preferable to the grossest deformity, or that
twice
two are equal to four, must certainly be approved of by all
the
world, but will not, surely, be much admired. It is the acute
and
delicate discernment of the man of taste, who distinguishes
the
minute, and scarce perceptible differences of beauty and
deformity;
it is the comprehensive accuracy of the experienced
mathematician,
who unravels, with ease, the most intricate and
perplexed
proportions; it is the great leader in science and
taste,
the man who directs and conducts our own sentiments, the
extent
and superior justness of whose talents astonish us with
wonder
and surprise, who excites our admiration, and seems to
deserve
our applause: and upon this foundation is grounded the
greater
part of the praise which is bestowed upon what are called
the
intellectual virtues.
The utility of those qualities, it may be
thought, is what
first
recommends them to us; and, no doubt, the consideration of
this,
when we come to attend to it, gives them a new value.
Originally,
however, we approve of another man's judgment, not as
something
useful, but as right, as accurate, as agreeable to
truth
and reality: and it is evident we attribute those qualities
to it
for no other reason but because we find that it agrees with
our
own. Taste, in the same manner, is originally approved of,
not as
useful, but as just, as delicate, and as precisely suited
to its
object. The idea of the utility of all qualities of this
kind,
is plainly an after-thought, and not what first recommends
them to
our approbation.
2. With regard to those objects, which
affect in a particular
manner
either ourselves or the person whose sentiments we judge
of, it
is at once more difficult to preserve this harmony and
correspondence,
and at the same time, vastly more important. My
companion
does not naturally look upon the misfortune that has
befallen
me, or the injury that has been done me, from the same
point
of view in which I consider them. They affect me much more
nearly.
We do not view them from the same station, as we do a
picture,
or a poem, or a system of philosophy, and are,
therefore,
apt to be very differently affected by them. But I can
much
more easily overlook the want of this correspondence of
sentiments
with regard to such indifferent objects as concern
neither
me nor my companion, than with regard to what interests
me so
much as the misfortune that has befallen me, or the injury
that
has been done me. Though you despise that picture, or that
poem,
or even that system of philosophy, which I admire, there is
little
danger of our quarrelling upon that account. Neither of us
can
reasonably be much interested about them. They ought all of
them to
be matters of great indifference to us both; so that,
though
our opinions may be opposite, our affections may still be
very
nearly the same. But it is quite otherwise with regard to
those
objects by which either you or I are particularly affected.
Though
your judgments in matters of speculation, though your
sentiments
in matters of taste, are quite opposite to mine, I can
easily
overlook this opposition; and if I have any degree of
temper,
I may still find some entertainment in your conversation,
even
upon those very subjects. But if you have either no
fellow-feeling
for the misfortunes I have met with, or none that
bears
any proportion to the grief which distracts me; or if you
have
either no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or
none
that bears any proportion to the resentment which transports
me, we
can no longer converse upon these subjects. We become
intolerable
to one another. I can neither support your company,
nor you
mine. You are confounded at my violence and passion, and
I am enraged
at your cold insensibility and want of feeling.
In all such cases, that there may be some
correspondence of
sentiments
between the spectator and the person principally
concerned,
the spectator must, first of all, endeavour, as much
as he
can, to put himself in the situation of the other, and to
bring
home to himself every little circumstance of distress which
can
possibly occur to the sufferer. He must adopt the whole case
of his
companion with all its minutest incidents; and strive to
render
as perfect as possible, that imaginary change of situation
upon
which his sympathy is founded.
After all this, however, the emotions of
the spectator will
still
be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt
by the
sufferer. Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never
conceive,
for what has befallen another, that degree of passion
which
naturally animates the person principally concerned. That
imaginary
change of situation, upon which their sympathy is
founded,
is but momentary. The thought of their own safety, the
thought
that they themselves are not really the sufferers,
continually
intrudes itself upon them; and though it does not
hinder
them from conceiving a passion somewhat analogous to what
is felt
by the sufferer, hinders them from conceiving any thing
that
approaches to the same degree of violence. The person
principally
concerned is sensible of this, and at the same time
passionately
desires a more complete sympathy. He longs for that
relief
which nothing can afford him but the entire concord of the
affections
of the spectators with his own. To see the emotions of
their
hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the
violent
and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole
consolation.
But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his
passion
to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of
going
along with him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say
so, the
sharpness of its natural tone, in order to reduce it to
harmony
and concord with the emotions of those who are about him.
What
they feel, will, indeed, always be, in some respects,
different
from what he feels, and compassion can never be exactly
the
same with original sorrow; because the secret consciousness
that
the change of situations, from which the sympathetic
sentiment
arises, is but imaginary, not only lowers it in degree,
but, in
some measure, varies it in kind, and gives it a quite
different
modification. These two sentiments, however, may, it is
evident,
have such a correspondence with one another, as is
sufficient
for the harmony of society. Though they will never be
unisons,
they may be concords, and this is all that is wanted or
required.
In order to produce this concord, as
nature teaches the
spectators
to assume the circumstances of the person principally
concerned,
so she teaches this last in some measure to assume
those
of the spectators. As they are continually placing
themselves
in his situation, and thence conceiving emotions
similar
to what he feels; so he is as constantly placing himself
in
theirs, and thence conceiving some degree of that coolness
about
his own fortune, with which he is sensible that they will
view
it. As they are constantly considering what they themselves
would
feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is as
constantly
led to imagine in what manner he would be affected if
he was
only one of the spectators of his own situation. As their
sympathy
makes them look at it, in some measure, with his eyes,
so his
sympathy makes him look at it, in some measure, with
theirs,
especially when in their presence and acting under their
observation:
and as the reflected passion, which he thus
conceives,
is much weaker than the original one, it necessarily
abates
the violence of what he felt before he came into their
presence,
before he began to recollect in what manner they would
be
affected by it, and to view his situation in this candid and
impartial
light.
The mind, therefore, is rarely so
disturbed, but that the
company
of a friend will restore it to some degree of
tranquillity
and sedateness. The breast is, in some measure,
calmed
and composed the moment we come into his presence. We are
immediately
put in mind of the light in which he will view our
situation,
and we begin to view it ourselves in the same light;
for the
effect of sympathy is instantaneous. We expect less
sympathy
from a common acquaintance than from a friend: we cannot
open to
the former all those little circumstances which we can
unfold
to the latter: we assume, therefore, more tranquillity
before
him, and endeavour to fix our thoughts upon those general
outlines
of our situation which he is willing to consider. We
expect
still less sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we
assume,
therefore, still more tranquillity before them, and
always
endeavour to bring down our passion to that pitch, which
the
particular company we are in may be expected to go along
with.
Nor is this only an assumed appearance: for if we are at
all
masters of ourselves, the presence of a mere acquaintance
will
really compose us, still more than that of a friend; and
that of
an assembly of strangers still more than that of an
acquaintance.
Society and conversation, therefore, are
the most powerful
remedies
for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any
time,
it has unfortunately lost it; as well as the best
preservatives
of that equal and happy temper, which is so
necessary
to self-satisfaction and enjoyment. Men of retirement
and
speculation, who are apt to sit brooding at home over either
grief
or resentment, though they may often have more humanity,
more
generosity, and a nicer sense of honour, yet seldom possess
that
equality of temper which is so common among men of the
world.
Chap. V
Of the
amiable and respectable virtues
Upon these two different efforts, upon
that of the spectator
to
enter into the sentiments of the person principally concerned,
and
upon that of the person principally concerned, to bring down
his emotions
to what the spectator can go along with, are founded
two
different sets of virtues. The soft, the gentle, the amiable
virtues,
the virtues of candid condescension and indulgent
humanity,
are founded upon the one: the great, the awful and
respectable,
the virtues of self-denial, of self-government, of
that
command of the passions which subjects all the movements of
our
nature to what our own dignity and honour, and the propriety
of our
own conduct require, take their origin from the other.
How
amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart
seems
to reecho all the sentiments of those with whom he
converses,
who grieves for their calamities, who resents their
injuries,
and who rejoices at their good fortune! When we bring
home to
ourselves the situation of his companions, we enter into
their
gratitude, and feel what consolation they must derive from
the
tender sympathy of so affectionate a friend. And for a
contrary
reason, how disagreeable does he appear to be, whose
hard
and obdurate heart feels for himself only, but is altogether
insensible
to the happiness or misery of others! We enter, in
this
case too, into the pain which his presence must give to
every
mortal with whom he converses, to those especially with
whom we
are most apt to sympathize, the unfortunate and the
injured.
On the other hand, what noble propriety
and grace do we feel
in the
conduct of those who, in their own case, exert that
recollection
and self-command which constitute the dignity of
every passion,
and which bring it down to what others can enter
into!
We are disgusted with that clamorous grief, which, without
any
delicacy, calls upon our compassion with sighs and tears and
importunate
lamentations. But we reverence that reserved, that
silent
and majestic sorrow, which discovers itself only in the
swelling
of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks,
and in
the distant, but affecting, coldness of the whole
behaviour.
It imposes the like silence upon us. We regard it with
respectful
attention, and watch with anxious concern over our
whole
behaviour, lest by any impropriety we should disturb that
concerted
tranquillity, which it requires so great an effort to
support.
The insolence and brutality of anger, in
the same manner,
when we
indulge its fury without check or restraint, is, of all
objects,
the most detestable. But we admire that noble and
generous
resentment which governs its pursuit of the greatest
injuries,
not by the rage which they are apt to excite in the
breast
of the sufferer, but by the indignation which they
naturally
call forth in that of the impartial spectator; which
allows
no word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more
equitable
sentiment would dictate; which never, even in thought,
attempts
any greater vengeance, nor desires to inflict any
greater
punishment, than what every indifferent person would
rejoice
to see executed.
And hence it is, that to feel much for
others and little for
ourselves,
that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our
benevolent
affections, constitutes the perfection of human
nature;
and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of
sentiments
and passions in which consists their whole grace and
propriety.
As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the
great
law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature
to love
ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to
the
same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.
As taste and good judgment, when they are
considered as
qualities
which deserve praise and admiration, are supposed to
imply a
delicacy of sentiment and an acuteness of understanding
not
commonly to be met with; so the virtues of sensibility and
self-command
are not apprehended to consist in the ordinary, but
in the
uncommon degrees of those qualities. The amiable virtue of
humanity
requires, surely, a sensibility, much beyond what is
possessed
by the rude vulgar of mankind. The great and exalted
virtue
of magnanimity undoubtedly demands much more than that
degree
of self-command, which the weakest of mortals is capable
of
exerting. As in the common degree of the intellectual
qualities,
there is no abilities; so in the common degree of the
moral,
there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence, something
uncommonly
great and beautiful, which rises far above what is
vulgar
and ordinary. The amiable virtues consist in that degree
of
sensibility which surprises by its exquisite and unexpected
delicacy
and tenderness. The awful and respectable, in that
degree
of self-command which astonishes by its amazing
superiority
over the most ungovernable passions of human nature.
There is, in this respect, a considerable
difference between
virtue
and mere propriety; between those qualities and actions
which
deserve to be admired and celebrated, and those which
simply
deserve to be approved of. Upon many occasions, to act
with
the most perfect propriety, requires no more than that
common
and ordinary degree of sensibility or self-command which
the
most worthless of mankind are possest of, and sometimes even
that
degree is not necessary. Thus, to give a very low instance,
to eat
when we are hungry, is certainly, upon ordinary occasions,
perfectly
right and proper, and cannot miss being approved of as
such by
every body. Nothing, however, could be more absurd than
to say
it was virtuous.
On the contrary, there may frequently be a
considerable
degree
of virtue in those actions which fall short of the most
perfect
propriety; because they may still approach nearer to
perfection
than could well be expected upon occasions in which it
was so
extremely difficult to attain it: and this is very often
the
case upon those occasions which require the greatest
exertions
of self-command. There are some situations which bear
so hard
upon human nature, that the greatest degree of
self-government,
which can belong to so imperfect a creature as
man, is
not able to stifle, altogether, the voice of human
weakness,
or reduce the violence of the passions to that pitch of
moderation,
in which the impartial spectator can entirely enter
into
them. Though in those cases, therefore, the behaviour of the
sufferer
fall short of the most perfect propriety, it may still
deserve
some applause, and even in a certain sense, may be
denominated
virtuous. It may still manifest an effort of
generosity
and magnanimity of which the greater part of men are
incapable;
and though it fails of absolute perfection, it may be
a much
nearer approximation towards perfection, than what, upon
such
trying occasions, is commonly either to be found or to be
expected.
In cases of this kind, when we are
determining the degree of
blame
or applause which seems due to any action, we very
frequently
make use of two different standards. The first is the
idea of
complete propriety and perfection, which, in those
difficult
situations, no human conduct ever did, or ever can
come,
up to; and in comparison with which the actions of all men
must
for ever appear blameable and imperfect. The second is the
idea of
that degree of proximity or distance from this complete
perfection,
which the actions of the greater part of men commonly
arrive
at. Whatever goes beyond this degree, how far soever it
may be
removed from absolute perfection, seems to deserve
applause;
and whatever falls short of it, to deserve blame.
It is in the same manner that we judge of
the productions of
all the
arts which address themselves to the imagination. When a
critic
examines the work of any of the great masters in poetry or
painting,
he may sometimes examine it by an idea of perfection,
in his
own mind, which neither that nor any other human work will
ever
come up to; and as long as he compares it with this
standard,
he can see nothing in it but faults and imperfections.
But
when he comes to consider the rank which it ought to hold
among
other works of the same kind, he necessarily compares it
with a
very different standard, the common degree of excellence
which
is usually attained in this particular art; and when he
judges
of it by this new measure, it may often appear to deserve
the
highest applause, upon account of its approaching much nearer
to
perfection than the greater part of those works which can be
brought
into competition with it.
Section
II
Of the
Degrees of the different Passions which are consistent
with
Propriety
Introduction
The propriety of every passion excited by
objects peculiarly
related
to ourselves, the pitch which the spectator can go along
with,
must lie, it is evident, in a certain mediocrity. If the
passion
is too high, or if it is too low, he cannot enter into
it.
Grief and resentment for private misfortunes and injuries may
easily,
for example, be too high, and in the greater part of
mankind
they are so. They may likewise, though this more rarely
happens,
be too low. We denominate the excess, weakness and fury:
and we
call the defect stupidity, insensibility, and want of
spirit.
We can enter into neither of them, but are astonished and
confounded
to see them.
This mediocrity, however, in which the
point of propriety
consists,
is different in different passions. It is high in some,
and low
in others. There are some passions which it is indecent
to
express very strongly, even upon those occasions, in which it
is
acknowledged that we cannot avoid feeling them in the highest
degree.
And there are others of which the strongest expressions
are
upon many occasions extremely graceful, even though the
passions
themselves do not, perhaps, arise so necessarily. The
first
are those passions with which, for certain reasons, there
is
little or no sympathy: the second are those with which, for
other
reasons, there is the greatest. And if we consider all the
different
passions of human nature, we shall find that they are
regarded
as decent, or indecent, just in proportion as mankind
are
more or less disposed to sympathize with them.
Chap. I
Of the
Passions which take their origin from the body
1. It is indecent to express any strong
degree of those
passions
which arise from a certain situation or disposition of
the
body; because the company, not being in the same disposition,
cannot
be expected to sympathize with them. Violent hunger, for
example,
though upon many occasions not only natural, but
unavoidable,
is always indecent, and to eat voraciously is
universally
regarded as a piece of ill manners. There is,
however,
some degree of sympathy, even with hunger. It is
agreeable
to see our companions eat with a good appetite, and all
expressions
of loathing are offensive. The disposition of body
which
is habitual to a man in health, makes his stomach easily
keep
time, if I may be allowed so coarse an expression, with the
one,
and not with the other. We can sympathize with the distress
it in
the which excessive hunger occasions when we read the
description
of journal of a siege, or of a sea voyage. We imagine
ourselves
in the situation of the sufferers, and thence readily
conceive
the grief, the fear and consternation, which must
necessarily
distract them. We feel, ourselves, some degree of
those
passions, and therefore sympathize with them: but as we do
not
grow hungry by reading the description, we cannot properly,
even in
this case, be said to sympathize with their hunger.
It is the same case with the passion by
which Nature unites
the two
sexes. Though naturally the most furious of all the
passions,
all strong expressions of it are upon every occasion
indecent,
even between persons in whom its most complete
indulgence
is acknowledged by all laws, both human and divine, to
be
perfectly innocent. There seems, however, to be some degree of
sympathy
even with this passion. To talk to a woman as we would
to a
man is improper: it is expected that their company should
inspire
us with more gaiety, more pleasantry, and more attention;
and an
intire insensibility to the fair sex, renders a man
contemptible
in some measure even to the men.
Such is our aversion for all the appetites
which take their
origin
from the body: all strong expressions of them are
loathsome
and disagreeable. According to some ancient
philosophers,
these are the passions which we share in common
with
the brutes, and which having no connexion with the
characteristical
qualities of human nature, are upon that account
beneath
its dignity. But there are many other passions which we
share
in common with the brutes, such as resentment, natural
affection,
even gratitude, which do not, upon that account,
appear
to be so brutal. The true cause of the peculiar disgust
which
we conceive for the appetites of the body when we see them
in
other men, is that we cannot enter into them. To the person
himself
who feels them, as soon as they are gratified, the object
that
excited them ceases to be agreeable: even its presence often
becomes
offensive to him; he looks round to no purpose for the
charm
which transported him the moment before, and he can now as
little
enter into his own passion as another person. When we have
dined,
we order the covers to be removed; and we should treat in
the
same manner the objects of the most ardent and passionate
desires,
if they were the objects of no other passions but those
which
take their origin from the body.
In the command of those appetites of the
body consists that
virtue
which is properly called temperance. To restrain them
within
those bounds, which regard to health and fortune
prescribes,
is the part of prudence. But to confine them within
those
limits, which grace, which propriety, which delicacy, and
modesty
require, is the office of temperance.
2. It is for the same reason that to cry
out with bodily
pain,
how intolerable soever, appears always unmanly and
unbecoming.
There is, however, a good deal of sympathy even with
bodily
pain. If, as has already been observed, I see a stroke
aimed,
and just ready to fall upon the leg, or arm, of another
person,
I naturally shrink and draw back my own leg, or my own
arm:
and when it does fall, I feel it in some measure, and am
hurt by
it as well as the sufferer. My hurt, however, is, no
doubt,
excessively slight, and, upon that account, if he makes
any
violent out-cry, as I cannot go along with him, I never fail
to
despise him. And this is the case of all the passions which
take
their origin from the body: they excite either no sympathy
at all,
or such a degree of it, as is altogether disproportioned
to the
violence of what is felt by the sufferer.
It is quite otherwise with those passions
which take their
origin
from the imagination. The frame of my body can be but
little
affected by the alterations which are brought about upon
that of
my companion: but my imagination is more ductile, and
more
readily assumes, if I may say so, the shape and
configuration
of the imaginations of those with whom I am
familiar.
A disappointment in love, or ambition, will, upon this
account,
call forth more sympathy than the greatest bodily evil.
Those
passions arise altogether from the imagination. The person
who has
lost his whole fortune, if he is in health, feels nothing
in his
body. What he suffers is from the imagination only, which
represents
to him the loss of his dignity, neglect from his
friends,
contempt from his enemies, dependance, want, and misery,
coming
fast upon him; and we sympathize with him more strongly
upon
this account, because our imaginations can more readily
mould
themselves upon his imagination, than our bodies can mould
themselves
upon his body.
The loss of a leg may generally be
regarded as a more real
calamity
than the loss of a mistress. It would be a ridiculous
tragedy,
however, of which the catastrophe was to turn upon a
loss of
that kind. A misfortune of the other kind, how frivolous
soever
it may appear to be, has given occasion to many a fine
one.
Nothing is so soon forgot as pain. The
moment it is gone the
whole
agony of it is over, and the thought of it can no longer
give us
any sort of disturbance. We ourselves cannot then enter
into
the anxiety and anguish which we had before conceived. An
unguarded
word from a friend will occasion a more durable
uneasiness.
The agony which this creates is by no means over with
the
word. What at first disturbs us is not the object of the
senses,
but the idea of the imagination. As it is an idea,
therefore,
which occasions our uneasiness, till time and other
accidents
have in some measure effaced it from our memory, the
imagination
continues to fret and rankle within, from the thought
of it.
Pain never calls forth any very lively
sympathy unless it is
accompanied
with danger. We sympathize with the fear, though not
with
the agony of the sufferer. Fear, however, is a passion
derived
altogether from the imagination, which represents, with
an
uncertainty and fluctuation that increases our anxiety, not
what we
really feel, but what we may hereafter possibly suffer.
The
gout or the tooth-ach, though exquisitely painful, excite
very
little sympathy; more dangerous diseases, though accompanied
with
very little pain, excite the highest.
Some people faint and grow sick at the sight of a chirurgical
operation,
and that bodily pain which is occasioned by tearing
the
flesh, seems, in them, to excite the most excessive sympathy.
We
conceive in a much more lively and distinct manner the pain
which
proceeds from an external cause, than we do that which
arises
from an internal disorder. I can scarce form an idea of
the
agonies of my neighbour when he is tortured with the gout, or
the
stone; but I have the clearest conception of what he must
suffer
from an incision, a wound, or a fracture. The chief cause,
however,
why such objects produce such violent effects upon us,
is
their novelty. One who has been witness to a dozen
dissections,
and as many amputations, sees, ever after, all
operations
of this kind with great indifference, and often with
perfect
insensibility. Though we have read or seen represented
more
than five hundred tragedies, we shall seldom feel so entire
an
abatement of our sensibility to the objects which they
represent
to us.
In some of the Greek tragedies there is an
attempt to excite
compassion,
by the representation of the agonies of bodily pain.
Philoctetes
cries out and faints from the extremity of his
sufferings.
Hippolytus and Hercules are both introduced as
expiring
under the severest tortures, which, it seems, even the
fortitude
of Hercules was incapable of supporting. In all these
cases,
however, it is not the pain which interests us, but some
other
circumstances. It is not the sore foot, but the solitude,
of
Philoctetes which affects us, and diffuses over that charming
tragedy,
that romantic wildness, which is so agreeable to the
imagination.
The agonies of Hercules and Hippolytus are
interesting
only because we foresee that death is to be the
consequence.
If those heroes were to recover, we should think the
representation
of their sufferings perfectly ridiculous. What a
tragedy
would that be of which the distress consisted in a colic.
Yet no
pain is more exquisite. These attempts to excite
compassion
by the representation of bodily pain, may be regarded
as
among the greatest breaches of decorum of which the Greek
theatre
has set the example.
The little sympathy which we feel with
bodily pain is the
foundation
of the propriety of constancy and patience in enduring
it. The
man, who under the severest tortures allows no weakness
to
escape him, vents no groan, gives way to no passion which we
do not
entirely enter into, commands our highest admiration. His
firmness
enables him to keep time with our indifference and
insensibility.
We admire and entirely go along with the
magnanimous
effort which he makes for this purpose. We approve of
his
behaviour, and from our experience of the common weakness of
human
nature, we are surprised, and wonder how he should be able
to act
so as to deserve approbation. Approbation, mixed and
animated
by wonder and surprise, constitutes the sentiment which
is
properly called admiration, of which, applause is the natural
expression,
as has already been observed.
Chap.
II
Of
those Passions which take their origin from a particular turn
or
habit of the Imagination
Even of the passions derived from the
imagination, those
which
take their origin from a peculiar turn or habit it has
acquired,
though they may be acknowledged to be perfectly
natural,
are, however, but little sympathized with. The
imaginations
of mankind, not having acquired that particular
turn,
cannot enter into them; and such passions, though they may
be
allowed to be almost unavoidable in some part of life, are
always,
in some measure, ridiculous. This is the case with that
strong
attachment which naturally grows up between two persons of
different
sexes, who have long fixed their thoughts upon one
another.
Our imagination not having run in the same channel with
that of
the lover, we cannot enter into the eagerness of his
emotions.
If our friend has been injured, we readily sympathize
with
his resentment, and grow angry with the very person with
whom he
is angry. If he has received a benefit, we readily enter
into
his gratitude, and have a very high sense of the merit of
his
benefactor. But if he is in love, though we may think his
passion
just as reasonable as any of the kind, yet we never think
ourselves
bound to conceive a passion of the same kind, and for
the
same person for whom he has conceived it. The passion appears
to
every body, but the man who feels it, entirely disproportioned
to the
value of the object; and love, though it is pardoned in a
certain
age because we know it is natural, is always laughed at,
because
we cannot enter into it. All serious and strong
expressions
of it appear ridiculous to a third person; and though
a lover
may be good company to his mistress, he is so to nobody
else.
He himself is sensible of this; and as long as he continues
in his
sober senses, endeavours to treat his own passion with
raillery
and ridicule. It is the only style in which we care to
hear of
it; because it is the only style in which we ourselves
are
disposed to talk of it. We grow weary of the grave, pedantic,
and
long-sentenced love of Cowley and Petrarca, who never have
done
with exaggerating the violence of their attachments; but the
gaiety
of Ovid, and the gallantry of Horace, are always
agreeable.
But though we feel no proper sympathy with
an attachment of
this
kind, though we never approach even in imagination towards
conceiving
a passion for that particular person, yet as we either
have
conceived, or may be disposed to conceive, passions of the
same
kind, we readily enter into those high hopes of happiness
which
are proposed from its gratification, as well as into that
exquisite
distress which is feared from its disappointment. It
interests
us not as a passion, but as a situation that gives
occasion
to other passions which interest us; to hope, to fear,
and to
distress of every kind: in the same manner as in a
description
of a sea voyage, it is not the hunger which interests
us, but
the distress which that hunger occasions. Though we do
not
properly enter into the attachment of the lover, we readily
go
along with those expectations of romantic happiness which he
derives
from it. We feel how natural it is for the mind, in a
certain
situation, relaxed with indolence, and fatigued with the
violence
of desire, to long for serenity and quiet, to hope to
find
them in the gratification of that passion which distracts
it, and
to frame to itself the idea of that life of pastoral
tranquillity
and retirement which the elegant, the tender, and
the
passionate Tibullus takes so much pleasure in describing; a
life
like what the poets describe in the Fortunate Islands, a
life of
friendship, liberty, and repose; free from labour, and
from
care, and from all the turbulent passions which attend them.
Even
scenes of this kind interest us most, when they are painted
rather
as what is hoped, than as what is enjoyed. The grossness
of that
passion, which mixes with, and is, perhaps, the
foundation
of love, disappears when its gratification is far off
and at
a distance; but renders the whole offensive, when
described
as what is immediately possessed. The happy passion,
upon
this account, interests us much less than the fearful and
the
melancholy. We tremble for whatever can disappoint such
natural
and agreeable hopes: and thus enter into all the anxiety,
and
concern, and distress of the lover.
Hence it is, that, in some modern
tragedies and romances,
this
passion appears so wonderfully interesting. It is not so
much
the love of Castalio and Monimia which attaches us in the
Orphan,
as the distress which that love occasions. The author who
should
introduce two lovers, in a scene of perfect security,
expressing
their mutual fondness for one another, would excite
laughter,
and not sympathy. If a scene of this kind is ever
admitted
into a tragedy, it is always, in some measure, improper,
and is
endured, not from any sympathy with the passion that is
expressed
in it, but from concern for the dangers and
difficulties
with which the audience foresee that its
gratification
is likely to be attended.
The reserve which the laws of society
impose upon the fair
sex,
with regard to this weakness, renders it more peculiarly
distressful
in them, and, upon that very account, more deeply
interesting.
We are charmed with the love of Phaedra, as it is
expressed
in the French tragedy of that name, notwithstanding all
the
extravagance and guilt which attend it. That very
extravagance
and guilt may be said, in some measure, to recommend
it to
us. Her fear, her shame, her remorse, her horror, her
despair,
become thereby more natural and interesting. All the
secondary
passions, if I may be allowed to call them so, which
arise
from the situation of love, become necessarily more furious
and
violent; and it is with these secondary passions only that we
can
properly be said to sympathize.
Of all the passions, however, which are so
extravagantly
disproportioned
to the value of their objects, love is the only
one
that appears, even to the weakest minds, to have any thing in
it that
is either graceful or agreeable. In itself, first of all,
though
it may be ridiculous, it is not naturally odious; and
though
its consequences are often fatal and dreadful, its
intentions
are seldom mischievous. And then, though there is
little
propriety in the passion itself, there is a good deal in
some of
those which always accompany it. There is in love a
strong
mixture of humanity, generosity, kindness, friendship,
esteem;
passions with which, of all others, for reasons which
shall
be explained immediately, we have the greatest propensity
to
sympathize, even notwithstanding we are sensible that they
are, in
some measure, excessive. The sympathy which we feel with
them,
renders the passion which they accompany less disagreeable,
and
supports it in our imagination, notwithstanding all the vices
which
commonly go along with it; though in the one sex it
necessarily
leads to the last ruin and infamy; and though in the
other,
where it is apprehended to be least fatal, it is almost
always
attended with an incapacity for labour, a neglect of duty,
a
contempt of fame, and even of common reputation.
Notwithstanding
all this, the degree of sensibility and
generosity
with which it is supposed to be accompanied, renders
it to
many the object of vanity. and they are fond of appearing
capable
of feeling what would do them no honour if they had
really
felt it.
It is for a reason of the same kind, that
a certain reserve
is
necessary when we talk of our own friends, our own studies,
our own
professions. All these are objects which we cannot expect
should
interest our companions in the same degree in which they
interest
us. And it is for want of this reserve, that the one
half of
mankind make bad company to the other. A philosopher is
company
to a philosopher, only. the member of a club, to his own
little
knot of companions.
Chap.
III
Of the
unsocial Passions
There is another set of passions, which,
though derived from
the imagination,
yet before we can enter into them, or regard
them as
graceful or becoming, must always be brought down to a
pitch
much lower than that to which undisciplined nature would
raise
them. These are, hatred and resentment, with all their
different
modifications. With regard to all such passions, our
sympathy
is divided between the person who feels them, and the
person
who is the object of them. The interests of these two are
directly
opposite. What our sympathy with the person who feels
them
would prompt us to wish for, our fellow-feeling with the
other
would lead us to fear. As they are both men, we are
concerned
for both, and our fear for what the one may suffer,
damps
our resentment for what the other has suffered. Our
sympathy,
therefore, with the man who has received the
provocation,
necessarily falls short of the passion which
naturally
animates him, not only upon account of those general
causes
which render all sympathetic passions inferior to the
original
ones, but upon account of that particular cause which is
peculiar
to itself, our opposite sympathy with another person.
Before
resentment, therefore, can become graceful and agreeable,
it must
be more humbled and brought down below that pitch to
which
it would naturally rise, than almost any other passion.
Mankind, at the same time, have a very
strong sense of the
injuries
that are done to another. The villain, in a tragedy or
romance,
is as much the object of our indignation, as the hero is
that of
our sympathy and affection. We detest Iago as much as we
esteem
Othello; and delight as much in the punishment of the one,
as we
are grieved at the distress of the other. But though
mankind
have so strong a fellow-feeling with the injuries that
are
done to their brethren, they do not always resent them the
more
that the sufferer appears to resent them. Upon most
occasions,
the greater his patience, his mildness, his humanity,
provided
it does not appear that he wants spirit, or that fear
was the
motive of his forbearance, the higher their resentment
against
the person who injured him. The amiableness of the
character
exasperates their sense of the atrocity of the injury.
Those passions, however, are regarded as
necessary parts of
the
character of human nature. A person becomes contemptible who
tamely
sits still, and submits to insults, without attempting
either
to repel or to revenge them. We cannot enter into his
indifference
and insensibility. we call his behaviour
mean-spiritedness,
and are as really provoked by it as by the
insolence
of his adversary. Even the mob are enraged to see any
man
submit patiently to affronts and ill usage. They desire to
see
this insolence resented, and resented by the person who
suffers
from it. They cry to him with fury, to defend, or to
revenge
himself. If his indignation rouses at last, they heartily
applaud,
and sympathize with it. It enlivens their own
indignation
against his enemy, whom they rejoice to see him
attack
in his turn, and are as really gratified by his revenge,
provided
it is not immoderate, as if the injury had been done to
themselves.
But though the utility of those passions
to the individual,
by
rendering it dangerous to insult or injure him, be
acknowledged;
and though their utility to the public, as the
guardians
of justice, and of the equality of its administration,
be not
less considerable, as shall be shewn hereafter; yet there
is
still something disagreeable in the passions themselves, which
makes
the appearance of them in other men the natural object of
our
aversion. The expression of anger towards any body present,
if it
exceeds a bare intimation that we are sensible of his ill
usage,
is regarded not only as an insult to that particular
person,
but as a rudeness to the whole company. Respect for them
ought
to have restrained us from giving way to so boisterous and
offensive
an emotion. It is the remote effects of these passions
which
are agreeable; the immediate effects are mischief to the
person
against whom they are directed. But it is the immediate,
and not
the remote effects of objects which render them agreeable
or
disagreeable to the imagination. A prison is certainly more
useful
to the public than a palace; and the person who founds the
one is
generally directed by a much juster spirit of patriotism,
than he
who builds the other. But the immediate effects of a
prison,
the confinement of the wretches shut up in it, are
disagreeable;
and the imagination either does not take time to
trace
out the remote ones, or sees them at too great a distance
to be
much affected by them. A prison, therefore, will always be
a
disagreeable object; and the fitter it is for the purpose for
which
it was intended, it will be the more so. A palace, on the
contrary,
will always be agreeable; yet its remote effects may
often
be inconvenient to the public. It may serve to promote
luxury,
and set the example of the dissolution of manners. Its
immediate
effects, however, the conveniency, the pleasure, and
the
gaiety of the people who live in it, being all agreeable, and
suggesting
to the imagination a thousand agreeable ideas, that
faculty
generally rests upon them, and seldom goes further in
tracing
its more distant consequences. Trophies of the
instruments
of music or of agriculture, imitated in painting or
in
stucco, make a common and an agreeable ornament of our halls
and
dining-rooms. A trophy of the same kind, composed of the
instruments
of surgery, of dissecting and amputation-knives, of
saws
for cutting the bones, of trepanning instruments, etc. would
be
absurd and shocking. Instruments of surgery, however, are
always
more finely polished, and generally more nicely adapted to
the
purposes for which they are intended, than instruments of
agriculture.
The remote effects of them too, the health of the
patient,
is agreeable; yet as the immediate effect of them is
pain
and suffering, the sight of them always displeases us.
Instruments
of war are agreeable, though their immediate effect
may
seem to be in the same manner pain and suffering. But then it
is the
pain and suffering of our enemies, with whom we have no
sympathy.
With regard to us, they are immediately connected with
the
agreeable ideas of courage, victory, and honour. They are
themselves,
therefore, supposed to make one of the noblest parts
of
dress, and the imitation of them one of the finest ornaments
of
architecture. It is the same case with the qualities of the
mind.
The ancient stoics were of opinion, that as the world was
governed
by the all-ruling providence of a wise, powerful, and
good
God, every single event ought to be regarded, as making a
necessary
part of the plan of the universe, and as tending to
promote
the general order and happiness of the whole: that the
vices
and follies of mankind, therefore, made as necessary a part
of this
plan as their wisdom or their virtue; and by that eternal
art
which educes good from ill, were made to tend equally to the
prosperity
and perfection of the great system of nature. No
speculation
of this kind, however, how deeply soever it might be
rooted
in the mind, could diminish our natural abhorrence for
vice,
whose immediate effects are so destructive, and whose
remote
ones are too distant to be traced by the imagination.
It is the same case with those passions we
have been just now
considering.
Their immediate effects are so disagreeable, that
even
when they are most justly provoked, there is still something
about
them which disgusts us. These, therefore, are the only
passions
of which the expressions, as I formerly observed, do not
dispose
and prepare us to sympathize with them, before we are
informed
of the cause which excites them. The plaintive voice of
misery,
when heard at a distance, will not allow us to be
indifferent
about the person from whom it comes. As soon as it
strikes
our ear, it interests us in his fortune, and, if
continued,
forces us almost involuntarily to fly to his
assistance.
The sight of a smiling countenance, in the same
manner,
elevates even the pensive into that gay and airy mood,
which
disposes him to sympathize with, and share the joy which it
expresses;
and he feels his heart, which with thought and care
was
before that shrunk and depressed, instantly expanded and
elated.
But it is quite otherwise with the expressions of hatred
and
resentment. The hoarse, boisterous, and discordant voice of
anger,
when heard at a distance, inspires us either with fear or
aversion.
We do not fly towards it, as to one who cries out with
pain
and agony. Women, and men of weak nerves, tremble and are
overcome
with fear, though sensible that themselves are not the
objects
of the anger. They conceive fear, however, by putting
themselves
in the situation of the person who is so. Even those
of
stouter hearts are disturbed; not indeed enough to make them
afraid,
but enough to make them angry; for anger is the passion
which
they would feel in the situation of the other person. It is
the
same case with hatred. Mere expressions of spite inspire it
against
nobody, but the man who uses them. Both these passions
are by
nature the objects of our aversion. Their disagreeable and
boisterous
appearance never excites, never prepares, and often
disturbs
our sympathy. Grief does not more powerfully engage and
attract
us to the person in whom we observe it, than these, while
we are
ignorant of their cause, disgust and detach us from him.
It was,
it seems, the intention of Nature, that those rougher and
more
unamiable emotions, which drive men from one another, should
be less
easily and more rarely communicated.
When music imitates the modulations of
grief or joy, it
either
actually inspires us with those passions, or at least puts
us in
the mood which disposes us to conceive them. But when it
imitates
the notes of anger, it inspires us with fear. Joy,
grief,
love, admiration, devotion, are all of them passions which
are
naturally musical. Their natural tones are all soft, clear,
and
melodious; and they naturally express themselves in periods
which
are distinguished by regular pauses, and which upon that
account
are easily adapted to the regular returns of the
correspondent
airs of a tune. The voice of anger, on the
contrary,
and of all the passions which are akin to it, is harsh
and
discordant. Its periods too are all irregular, sometimes very
long,
and sometimes very short, and distinguished by no regular
pauses.
It is with difficulty, therefore, that music can imitate
any of
those passions; and the music which does imitate them is
not the
most agreeable. A whole entertainment may consist,
without
any impropriety, of the imitation of the social and
agreeable
passions. It would be a strange entertainment which
consisted
altogether of the imitations of hatred and resentment.
If those passions are disagreeable to the
spectator, they are
not
less so to the person who feels them. Hatred and anger are
the
greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind. There is, in
the
very feeling of those passions, something harsh, jarring, and
convulsive,
something that tears and distracts the breast, and is
altogether
destructive of that composure and tranquillity of mind
which
is so necessary to happiness, and which is best promoted by
the
contrary passions of gratitude and love. It is not the value
of what
they lose by the perfidy and ingratitude of those they
live
with, which the generous and humane are most apt to regret.
Whatever
they may have lost, they can generally be very happy
without
it. What most disturbs them is the idea of perfidy and
ingratitude
exercised towards themselves; and the discordant and
disagreeable
passions which this excites, constitute, in their
own
opinion, the chief part of the injury which they suffer.
How many things are requisite to render
the gratification of
resentment
completely agreeable, and to make the spectator
thoroughly
sympathize with our revenge? The provocation must
first
of all be such that we should become contemptible, and be
exposed
to perpetual insults, if we did not, in some measure,
resent
it. Smaller offences are always better neglected; nor is
there
any thing more despicable than that froward and captious
humour
which takes fire upon every slight occasion of quarrel. We
should
resent more from a sense of the propriety of resentment,
from a
sense that mankind expect and require it of us, than
because
we feel in ourselves the furies of that disagreeable
passion.
There is no passion, of which the human mind is capable,
concerning
whose justness we ought to be so doubtful, concerning
whose
indulgence we ought so carefully to consult our natural
sense
of propriety, or so diligently to consider what will be the
sentiments
of the cool and impartial spectator. Magnanimity, or a
regard
to maintain our own rank and dignity in society, is the
only
motive which can ennoble the expressions of this
disagreeable
passion. This motive must characterize our whole
stile
and deportment. These must be plain, open, and direct;
determined
without positiveness, and elevated without insolence;
not
only free from petulance and low scurrility, but generous,
candid,
and full of all proper regards, even for the person who
has
offended us. It must appear, in short, from our whole manner,
without
our labouring affectedly to express it, that passion has
not
extinguished our humanity; and that if we yield to the
dictates
of revenge, it is with reluctance, from necessity, and
in
consequence of great and repeated provocations. When
resentment
is guarded and qualified in this manner, it may be
admitted
to be even generous and noble.
Chap.
IV
Of the
social Passions
As it is a divided sympathy which renders
the whole set of
passions
just now mentioned, upon most occasions, so ungraceful
and
disagreeable; so there is another set opposite to these,
which a
redoubled sympathy renders almost always peculiarly
agreeable
and becoming. Generosity, humanity, kindness,
compassion,
mutual friendship and esteem, all the social and
benevolent
affections, when expressed in the countenance or
behaviour,
even towards those who are not peculiarly connected
with
ourselves, please the indifferent spectator upon almost
every
occasion. His sympathy with the person who feels those
passions,
exactly coincides with his concern for the person who
is the
object of them. The interest, which, as a man, he is
obliged
to take in the happiness of this last, enlivens his
fellow-feeling
with the sentiments of the other, whose emotions
are
employed about the same object. We have always, therefore,
the
strongest disposition to sympathize with the benevolent
affections.
They appear in every respect agreeable to us. We
enter
into the satisfaction both of the person who feels them,
and of
the person who is the object of them. For as to be the
object
of hatred and indignation gives more pain than all the
evil
which a brave man can fear from his enemies; so there is a
satisfaction
in the consciousness of being beloved, which, to a
person
of delicacy and sensibility, is of more importance to
happiness,
than all the advantage which he can expect to derive
from
it. What character is so detestable as that of one who takes
pleasure
to sow dissension among friends, and to turn their most
tender
love into mortal hatred? Yet wherein does the atrocity of
this so
much abhorred injury consist? Is it in depriving them of
the
frivolous good offices, which, had their friendship
continued,
they might have expected from one another? It is in
depriving
them of that friendship itself, in robbing them of each
other's
affections, from which both derived so much satisfaction;
it is
in disturbing the harmony of their hearts, and putting an
end to
that happy commerce which had before subsisted between
them.
These affections, that harmony, this commerce, are felt,
not
only by the tender and the delicate, but by the rudest vulgar
of
mankind, to be of more importance to happiness than all the
little
services which could be expected to flow from them.
The sentiment of love is, in itself,
agreeable to the person
who
feels it. It sooths and composes the breast, seems to favour
the
vital motions, and to promote the healthful state of the
human
constitution; and it is rendered still more delightful by
the
consciousness of the gratitude and satisfaction which it must
excite
in him who is the object of it. Their mutual regard
renders
them happy in one another, and sympathy, with this mutual
regard,
makes them agreeable to every other person. With what
pleasure
do we look upon a family, through the whole of which
reign
mutual love and esteem, where the parents and children are
companions
for one another, without any other difference than
what is
made by respectful affection on the one side, and kind
indulgence
on the other. where freedom and fondness, mutual
raillery
and mutual kindness, show that no opposition of interest
divides
the brothers, nor any rivalship of favour sets the
sisters
at variance, and where every thing presents us with the
idea of
peace, cheerfulness, harmony, and contentment? On the
contrary,
how uneasy are we made when we go into a house in which
jarring
contention sets one half of those who dwell in it against
the
other; where amidst affected smoothness and complaisance,
suspicious
looks and sudden starts of passion betray the mutual
jealousies
which burn within them, and which are every moment
ready
to burst out through all the restraints which the presence
of the
company imposes?
Those amiable passions, even when they are
acknowledged to be
excessive,
are never regarded with aversion. There is something
agreeable
even in the weakness of friendship and humanity. The
too
tender mother, the too indulgent father, the too generous and
affectionate
friend, may sometimes, perhaps, on account of the
softness
of their natures, be looked upon with a species of pity,
in
which, however, there is a mixture of love, but can never be
regarded
with hatred and aversion, nor even with contempt, unless
by the
most brutal and worthless of mankind. It is always with
concern,
with sympathy and kindness, that we blame them for the
extravagance
of their attachment. There is a helplessness in the
character
of extreme humanity which more than any thing interests
our
pity. There is nothing in itself which renders it either
ungraceful
or disagreeable. We only regret that it is unfit for
the
world, because the world is unworthy of it, and because it
must
expose the person who is endowed with it as a prey to the
perfidy
and ingratitude of insinuating falsehood, and to a
thousand
pains and uneasinesses, which, of all men, he the least
deserves
to feel, and which generally too he is, of all men, the
least
capable of supporting. It is quite otherwise with hatred
and
resentment. Too violent a propensity to those detestable
passions,
renders a person the object of universal dread and
abhorrence,
who, like a wild beast, ought, we think, to be hunted
out of
all civil society.
Chap. V
Of the
selfish Passions
Besides those two opposite sets of
passions, the social and
unsocial,
there is another which holds a sort of middle place
between
them; is never either so graceful as is sometimes the one
set,
nor is ever so odious as is sometimes the other. Grief and
joy,
when conceived upon account of our own private good or bad
fortune,
constitute this third set of passions. Even when
excessive,
they are never so disagreeable as excessive
resentment,
because no opposite sympathy can ever interest us
against
them: and when most suitable to their objects, they are
never
so agreeable as impartial humanity and just benevolence;
because
no double sympathy can ever interest us for them. There
is,
however, this difference between grief and joy, that we are
generally
most disposed to sympathize with small joys and great
sorrows.
The man who, by some sudden revolution of fortune, is
lifted
up all at once into a condition of life, greatly above
what he
had formerly lived in, may be assured that the
congratulations
of his best friends are not all of them perfectly
sincere.
An upstart, though of the greatest merit, is generally
disagreeable,
and a sentiment of envy commonly prevents us from
heartily
sympathizing with his joy. If he has any judgment, he is
sensible
of this, and instead of appearing to be elated with his
good
fortune, he endeavours, as much as he can, to smother his
joy,
and keep down that elevation of mind with which his new
circumstances
naturally inspire him. He affects the same
plainness
of dress, and the same modesty of behaviour, which
became
him in his former station. He redoubles his attention to
his old
friends, and endeavours more than ever to be humble,
assiduous,
and complaisant. And this is the behaviour which in
his
situation we most approve of; because we expect, it seems,
that he
should have more sympathy with our envy and aversion to
his
happiness, than we have with his happiness. It is seldom that
with
all this he succeeds. We suspect the sincerity of his
humility,
and he grows weary of this constraint. In a little
time,
therefore, he generally leaves all his old friends behind
him,
some of the meanest of them excepted, who may, perhaps,
condescend
to become his dependents: nor does he always acquire
any new
ones; the pride of his new connections is as much
affronted
at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had
been by
his becoming their superior: and it requires the most
obstinate
and persevering modesty to atone for this mortification
to
either. He generally grows weary too soon, and is provoked, by
the
sullen and suspicious pride of the one, and by the saucy
contempt
of the other, to treat the first with neglect, and the
second
with petulance, till at last he grows habitually insolent,
and
forfeits the esteem of all. If the chief part of human
happiness
arises from the consciousness of being beloved, as I
believe
it does, those sudden changes of fortune seldom
contribute
much to happiness. He is happiest who advances more
gradually
to greatness, whom the public destines to every step of
his
preferment long before he arrives at it, in whom, upon that
account,
when it comes, it can excite no extravagant joy, and
with
regard to whom it cannot reasonably create either any
jealousy
in those he overtakes, or any envy in those he leaves
behind.
Mankind, however, more readily sympathize
with those smaller
joys
which flow from less important causes. It is decent to be
humble
amidst great prosperity; but we can scarce express too
much
satisfaction in all the little occurrences of common life,
in the
company with which we spent the evening last night, in the
entertainment
that was set before us, in what was said and what
was
done, in all the little incidents of the present
conversation,
and in all those frivolous nothings which fill up
the
void of human life. Nothing is more graceful than habitual
cheerfulness,
which is always founded upon a peculiar relish for
all the
little pleasures which common occurrences afford. We
readily
sympathize with it: it inspires us with the same joy, and
makes
every trifle turn up to us in the same agreeable aspect in
which
it presents itself to the person endowed with this happy
disposition.
Hence it is that youth, the season of gaiety, so
easily
engages our affections. That propensity to joy which seems
even to
animate the bloom, and to sparkle from the eyes of youth
and
beauty, though in a person of the same sex, exalts, even the
aged,
to a more joyous mood than ordinary. They forget, for a
time,
their infirmities, and abandon themselves to those
agreeable
ideas and emotions to which they have long been
strangers,
but which, when the presence of so much happiness
recalls
them to their breast, take their place there, like old
acquaintance,
from whom they are sorry to have ever been parted,
and
whom they embrace more heartily upon account of this long
separation.
It is quite otherwise with grief. Small
vexations excite no
sympathy,
but deep affliction calls forth the greatest. The man
who is
made uneasy by every little disagreeable incident, who is
hurt if
either the cook or the butler have failed in the least
article
of their duty, who feels every defect in the highest
ceremonial
of politeness, whether it be shewn to himself or to
any
other person, who takes it amiss that his intimate friend did
not bid
him good-morrow when they met in the forenoon, and that
his
brother hummed a tune all the time he himself was telling a
story;
who is put out of humour by the badness of the weather
when in
the country, by the badness of the roads when upon a
journey,
and by the want of company, and dulness of all public
diversions
when in town; such a person, I say, though he should
have
some reason, will seldom meet with much sympathy. Joy is a
pleasant
emotion, and we gladly abandon ourselves to it upon the
slightest
occasion. We readily, therefore, sympathize with it in
others,
whenever we are not prejudiced by envy. But grief is
painful,
and the mind, even when it is our own misfortune,
naturally
resists and recoils from it. We would endeavour either
not to
conceive it at all, or to shake it off as soon as we have
conceived
it. Our aversion to grief will not, indeed, always
hinder
us from conceiving it in our own case upon very trifling
occasions,
but it constantly prevents us from sympathizing with
it in
others when excited by the like frivolous causes: for our
sympathetic
passions are always less irresistible than our
original
ones. There is, besides, a malice in mankind, which not
only
prevents all sympathy with little uneasinesses, but renders
them in
some measure diverting. Hence the delight which we all
take in
raillery, and in the small vexation which we observe in
our
companion, when he is pushed, and urged, and teased upon all
sides.
Men of the most ordinary good-breeding dissemble the pain
which
any little incident may give them; and those who are more
thoroughly
formed to society, turn, of their own accord, all such
incidents
into raillery, as they know their companions will do
for
them. The habit which a man, who lives in the world, has
acquired
of considering how every thing that concerns himself
will
appear to others, makes those frivolous calamities turn up
in the
same ridiculous light to him, in which he knows they will
certainly
be considered by them.
Our sympathy, on the contrary, with deep
distress, is very
strong
and very sincere. It is unnecessary to give an instance.
We weep
even at the feigned representation of a tragedy. If you
labour,
therefore, under any signal calamity, if by some
extraordinary
misfortune you are fallen into poverty, into
diseases,
into disgrace and disappointment; even though your own
fault
may have been, in part, the occasion, yet you may generally
depend
upon the sincerest sympathy of all your friends, and, as
far as
interest and honour will permit, upon their kindest
assistance
too. But if your misfortune is not of this dreadful
kind,
if you have only been a little baulked in your ambition, if
you
have only been jilted by your mistress, or are only
hen-pecked
by your wife, lay your account with the raillery of
all your
acquaintance.
Section
III
Of the
Effects of Prosperity and Adversity upon the Judgment of
Mankind
with regard to the Propriety of Action; and why it is
more
easy to obtain their Aprobation in the one state than in the
other
Chap. I
That
though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a more lively
sensation
than our sympathy with joy, it commonly falls much more
short
of the violence of what is naturally felt by the person
principally
concerned
Our sympathy with sorrow, though not more
real, has been more
taken
notice of than our sympathy with joy. The word sympathy, in
its
most proper and primitive signification, denotes our
fellow-feeling
with the sufferings, not that with the enjoyments,
of
others. A late ingenious and subtile philosopher thought it
necessary
to prove, by arguments, that we had a real sympathy
with
joy, and that congratulation was a principle of human
nature.
Nobody, I believe, ever thought it necessary to prove
that
compassion was such.
First of all, our sympathy with sorrow is,
in some sense,
more
universal than that with joy. Though sorrow is excessive, we
may
still have some fellow-feeling with it. What we feel does
not,
indeed, in this case, amount to that complete sympathy, to
that
perfect harmony and correspondence of sentiments which
constitutes
approbation. We do not weep, and exclaim, and lament,
with
the sufferer. We are sensible, on the contrary, of his weak
ness
and of the extravagance of his passion, and yet often feel a
very
sensible concern upon his account. But if we do not entirely
enter
into, and go along with, the joy of another, we have no
sort of
regard or fellow-feeling for it. The man who skips and
dances
about with that intemperate and senseless joy which we
cannot
accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and
indignation.
Pain besides, whether of mind or body, is
a more pungent
sensation
than pleasure, and our sympathy with pain, though it
falls
greatly short of what is naturally felt by the sufferer, is
generally
a more lively and distinct perception than our sympathy
with
pleasure, though this last often approaches more nearly, as
I shall
shew immediately, to the natural vivacity of the original
passion.
Over and above all this, we often struggle
to keep down our
sympathy
with the sorrow of others. Whenever we are not under the
observation
of the sufferer, we endeavour, for our own sake, to
suppress
it as much as we can, and we are not always successful.
The
opposition which we make to it, and the reluctance with which
we
yield to it, necessarily oblige us to take more particular
notice
of it. But we never have occasion to make this opposition
to our
sympathy with joy. If there is any envy in the case, we
never
feel the least propensity towards it; and if there is none,
we give
way to it without any reluctance. On the contrary, as we
are
always ashamed of our own envy, we often pretend, and
sometimes
really wish to sympathize with the joy of others, when
by that
disagreeable sentiment we are disqualified from doing so.
We are
glad, we say on account of our neighbour's good fortune,
when in
our hearts, perhaps, we are really sorry. We often feel a
sympathy
with sorrow when we would wish to be rid of it; and we
often
miss that with joy when we would be glad to have it. The
obvious
observation, therefore, which it naturally falls in our
way to
make, is, that our propensity to sympathize with sorrow
must be
very strong, and our inclination to sympathize with joy
very
weak.
Notwithstanding this prejudice, however, I
will venture to
affirm,
that, when there is no envy in the case, our propensity
to
sympathize with joy is much stronger than our propensity to
sympathize
with sorrow; and that our fellow-feeling for the
agreeable
emotion approaches much more nearly to the vivacity of
what is
naturally felt by the persons principally concerned, than
that
which we conceive for the painful one.
We have some indulgence for that excessive
grief which we
cannot
entirely go along with. We know what a prodigious effort
is
requisite before the sufferer can bring down his emotions. to
complete
harmony and concord with those of the spectator. Though
he
fails, therefore, we easily pardon him. But we have no such
indulgence
for the intemperance of joy; because we are not
conscious
that any such vast effort is requisite to bring it down
to what
we can entirely enter into. The man who, under the
greatest
calamities, can command his sorrow, seems worthy of the
highest
admiration; but he who, in the fulness of prosperity, can
in the
same manner master his joy, seems hardly to deserve any
praise.
We are sensible that there is a much wider interval in
the one
case than in the other, between what is naturally felt by
the
person principally concerned, and what the spectator can
entirely
go along with.
What can he added to the happiness of the
man who is in
health,
who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience? To one in
this
situation, all accessions of fortune may properly be said to
be
superfluous; and if he is much elevated upon account of them,
it must
be the effect of the most frivolous levity. This
situation,
however, may very well be called the natural and
ordinary
state of mankind. Notwithstanding the present misery and
depravity
of the world, so justly lamented, this really is the
state
of the greater part of men. The greater part of men,
therefore,
cannot find any great difficulty in elevating
themselves
to all the joy which any accession to this situation
can
well excite in their companion.
But though little can be added to this
state, much may be
taken
from it. Though between this condition and the highest
pitch
of human prosperity, the interval is but a trifle; between
it and
the lowest depth of misery the distance is immense and
prodigious.
Adversity, on this account, necessarily depresses the
mind of
the sufferer much more below its natural state, than
prosperity
can elevate him above it. The spectator therefore,
must
find it much more difficult to sympathize entirely, and keep
perfect
time, with his sorrow, than thoroughly to enter into his
joy,
and must depart much further from his own natural and
ordinary
temper of mind in the one case than in the other. It is
on this
account, that though our sympathy with sorrow is often a
more
pungent sensation than our sympathy with joy, it always
falls
much more short of the violence of what is naturally felt
by the
person principally concerned.
It is agreeable to sympathize with, joy;
and wherever envy
does
not oppose it, our heart abandons itself with satisfaction
to the
highest transports of that delightful sentiment. But it is
painful
to go along with grief, and we always enter into it with
reluctance.(*)
When we attend to the representation of a tragedy,
we
struggle against that sympathetic sorrow which the
entertainment
inspires as long as we can, and we give way to it
at last
only when we can no longer avoid it: we even then
endeavour
to cover our concern from the company. If we shed any
tears,
we carefully conceal them, and are afraid, lest the
spectators,
not entering into this excessive tenderness, should
regard
it as effeminacy and weakness. The wretch whose
misfortunes
call upon our compassion feels with what reluctance
we are
likely to enter into his sorrow, and therefore proposes
his
grief to us with fear and hesitation: he even smothers the
half of
it, and is ashamed, upon account of this hard-heartedness
of
mankind, to give vent to the fulness of his affliction. It is
otherwise
with the man who riots in joy and success. Wherever
envy
does not interest us against him, he expects our completest
sympathy.
He does not fear, therefore, to announce himself with
shouts
of exultation, in full confidence that we are heartily
disposed
to go along with him.
Why should we be more ashamed to weep than
to laugh before
company?
We may often have as real occasion to do the one as to
do the
other. but we always feel that the spectators are more
likely
to go along with us in the agreeable, than in the painful
emotion.
It is always miserable to complain, even when we are
oppressed
by the most dreadful calamities. But the triumph of
victory
is not always ungraceful. Prudence, indeed, would often
advise
us to bear our prosperity with more moderation; because
prudence
would teach us to avoid that envy which this very
triumph
is, more than any thing, apt to excite.
How hearty are the acclamations of the
mob, who never bear
any
envy to their superiors, at a triumph or a public entry? And
how
sedate and moderate is commonly their grief at an execution?
Our
sorrow at a funeral generally amounts to no more than an
affected
gravity. but our mirth at a christening or a marriage,
is
always from the heart, and without any affectation. Upon
these,
and all such joyous occasions, our satisfaction, though
not so
durable, is often as lively as that of the persons
principally
concerned. Whenever we cordially congratulate our
friends,
which, however, to the disgrace of human nature, we do
but
seldom, their joy literally becomes our joy. we are, for the
moment,
as happy as they are: our heart swells and overflows with
real
pleasure: joy and complacency sparkle from our eyes, and
animate
every feature of our countenance, and every gesture of
our
body.
But, on the contrary, when we condole with
our friends in
their
afflictions, how little do we feel, in comparison of what
they
feel? We sit down by them, we look at them, and while they
relate
to us the circumstances of their misfortune, we listen to
them
with gravity and attention. But while their narration is
every
moment interrupted by those natural bursts of passion which
often
seem almost to choak them in the midst of it; how far are
the
languid emotions of our hearts from keeping time to the
transports
of theirs? We may be sensible, at the same time, that
their
passion is natural, and no greater than what we ourselves
might
feel upon the like occasion. We may even inwardly reproach
ourselves
with our own want of sensibility, and perhaps, on that
account,
work ourselves up into an artificial sympathy, which,
however,
when it is raised, is always the slightest and most
transitory
imaginable; and generally, as soon as we have left the
room,
vanishes, and is gone for ever. Nature, it seems, when she
loaded
us with our own sorrows, thought that they were enough,
and
therefore did not command us to take any further share in
those
of others, than what was necessary to prompt us to relieve
them.
It is on account of this dull sensibility
to the afflictions
of
others, that magnanimity amidst great distress appears always
so
divinely graceful. His behaviour is genteel and agreeable who
can
maintain his cheerfulness amidst a number of frivolous
disasters.
But he appears to be more than mortal who can support
in the
same manner the most dreadful calamities. We feel what an
immense
effort is requisite to silence those violent emotions
which
naturally agitate and distract those in his situation. We
are
amazed to find that he can command himself so entirely. His
firmness,
at the same time, perfectly coincides with our
insensibility.
He makes no demand upon us for that more exquisite
degree
of sensibility which we find, and which we are mortified
to
find, that we do not possess. There is the most perfect
correspondence
between his sentiments and ours, and on that
account
the most perfect propriety in his behaviour. It is a
propriety
too, which, from our experience of the usual weakness
of
human nature, we could not reasonably have expected he should
be able
to maintain. We wonder with surprise and astonishment at
that
strength of mind which is capable of so noble and generous
an
effort. The sentiment of complete sympathy and approbation,
mixed
and animated with wonder and surprise, constitutes what is
properly
called admiration, as has already been more than once
taken
notice of Cato, surrounded on all sides by his enemies,
unable
to resist them, disdaining to submit to them, and reduced,
by the
proud maxims of that age, to the necessity of destroying
himself;
yet never shrinking from his misfortunes, never
supplicating
with the lamentable voice of wretchedness, those
miserable
sympathetic tears which we are always so unwilling to
give;
but on the contrary, arming himself with manly fortitude,
and the
moment before he executes his fatal resolution, giving,
with
his usual tranquillity, all necessary orders for the safety
of his
friends; appears to Seneca, that great preacher of
insensibility,
a spectacle which even the gods themselves might
behold
with pleasure and admiration.
Whenever we meet, in common life, with any
examples of such
heroic
magnanimity, we are always extremely affected. We are more
apt to
weep and shed tears for such as, in this manner, seem to
feel
nothing for them. and in selves, than for those who give way
to all
the weakness of sorrow: this particular case, the
sympathetic
grief of the spectator appears to go beyond the
original
passion in the person principally concerned. The friends
of
Socrates all wept when he drank the last potion, while he
himself
expressed the gayest and most cheerful tranquillity. Upon
all
such occasions the spectator makes no effort, and has no
occasion
to make any, in order to conquer his sympathetic sorrow.
He is
under no fear that it will transport him to any thing that
is
extravagant and improper; he is rather pleased with the
sensibility
of his own heart, and gives way to it with
complacence
and self-approbation. He gladly indulges, therefore,
the
most melancholy views which can naturally occur to him,
concerning
the calamity of his friend, for whom, perhaps, he
never
felt so exquisitely before, the tender and tearful passion
of
love. But it is quite otherwise with the person principally
concerned.
He is obliged, as much as possible, to turn away his
eyes
from whatever is either naturally terrible or disagreeable
in his
situation. Too serious an attention to those
circumstances,
he fears, might make so violent an impression upon
him,
that he could no longer keep within the bounds of
moderation,
or render himself the object of the complete sympathy
and
approbation of the spectators. He fixes his thoughts,
therefore,
upon those only which are agreeable, the applause and
admiration
which he is about to deserve by the heroic magnanimity
of his
behaviour. To feel that he is capable of so noble and
generous
an effort, to feel that in this dreadful situation he
can
still act as he would desire to act, animates and transports
him
with joy, and enables him to support that triumphant gaiety
which
seems to exult in the victory he thus gains over his
misfortunes.
On the contrary, he always appears, in
some measure, mean and
despicable,
who is sunk in sorrow and dejection upon account of
any
calamity of his own. We cannot bring ourselves to feel for
him
what he feels for himself, and what, perhaps, we should feel
for
ourselves if in his situation: we, therefore, despise him;
unjustly,
perhaps, if any sentiment could be regarded as unjust,
to
which we are by nature irresistibly determined. The weakness
of
sorrow never appears in any respect agreeable, except when it
arises
from what we feel for others more than from what we feel
for
ourselves. A son, upon the death of an indulgent and
respectable
father, may give way to it without much blame. His
sorrow
is chiefly founded upon a sort of sympathy with his
departed
parent and we readily enter into this humane emotion.
But if
he should indulge the same weakness upon account of any
misfortune
which affected himself only, he would no longer meet
with
any such indulgence. If he should be reduced to beggary and
ruin,
if he should be exposed to the most dreadful dangers, if he
should
even be led out to a public execution, and there shed one
single
tear upon the scaffold, he would disgrace himself for ever
in the
opinion of all the gallant and generous part of mankind.
Their
compassion for him, however, would be very strong, and very
sincere;
but as it would still fall short of this excessive
weakness,
they would have no pardon for the man who could thus
expose
himself in the eyes of the world. His behaviour would
affect
them with shame rather than with sorrow; and the dishonour
which
he had thus brought upon himself would appear to them the
most
lamentable circumstance in his misfortune. How did it
disgrace
the memory of the intrepid Duke of Biron, who had so
often
braved death in the field, that he wept upon the scaffold,
when he
beheld the state to which he was fallen, and remembered
the
favour and the glory from which his own rashness had so
unfortunately
thrown him!
Chap.
II
Of the
origin of Ambition, and of the distinction of Ranks
It is because mankind are disposed to
sympathize more
entirely
with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade
of our
riches, and conceal our poverty. Nothing is so mortifying
as to
be obliged to expose our distress to the view of the
public,
and to feel, that though our situation is open to the
eyes of
all mankind, no mortal conceives for us the half of what
we
suffer. Nay, it is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments
of
mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty. For to what
purpose
is all the toil and bustle of this world? what is the end
of
avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power, and
preheminence?
Is it to supply the necessities of nature? The
wages
of the meanest labourer can supply them. We see that they
afford
him food and clothing, the comfort of a house, and of a
family.
If we examined his oeconomy with rigour, we should find
that he
spends a great part of them upon conveniencies, which may
be
regarded as superfluities, and that, upon extraordinary
occasions,
he can give something even to vanity and distinction.
What
then is the cause of our aversion to his situation, and why
should
those who have been educated in the higher ranks of life,
regard
it as worse than death, to be reduced to live, even
without
labour, upon the same simple fare with him, to dwell
under
the same lowly roof, and to be clothed in the same humble.
attire?
Do they imagine that their stomach is better, or their
sleep
sounder in a palace than in a cottage? The contrary has
been so
often observed, and, indeed, is so very obvious, though
it had
never been observed, that there is nobody ignorant of it.
From
whence, then, arises that emulation which runs through all
the
different ranks of men, and what are the advantages which we
propose
by that great purpose of human life which we call
bettering
our condition? To be observed, to be attended to, to be
taken
notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are
all the
advantages which we can propose to derive from it. It is
the
vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which interests us.
But
vanity is always founded upon the belief of our being the
object
of attention and approbation. The rich man glories in his
riches,
because he feels that they naturally draw upon him the
attention
of the world, and that mankind are disposed to go along
with
him in all those agreeable emotions with which the
advantages
of his situation so readily inspire him. At the
thought
of this, his heart seems to swell and dilate itself
within
him, and he is fonder of his wealth, upon this account,
than
for all the other advantages it procures him. The poor man,
on the
contrary, is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it
either
places him out of the sight of mankind, or, that if they
take
any notice of him, they have, however, scarce any
fellow-feeling
with the misery and distress which he suffers. He
is
mortified upon both accounts. for though to be overlooked, and
to be
disapproved of, are things entirely different, yet as
obscurity
covers us from the daylight of honour and approbation,
to feel
that we are taken no notice of, necessarily damps the
most
agreeable hope, and disappoints the most ardent desire, of
human
nature. The poor man goes out and comes in unheeded, and
when in
the midst of a crowd is in the same obscurity as if shut
up in
his own hovel. Those humble cares and painful attentions
which
occupy those in his situation, afford no amusement to the
dissipated
and the gay. They turn away their eyes from him, or if
the
extremity of his distress forces them to look at him, it is
only to
spurn so disagreeable an object from among them. The
fortunate
and the proud wonder at the insolence of human
wretchedness,
that it should dare to present itself before them,
and
with the loathsome aspect of its misery presume to disturb
the
serenity of their happiness. The man of rank and distinction,
on the
contrary, is observed by all the world. Every body is
eager
to look at him, and to conceive, at least by sympathy, that
joy and
exultation with which his circumstances naturally inspire
him.
His actions are the objects of the public care. Scarce a
word,
scarce a gesture, can fall from him that is altogether
neglected.
In a great assembly he is the person upon whom all
direct
their eyes; it is upon him that their passions seem all to
wait
with expectation, in order to receive that movement and
direction
which he shall impress upon them; and if his behaviour
is not
altogether absurd, he has, every moment, an opportunity of
interesting
mankind, and of rendering himself the object of the
observation
and fellow-feeling of every body about him. It is
this,
which, notwithstanding the restraint it imposes,
notwithstanding
the loss of liberty with which it is attended,
renders
greatness the object of envy, and compensates, in the
opinion
of all those mortifications which must mankind, all that
toil,
all that anxiety, be undergone in the pursuit of it; and
what is
of yet more consequence, all that leisure, all that ease,
all
that careless security, which are forfeited for ever by the
acquisition.
When we consider the condition of the
great, in those
delusive
colours in which the imagination is apt to paint it. it
seems
to be almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy
state.
It is the very state which, in all our waking dreams and
idle
reveries, we had sketched out to ourselves as the final
object
of all our desires. We feel, therefore, a peculiar
sympathy
with the satisfaction of those who are in it. We favour
all
their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. What pity,
we
think, that any thing should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a
situation!
We could even wish them immortal; and it seems hard to
us,
that death should at last put an end to such perfect
enjoyment.
It is cruel, we think, in Nature to compel them from
their
exalted stations to that humble, but hospitable home, which
she has
provided for all her children. Great King, live for ever!
is the
compliment, which, after the manner of eastern adulation,
we
should readily make them, if experience did not teach us its
absurdity.
Every calamity that befals them, every injury that is
done
them, excites in the breast of the spectator ten times more
compassion
and resentment than he would have felt, had the same
things
happened to other men. It is the misfortunes of Kings only
which
afford the proper subjects for tragedy. They resemble, in
this
respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those two situations are
the
chief which interest us upon the theatre; because, in spite
of all
that reason and experience can tell us to the contrary,
the
prejudices of the imagination attach to these two states a
happiness
superior to any other. To disturb, or to put an end to
such
perfect enjoyment, seems to be the most atrocious of all
injuries.
The traitor who conspires against the life of his
monarch,
is thought a greater monster than any other murderer.
All the
innocent blood that was shed in the civil wars, provoked
less
indignation than the death of Charles I. A stranger to human
nature,
who saw the indifference of men about the misery of their
inferiors,
and the regret and indignation which they feel for the
misfortunes
and sufferings of those above them, would be apt to
imagine,
that pain must be more agonizing, and the convulsions of
death
more terrible to persons of higher rank, than to those of
meaner
stations.
Upon this disposition of mankind, to go
along with all the
passions
of the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction
of
ranks, and the order of society. Our obsequiousness to our
superiors
more frequently arises from our admiration for the
advantages
of their situation, than from any private expectations
of
benefit from their good-will. Their benefits can extend but to
a few.
but their fortunes interest almost every body. We are
eager
to assist them in completing a system of happiness that
approaches
so near to perfection; and we desire to serve them for
their
own sake, without any other recompense but the vanity or
the
honour of obliging them. Neither is our deference to their
inclinations
founded chiefly, or altogether, upon a regard to the
utility
of such submission, and to the order of society, which is
best
supported by it. Even when the order of society seems to
require
that we should oppose them, we can hardly bring ourselves
to do
it. That kings are the servants of the people, to be
obeyed,
resisted, deposed, or punished, as the public conveniency
may
require, is the doctrine of reason and philosophy; but it is
not the
doctrine of Nature. Nature would teach us to submit to
them
for their own sake, to tremble and bow down before their
exalted
station, to regard their smile as a reward sufficient to
compensate
any services, and to dread their displeasure, though
no
other evil were to follow from it, as the severest of all
mortifications.
To treat them in any respect as men, to reason
and
dispute with them upon ordinary occasions, requires such
resolution,
that there are few men whose magnanimity can support
them in
it, unless they are likewise assisted by familiarity and
acquaintance.
The strongest motives, the most furious passions,
fear,
hatred, and resentment, are scarce sufficient to balance
this
natural disposition to respect them: and their conduct must,
either
justly or unjustly, have excited the highest degree of all
those
passions, before the bulk of the people can be brought to
oppose
them with violence, or to desire to see them either
punished
or deposed. Even when the people have been brought this
length,
they are apt to relent every moment, and easily relapse
into
their habitual state of deference to those whom they have
been
accustomed to look upon as their natural superiors. They
cannot
stand the mortification of their monarch. Compassion soon
takes
the place of resentment, they forget all past provocations,
their
old principles of loyalty revive, and they run to
re-establish
the ruined authority of their old masters, with the
same
violence with which they had opposed it. The death of
Charles
I brought about the Restoration of the royal family.
Compassion
for James II when he was seized by the populace in
making
his escape on ship-board, had almost prevented the
Revolution,
and made it go on more heavily than before.
Do the great seem insensible of the easy
price at which they
may
acquire the public admiration; or do they seem to imagine
that to
them, as to other men, it must be the purchase either of
sweat
or of blood? By what important accomplishments is the young
nobleman
instructed to support the dignity of his rank, and to
render
himself worthy of that superiority over his
fellow-citizens,
to which the virtue of his ancestors had raised
them?
Is it by knowledge, by industry, by patience, by
self-denial,
or by virtue of any kind? As all his words, as all
his
motions are attended to, he learns an habitual regard to
every
circumstance of ordinary behaviour, and studies to perform
all
those small duties with the most exact propriety. As he is
conscious
how much he is observed, and how much mankind are
disposed
to favour all his inclinations, he acts, upon the most
indifferent
occasions, with that freedom and elevation which the
thought
of this naturally inspires. His air, his manner, his
deportment,
all mark that elegant and graceful sense of his own
superiority,
which those who are born to inferior stations can
hardly
ever arrive at. These are the arts by which he proposes to
make
mankind more easily submit to his authority, and to govern
their
inclinations according to his own pleasure: and in this he
is
seldom disappointed. These arts, supported by rank and
preheminence,
are, upon ordinary occasions, sufficient to govern
the
world. Lewis XIV during the greater part of his reign, was
regarded,
not only in France, but over all Europe, as the most
perfect
model of a great prince. But what were the talents and
virtues
by which he acquired this great reputation? Was it by the
scrupulous
and inflexible justice of all his undertakings, by the
immense
dangers and difficulties with which they were attended,
or by
the unwearied and unrelenting application with which he
pursued
them? Was it by his extensive knowledge, by his exquisite
judgment,
or by his heroic valour? It was by none of these
qualities.
But he was, first of all, the most powerful prince in
Europe,
and consequently held the highest rank among kings; and
then,
says his historian, 'he surpassed all his courtiers in the
gracefulness
of his shape, and the majestic beauty of his
features.
The sound of his voice, noble and affecting, gained
those
hearts which his presence intimidated. He had a step and a
deportment
which could suit only him and his rank, and which
would
have been ridiculous in any other person. The embarrassment
which
he occasioned to those who spoke to him, flattered that
secret
satisfaction with which he felt his own superiority. The
old
officer, who was confounded and faultered in asking him a
favour,
and not being able to conclude his discourse, said to
him:
Sir, your majesty, I hope, will believe that I do not
tremble
thus before your enemies: had no difficulty to obtain
what he
demanded.' These frivolous accomplishments, supported by
his
rank, and, no doubt too, by a degree of other talents and
virtues,
which seems, however, not to have been much above
mediocrity,
established this prince in the esteem of his own age,
and
have drawn, even from posterity, a good deal of respect for
his
memory. Compared with these, in his own times, and in his own
presence,
no other virtue, it seems, appeared to have any merit.
Knowledge,
industry, valour, and beneficence, trembled, were
abashed,
and lost all dignity before them.
But it is not by accomplishments of this
kind, that the man
of
inferior rank must hope to distinguish himself. Politeness is
so much
the virtue of the great, that it will do little honour to
any
body but themselves. The coxcomb, who imitates their manner,
and
affects to be eminent by the superior propriety of his
ordinary
behaviour, is rewarded with a double share of contempt
for his
folly and presumption. Why should the man, whom nobody
thinks
it worth while to look at, be very anxious about the
manner
in which he holds up his head, or disposes of his arms
while
he walks through a room? He is occupied surely with a very
superfluous
attention, and with an attention too that marks a
sense
of his own importance, which no other mortal can go along
with.
The most perfect modesty and plainness, joined to as much
negligence
as is consistent with the respect due to the company,
ought
to be the chief characteristics of the behaviour of a
private
man. If ever he hopes to distinguish himself, it must be
by more
important virtues. He must acquire dependants to balance
the
dependants of the great, and he has no other fund to pay them
from, but
the labour of his body, and the activity of his mind.
He must
cultivate these therefore: he must acquire superior
knowledge
in his profession, and superior industry in the
exercise
of it. He must be patient in labour, resolute in danger,
and
firm in distress. These talents he must bring into public
view,
by the difficulty, importance, and, at the same time, good
judgment
of his undertakings, and by the severe and unrelenting
application
with which he pursues them. Probity and prudence,
generosity
and frankness, must characterize his behaviour upon
all
ordinary occasions; and he must, at the same time, be forward
to
engage in all those situations, in which it requires the
greatest
talents and virtues to act with propriety, but in which
the greatest
applause is to be acquired by those who can acquit
themselves
with honour. With what impatience does the man of
spirit
and ambition, who is depressed by his situation, look
round
for some great opportunity to distinguish himself? No
circumstances,
which can afford this, appear to him undesirable.
He even
looks forward with satisfaction to the prospect of
foreign
war, or civil dissension; and, with secret transport and
delight,
sees through all the confusion and bloodshed which
attend
them, the probability of those wished-for occasions
presenting
themselves, in which he may draw upon himself the
attention
and admiration of mankind. The man of rank and
distinction,
on the contrary, whose whole glory consists in the
propriety
of his ordinary behaviour, who is contented with the
humble
renown which this can afford him, and has no talents to
acquire
any other, is unwilling to embarrass himself with what
can be
attended either with difficulty or distress. To figure at
a ball
is his great triumph, and to succeed in an intrigue of
gallantry,
his highest exploit. He has an aversion to all public
confusions,
not from the love of mankind, for the great never
look
upon their inferiors as their fellow-creatures; nor yet from
want of
courage, for in that he is seldom defective; but from a
consciousness
that he possesses none of the virtues which are
required
in such situations, and that the public attention will
certainly
be drawn away from him by others. He may be willing to
expose
himself to some little danger, and to make a campaign when
it
happens to be the fashion. But he shudders with horror at the
thought
of any situation which demands the continual and long
exertion
of patience, industry, fortitude, and application of
thought.
These virtues are hardly ever to be met with in men who
are
born to those high stations. In all governments accordingly,
even in
monarchies, the highest offices are generally possessed,
and the
whole detail of the administration conducted, by men who
were
educated in the middle and inferior ranks of life, who have
been
carried forward by their own industry and abilities, though
loaded
with the jealousy, and opposed by the resentment, of all
those
who were born their superiors, and to whom the great, after
having
regarded them first with contempt, and afterwards with
envy,
are at last contented to truckle with the same abject
meanness
with which they desire that the rest of mankind should
behave
to themselves.
It is the loss of this easy empire over the
affections of
mankind
which renders the fall from greatness so insupportable.
When
the family of the king of Macedon was led in triumph by
Paulus
Aemilius, their misfortunes, it is said, made them divide
with
their conqueror the attention of the Roman people. The sight
of the
royal children, whose tender age rendered them insensible
of
their situation, struck the spectators, amidst the public
rejoicings
and prosperity, with the tenderest sorrow and
compassion.
The king appeared next in the procession; and seemed
like
one confounded and astonished, and bereft of all sentiment,
by the
greatness of his calamities. His friends and ministers
followed
after him. As they moved along, they often cast their
eyes
upon their fallen sovereign, and always burst into tears at
the
sight; their whole behaviour demonstrating that they thought
not of
their own misfortunes, but were occupied entirely by the
superior
greatness of his. The generous Romans, on the contrary,
beheld
him with disdain and indignation, and regarded as unworthy
of all
compassion the man who could be so mean-spirited as to
bear to
live under such calamities. Yet what did those calamities
amount
to? According to the greater part of historians, he was to
spend
the remainder of his days, under the protection of a
powerful
and humane people, in a state which in itself should
seem
worthy of envy, a state of plenty, ease, leisure, and
security,
from which it was impossible for him even by his own
folly
to fall. But he was no longer to be surrounded by that
admiring
mob of fools, flatterers, and dependants, who had
formerly
been accustomed to attend upon all his motions. He was
no
longer to be gazed upon by multitudes, nor to have it in his
power
to render himself the object of their respect, their
gratitude,
their love, their admiration. The passions of nations
were no
longer to mould themselves upon his inclinations. This
was
that insupportable calamity which bereaved the king of all
sentiment;
which made his friends forget their own misfortunes;
and
which the Roman magnanimity could scarce conceive how any man
could
be so mean-spirited as to bear to survive.
'Love,' says my Lord Rochfaucault, 'is
commonly succeeded by
ambition;
but ambition is hardly ever succeeded by love.' That
passion,
when once it has got entire possession of the breast,
will
admit neither a rival nor a successor. To those who have
been
accustomed to the possession, or even to the hope of public
admiration,
all other pleasures sicken and decay. Of all the
discarded
statesmen who for their own ease have studied to get
the
better of ambition, and to despise those honours which they
could
no longer arrive at, how few have been able to succeed? The
greater
part have spent their time in the most listless and
insipid
indolence, chagrined at the thoughts of their own
insignificancy,
incapable of being interested i n the occupations
of
private life, without enjoyment, except when they talked of
their
former greatness, and without satisfaction, except when
they
were employed in some vain project to recover it. Are you in
earnest
resolved never to barter your liberty for the lordly
servitude
of a court, but to live free, fearless, and
independent?
There seems to be one way to continue in that
virtuous
resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place
from
whence so few have been able to return; never come within
the
circle of ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison
with
those masters of the earth who have already engrossed the
attention
of half mankind before you.
Of such mighty importance does it appear
to be, in the
imaginations
of men, to stand in that situation which sets them
most in
the view of general sympathy and attention. And thus,
place,
that great object which divides the wives of aldermen, is
the end
of half the labours of human life; and is the cause of
all the
tumult and bustle, all the rapine and injustice, which
avarice
and ambition have introduced into this world. People of
sense,
it is said, indeed despise place; that is, they despise
sitting
at the head of the table, and are indifferent who it is
that is
pointed out to the company by that frivolous
circumstance,
which the smallest advantage is capable of
overbalancing.
But rank, distinction pre-eminence, no man
despises,
unless he is either raised very much above, or sunk
very
much below, the ordinary standard of human nature; unless he
is
either so confirmed in wisdom and real philosophy, as to be
satisfied
that, while the propriety of his conduct renders him
the
just object of approbation, it is of little consequence
though
he be neither attended to, nor approved of; or so
habituated
to the idea of his own meanness, so sunk in slothful
and
sottish indifference, as entirely to have forgot the desire,
and
almost the very wish, for superiority.
As to become the natural object of the
joyous congratulations
and
sympathetic attentions of mankind is, in this manner, the
circumstance
which gives to prosperity all its dazzling
splendour;
so nothing darkens so much the gloom of adversity as
to feel
that our misfortunes are the objects, not of the
fellow-feeling,
but of the contempt and aversion of our brethren.
It is
upon this account that the most dreadful calamities are not
always
those which it is most difficult to support. It is often
more
mortifying to appear in public under small disasters, than
under
great misfortunes. The first excite no sympathy; but the
second,
though they may excite none that approaches to the
anguish
of the sufferer, call forth, however, a very lively
compassion.
The sentiments of the spectators are, in this last
case,
less wide of those of the sufferer, and their imperfect
fellow-feeling
lends him some assistance in supporting his
misery.
Before a gay assembly, a gentleman would be more
mortified
to appear covered with filth and rags than with blood
and
wounds. This last situation would interest their pity; the
other
would provoke their laughter. The judge who orders a
criminal
to be set in the pillory, dishonours him more than if he
had
condemned him to the scaffold. The great prince, who, some
years
ago, caned a general officer at the head of his army,
disgraced
him irrecoverably. The punishment would have been much
less
had he shot him through the body. By the laws of honour, to
strike
with a cane dishonours, to strike with a sword does not,
for an
obvious reason. Those slighter punishments, when inflicted
on a
gentleman, to whom dishonour is the greatest of all evils,
come to
be regarded among a humane and generous people, as the
most
dreadful of any. With regard to persons of that rank,
therefore,
they are universally laid aside, and the law, while it
takes
their life upon many occasions, respects their honour upon
almost
all. To scourge a person of quality, or to set him in the
pillory,
upon account of any crime whatever, is a brutality of
which
no European government, except that of Russia, is capable.
A brave man is not rendered contemptible
by being brought to
the
scaffold; he is, by being set in the pillory. His behaviour
in the
one situation may gain him universal esteem and
admiration.
No behaviour in the other can render him agreeable.
The
sympathy of the spectators supports him in the one case, and
saves
him from that shame, that consciousness that his misery is
felt by
himself only, which is of all sentiments the most
unsupportable.
There is no sympathy in the other; or, if there is
any, it
is not with his pain, which is a trifle, but with his
consciousness
of the want of sympathy with which this pain is
attended.
It is with his shame, not with his sorrow. Those who
pity
him, blush and hang down their heads for him. He droops in
the
same manner, and feels himself irrecoverably degraded by the
punishment,
though not by the crime. The man, on the contrary,
who
dies with resolution, as he is naturally regarded with the
erect
aspect of esteem and approbation, so he wears himself the
same
undaunted countenance; and, if the crime does not deprive
him of
the respect of others, the punishment never will. He has
no
suspicion that his situation is the object of contempt or
derision
to any body, and he can, with propriety, assume the air,
not
only of perfect serenity, but of triumph and exultation.
'Great dangers,' says the Cardinal de
Retz, 'have their
charms,
because there is some glory to be got, even when we
miscarry.
But moderate dangers have nothing but what is horrible,
because
the loss of reputation always attends the want of
success.'
His maxim has the same foundation with what we have
been
just now observing with regard to punishments.
Human virtue is superior to pain, to
poverty, to danger, and
to
death; nor does it even require its utmost efforts do despise
them.
But to have its misery exposed to insult and derision, to
be led
in triumph, to be set up for the hand of scorn to point
at, is
a situation in which its constancy is much more apt to
fail.
Compared with the contempt of mankind, all other external
evils
are easily supported.
Chap.
III
Of the
corruption of our moral sentiments, which is occasioned by
this
disposition to admire the rich and the great, and to despise
or
neglect persons of poor and mean condition
This disposition to admire, and almost to
worship, the rich
and the
powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect
persons
of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to
establish
and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order
of
society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal
cause
of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and
greatness
are often regarded with the respect and admiration
which
are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt,
of
which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often
most
unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the
complaint
of moralists in all ages.
We desire both to be respectable and to be
respected. We
dread
both to be contemptible and to be contemned. But, upon
coming
into the world, we soon find that wisdom and virtue are by
no
means the sole objects of respect; nor vice and folly, of
contempt.
We frequently see the respectful attentions of the
world
more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than
towards
the wise and the virtuous. We see frequently the vices
and
follies of the powerful much less despised than the poverty
and
weakness of the innocent. To deserve, to acquire, and to
enjoy
the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great
objects
of ambition and emulation. Two different roads are
presented
to us, equally leading to the attainment of this so
much
desired object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the
practice
of virtue; the other, by the acquisition of wealth and
greatness.
Two different characters are presented to our
emulation;
the one, of proud ambition and ostentatious avidity.
the
other, of humble modesty and equitable justice. Two different
models,
two different pictures, are held out to us, according to
which
we may fashion our own character and behaviour; the one
more
gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the other more
correct
and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline: the one
forcing
itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other,
attracting
the attention of scarce any body but the most studious
and
careful observer. They are the wise and the virtuous chiefly,
a
select, though, I am afraid, but a small party, who are the
real
and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue. The great mob of
mankind
are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more
extraordinary,
most frequently the disinterested admirers and
worshippers,
of wealth and greatness.
The respect which we feel for wisdom and
virtue is, no doubt,
different
from that which we conceive for wealth and greatness;
and it
requires no very nice discernment to distinguish the
difference.
But, notwithstanding this difference, those
sentiments
bear a very considerable resemblance to one another.
In some
particular features they are, no doubt, different, but,
in the
general air of the countenance, they seem to be so very
nearly
the same, that inattentive observers are very apt to
mistake
the one for the other.
In equal degrees of merit there is scarce
any man who does
not
respect more the rich and the great, than the poor and the
humble.
With most men the presumption and vanity of the former
are
much more admired, than the real and solid merit of the
latter.
It is scarce agreeable to good morals, or even to good
language,
perhaps, to say, that mere wealth and greatness,
abstracted
from merit and virtue, deserve our respect. We must
acknowledge,
however, that they almost constantly obtain it; and
that
they may, therefore, be considered as, in some respects, the
natural
objects of it. Those exalted stations may, no doubt, be
completely
degraded by vice and folly. But the vice and folly
must be
very great, before they can operate this complete
degradation.
The profligacy of a man of fashion is looked upon
with
much less contempt and aversion, than that of a man of
meaner
condition. In the latter, a single transgression of the
rules
of temperance and propriety, is commonly more resented,
than
the constant and avowed contempt of them ever is in the
former.
In the middling and inferior stations of
life, the road to
virtue
and that to fortune, to such fortune, at least, as men in
such
stations can reasonably expect to acquire, are, happily in
most
cases, very nearly the same. In all the middling and
inferior
professions, real and solid professional abilities,
joined
to prudent, just, firm, and temperate conduct, can very
seldom
fail of success. Abilities will even sometimes prevail
where
the conduct is by no means correct. Either habitual
imprudence,
however, or injustice, or weakness, or profligacy,
will
always clouD, and sometimes Depress altogether, the most
splendid
professional abilities. Men in the inferior and middling
stations
of life, besides, can never be great enough to be above
the
law, which must generally overawe them into some sort of
respect
for, at least, the more important rules of justice. The
success
of such people, too, almost always depends upon the
favour
and good opinion of their neighbours and equals; and
without
a tolerably regular conduct these can very seldom be
obtained.
The good old proverb, therefore, That honesty is the
best
policy, holds, in such situations, almost always perfectly
true.
In such situations, therefore, we may generally expect a
considerable
degree of virtue; and, fortunately for the good
morals
of society, these are the situations of by far the greater
part of
mankind.
In the superior stations of life the case
is unhappily not
always
the same. In the courts of princes, in the drawing-rooms
of the
great, where success and preferment depend, not upon the
esteem
of intelligent and well-informed equals, but upon the
fanciful
and foolish favour of ignorant, presumptuous, and proud
superiors;
flattery and falsehood too often prevail over merit
and
abilities. In such societies the abilities to please, are
more
regarded than the abilities to serve. In quiet and peaceable
times,
when the storm is at a distance, the prince, or great man,
wishes
only to be amused, and is even apt to fancy that he has
scarce
any occasion for the service of any body, or that those
who
amuse him are sufficiently able to serve him. The external
graces,
the frivolous accomplishments of that impertinent and
foolish
thing called a man of fashion, are commonly more admired
than
the solid and masculine virtues of a warrior, a statesman, a
philosopher,
or a legislator. All the great and awful virtues,
all the
virtues which can fit, either for the council, the
senate,
or the field, are, by the insolent and insignificant
flatterers,
who commonly figure the most in such corrupted
societies,
held in the utmost contempt and derision. When the
duke of
Sully was called upon by Lewis the Thirteenth, to give
his
advice in some great emergency, he observed the favourites
and
courtiers whispering to one another, and smiling at his
unfashionable
appearance. 'Whenever your majesty's father,' said
the old
warrior and statesman, 'did me the honour to consult me,
he
ordered the buffoons of the court to retire into the
antechamber.'
It is from our disposition to admire, and
consequently to
imitate,
the rich and the great, that they are enabled to set, or
to lead
what is called the fashion. Their dress is the
fashionable
dress; the language of their conversation, the
fashionable
style; their air and deportment, the fashionable
behaviour.
Even their vices and follies are fashionable; and the
greater
part of men are proud to imitate and resemble them in the
very
qualities which dishonour and degrade them. Vain men often
give
themselves airs of a fashionable profligacy, which, in their
hearts,
they do not approve of, and of which, perhaps, they are
really
not guilty. They desire to be praised for what they
themselves
do not think praise-worthy, and are ashamed of
unfashionable
virtues which they sometimes practise in secret,
and for
which they have secretly some degree of real veneration.
There
are hypocrites of wealth and greatness, as well as of
religion
and virtue; and a vain man is as apt to pretend to be
what he
is not, in the one way, as a cunning man is in the other.
He
assumes the equipage and splendid way of living of his
superiors,
without considering that whatever may be praise-worthy
in any
of these, derives its whole merit and propriety from its
suitableness
to that situation and fortune which both require and
can
easily support the expence. Many a poor man places his glory
in
being thought rich, without considering that the duties (if
one may
call such follies by so very venerable a name) which that
reputation
imposes upon him, must soon reduce him to beggary, and
render
his situation still more unlike that of those whom he
admires
and imitates, than it had been originally.
To attain to this envied situation, the
candidates for
fortune
too frequently abandon the paths of virtue; for
unhappily,
the road which leads to the one, and that which leads
to the
other, lie sometimes in very opposite directions. But the
ambitious
man flatters himself that, in the splendid situation to
which
he advances, he will have so many means of commanding the
respect
and admiration of mankind, and will be enabled to act
with
such superior propriety and grace, that the lustre of his
future
conduct will entirely cover, or efface, the foulness of
the
steps by which he arrived at that elevation. In many
governments
the candidates for the highest stations are above the
law;
and, if they can attain the object of their ambition, they
have no
fear of being called to account for the means by which
they
acquired it. They often endeavour, therefore, not only by
fraud
and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and
cabal;
but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous
crimes,
by murder and assassination, by rebellion and civil war,
to
supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of
their
greatness. They more frequently miscarry than succeed; and
commonly
gain nothing but the disgraceful punishment which is due
to
their crimes. But, though they should be so lucky as to attain
that
wished-for greatness, they are always most miserably
disappointed
in the happiness which they expect to enjoy in it.
It is
not ease or pleasure, but always honour, of one kind or
another,
though frequently an honour very ill understood, that
the
ambitious man really pursues. But the honour of his exalted
station
appears, both in his own eyes and in those of other
people,
polluted and defiled by the baseness of the means through
which
he rose to it. Though by the profusion of every liberal
expence;
though by excessive indulgence in every profligate
pleasure,
the wretched, but usual, resource of ruined characters;
though
by the hurry of public business, or by the prouder and
more
dazzling tumult of war, he may endeavour to efface, both
from
his own memory and from that of other people, the
remembrance
of what he has done; that remembrance never fails to
pursue
him. He invokes in vain the dark and dismal powers of
forgetfulness
and oblivion. He remembers himself what he has
done,
and that remembrance tells him that other people must
likewise
remember it. Amidst all the gaudy pomp of the most
ostentatious
greatness; amidst the venal and vile adulation of
the
great and of the learned; amidst the more innocent, though
more
foolish, acclamations of the common people; amidst all the
pride
of conquest and the triumph of successful war, he is still
secretly
pursued by the avenging furies of shame and remorse;
and,
while glory seems to surround him on all sides, he himself,
in his
own imagination, sees black and foul infamy fast pursuing
him,
and every moment ready to overtake him from behind. Even the
great
Caesar, though he had the magnanimity to dismiss his
guards,
could not dismiss his suspicions. The remembrance of
Pharsalia
still haunted and pursued him. When, at the request of
the
senate, he had the generosity to pardon Marcellus, he told
that
assembly, that he was not unaware of the designs which were
carrying
on against his life; but that, as he had lived long
enough
both for nature and for glory, he was contented to die,
and
therefore despised all conspiracies. He had, perhaps, lived
long
enough for nature. But the man who felt himself the object
of such
deadly resentment, from those whose favour he wished to
gain,
and whom he still wished to consider as his friends, had
certainly
lived too long for real glory; or for all the happiness
which
he could ever hope to enjoy in the love and esteem of his
equals.
Part II
Of
Merit and Demerit; or, of the Objects of Reward and Punishment
Consisting
of Three Parts
Section
I
Of the
Sense of Merit and Demerit
Introduction
There is another set of qualities ascribed
to the actions and
conduct
of mankind, distinct from their propriety or impropriety,
their
decency or ungracefulness, and which are the objects of a
distinct
species of approbation and disapprobation. These are
Merit
and Demerit, the qualities of deserving reward, and of
deserving
punishment.
It has already been observed, that the
sentiment or affection
of the
heart, from which any action proceeds, and upon which its
whole
virtue or vice depends, may be considered under two
different
aspects, or in two different relations: first, in
relation
to the cause or object which excites it; and, secondly,
in
relation to the end which it proposes, or to the effect which
it
tends to produce: that upon the suitableness or
unsuitableness,
upon the proportion or disproportion, which the
affection
seems to bear to the cause or object which excites it,
depends
the propriety or impropriety, the decency or
ungracefulness
of the consequent action; and that upon the
beneficial
or hurtful effects which the affection proposes or
tends
to produce, depends the merit or demerit, the good or ill
desert
of the action to which it gives occasion. Wherein consists
our
sense of the propriety or impropriety of actions, has been
explained
in the former part of this discourse. We come now to
consider,
wherein consists that of their good or ill desert.
Chap. 1
That
whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude,
appears
to deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever
appears
to be the proper object of resentment appears to deserve
punishment
To us, therefore, that action must appear
to deserve reward,
which
appears to be the proper and approved object of that
sentiment,
which most immediately and directly prompts us to
reward,
or to do good to another. And in the same manner, that
action
must appear to deserve punishment, which appears to be the
proper
and approved object of that sentiment which most
immediately
and directly prompts us to punish, or to inflict evil
upon
another.
The sentiment which most immediately and
directly prompts us
to
reward, is gratitude; that which most immediately and directly
prompts
us to punish, is resentment.
To us, therefore, that action must appear
to deserve reward,
which
appears to be the proper and approved object of gratitude;
as, on
the other hand, that action must appear to deserve
punishment,
which appears to be the proper and approved object of
resentment.
To reward, is to recompense, to
remunerate, to return good
for
good received. To punish, too, is to recompense, to
remunerate,
though in a different manner; it is to return evil
for
evil that has been done.
There are some other passions, besides
gratitude and
resentment,
which interest us in the happiness or misery of
others;
but there are none which so directly excite us to be the
instruments
of either. The love and esteem which grow upon
acquaintance
and habitual approbation, necessarily lead us to be
pleased
with the good fortune of the man who is the object of
such
agreeable emotions, and consequently, to be willing to lend
a hand
to promote it. Our love, however, is fully satisfied,
though
his good fortune should be brought about without our
assistance.
All that this passion desires is to see him happy,
without
regarding who was the author of his prosperity. But
gratitude
is not to be satisfied in this manner. If the person to
whom we
owe many obligations, is made happy without our
assistance,
though it pleases our love, it does not content our
gratitude.
Till we have recompensed him, till we ourselves have
been
instrumental in promoting his happiness, we feel ourselves
still
loaded with that debt which his past services have laid
upon
us.
The hatred and dislike, in the same
manner, which grow upon
habitual
disapprobation, would often lead us to take a malicious
pleasure
in the misfortune of the man whose conduct and character
excite
so painful a passion. But though dislike and hatred harden
us
against all sympathy, and sometimes dispose us even to rejoice
at the
distress of another, yet, if there is no resentment in the
case,
if neither we nor our friends have received any great
personal
provocation, these passions would not naturally lead us
to wish
to be instrumental in bringing it about. Though we could
fear no
punishment in consequence of our having had some hand in
it, we
would rather that it should happen by other means. To one
under
the dominion of violent hatred it would be agreeable,
perhaps,
to hear, that the person whom he abhorred and detested
was
killed by some accident. But if he had the least spark of
justice,
which, though this passion is not very favourable to
virtue,
he might still have, it would hurt him excessively to
have
been himself, even without design, the occasion of this
misfortune.
Much more would the very thought of voluntarily
contributing
to it shock him beyond all measure. He would reject
with
horror even the imagination of so execrable a design; and if
he
could imagine himself capable of such an enormity, he would
begin
to regard himself in the same odious light in which he had
considered
the person who was the object of his dislike. But it
is
quite otherwise with resentment: if the person who had done us
some
great injury, who had murdered our father or our brother,
for
example, should soon afterwards die of a fever, or even be
brought
to the scaffold upon account of some other crime, though
it
might sooth our hatred, it would not fully gratify our
resentment.
Resentment would prompt us to desire, not only that
he
should be punished, but that he should be punished by our
means,
and upon account of that particular injury which he had
done to
us. Resentment cannot be fully gratified, unless the
offender
is not only made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve
for that
particular wrong which we have suffered from him. He
must be
made to repent and be sorry for this very action, that
others,
through fear of the like punishment, may be terrified
from
being guilty of the like offence. The natural gratification
of this
passion tends, of its own accord, to produce all the
political
ends of punishment; the correction of the criminal, and
the
example to the public.
Gratitude and resentment, therefore, are
the sentiments which
most
immediately and directly prompt to reward and to punish. To
us,
therefore, he must appear to deserve reward, who appears to
be the
proper and approved object of gratitude; and he to deserve
punishment,
who appears to be that of resentment.
Chap.
II
Of the
proper objects of gratitude and resentment
To be the proper and approved object
either of gratitude or
resentment,
can mean nothing but to be the object of that
gratitude,
and of that resentment, which naturally seems proper,
and is
approved of.
But these, as well as all the other
passions of human nature,
seem
proper and are approved of, when the heart of every
impartial
spectator entirely sympathizes with them, when every
indifferent
by-stander entirely enters into, and goes along with
them.
He, therefore, appears to deserve reward,
who, to some person
or
persons, is the natural object of a gratitude which every
human
heart is disposed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and
he, on
the other hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the
same manner
is to some person or persons the natural object of a
resentment
which the breast of every reasonable man is ready to
adopt
and sympathize with. To us, surely, that action must appear
to
deserve reward, which every body who knows of it would wish to
reward,
and therefore delights to see rewarded: and that action
must as
surely appear to deserve punishment, which every body who
hears
of it is angry with, and upon that account rejoices to see
punished.
1. As we sympathize with the joy of our
companions when in
prosperity,
so we join with them in the complacency and
satisfaction
with which they naturally regard whatever is the
cause
of their good fortune. We enter into the love and affection
which
they conceive for it, and begin to love it too. We should
be
sorry for their sakes if it was destroyed, or even if it was
placed
at too great a distance from them, and out of the reach of
their
care and protection, though they should lose nothing by its
absence
except the pleasure of seeing it. If it is man who has
thus
been the fortunate instrument of the happiness of his
brethren,
this is still more peculiarly the case. When we see one
man
assisted, protected, relieved by another, our sympathy with
the joy
of the person who receives the benefit serves only to
animate
our fellow-feeling with his gratitude towards him who
bestows
it. When we look upon the person who is the cause of his
pleasure
with the eyes with which we imagine he must look upon
him,
his benefactor seems to stand before us in the most engaging
and
amiable light. We readily therefore sympathize with the
grateful
affection which he conceives for a person to whom he has
been so
much obliged; and consequently applaud the returns which
he is
disposed to make for the good offices conferred upon him.
As we
entirely enter into the affection from which these returns
proceed,
they necessarily seem every way proper and suitable to
their
object.
2. In the same manner, as we sympathize
with the sorrow of
our
fellow-creature whenever we see his distress, so we likewise
enter
into his abhorrence and aversion for whatever has given
occasion
to it. Our heart, as it adopts and beats time to his
grief,
so is it likewise animated with that spirit by which he
endeavours
to drive away or destroy the cause of it. The indolent
and
passive fellow-feeling, by which we accompany him in his
sufferings,
readily gives way to that more vigorous and active
sentiment
by which we go along with him in the effort he makes,
either
to repel them, or to gratify his aversion to what has
given
occasion to them. This is still more peculiarly the case,
when it
is man who has caused them. When we see one man oppressed
or
injured by another, the sympathy which we feel with the
distress
of the sufferer seems to serve only to animate our
fellow-feeling
with his resentment against the offender. We are
rejoiced
to see him attack his adversary in his turn, and are
eager
and ready to assist him whenever he exerts himself for
defence,
or even for vengeance within a certain degree. If the
injured
should perish in the quarrel, we not only sympathize with
the
real resentment of his friends and relations, but with the
imaginary
resentment which in fancy we lend to the dead, who is
no
longer capable of feeling that or any other human sentiment.
But as
we put ourselves in his situation, as we enter, as it
were,
into his body, and in our imaginations, in some measure,
animate
anew the deformed and mangled carcass of the slain, when
we
bring home in this manner his case to our own bosoms, we feel
upon
this, as upon many other occasions, an emotion which the
person
principally concerned is incapable of feeling, and which
yet we
feel by an illusive sympathy with him. The sympathetic
tears
which we shed for that immense and irretrievable loss,
which
in our fancy he appears to have sustained, seem to be but a
small
part of the duty which we owe him. The injury which he has
suffered
demands, we think, a principal part of our attention. We
feel
that resentment which we imagine he ought to feel, and which
he
would feel, if in his cold and lifeless body there remained
any
consciousness of what passes upon earth. His blood, we think,
calls
aloud for vengeance. The very ashes of the dead seem to be
disturbed
at the thought that his injuries are to pass
unrevenged.
The horrors which are supposed to haunt the bed of
the
murderer, the ghosts which, superstition imagines, rise from
their
graves to demand vengeance upon those who brought them to
an
untimely end, all take their origin from this natural sympathy
with
the imaginary resentment of the slain. And with regard, at
least,
to this most dreadful of all crimes, Nature, antecedent to
all
reflections upon the utility of punishment, has in this
manner
stamped upon the human heart, in the strongest and most
indelible
characters, an immediate and instinctive approbation of
the
sacred and necessary law of retaliation.
Chap.
III
That
where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person
who
confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the
gratitude
of him who receives it: and that, on the contrary,
where
there is no disapprobation of the motives of the person who
does
the mischief, there is no sort of sympathy with the
resentment
of him who suffers it
It is to be observed, however, that, how
beneficial soever on
the one
hand, or how hurtful soever on the other, the actions or
intentions
of the person who acts may have been to the person who
is, if
I may say so, acted upon, yet if in the one case there
appears
to have been no propriety in the motives of the agent, if
we
cannot enter into the affections which influenced his conduct,
we have
little sympathy with the gratitude of the person who
receives
the benefit: or if, in the other case, there appears to
have
been no impropriety in the motives of the agent, if, on the
contrary,
the affections which influenced his conduct are such as
we must
necessarily enter into, we can have no sort of sympathy
with
the resentment of the person who suffers. Little gratitude
seems
due in the one case, and all sort of resentment seems
unjust
in the other. The one action seems to merit little reward,
the
other to deserve no punishment.
1. First, I say, That wherever we cannot
sympathize with the
affections
of the agent, wherever there seems to be no propriety
in the
motives which influenced his conduct, we are less disposed
to
enter into the gratitude of the person who received the
benefit
of his actions. A very small return seems due to that
foolish
and profuse generosity which confers the greatest
benefits
from the most trivial motives, and gives an estate to a
man
merely because his name and sirname happen to be the same
with
those of the giver. Such services do not seem to demand any
proportionable
recompense. Our contempt for the folly of the
agent
hinders us from thoroughly entering into the gratitude of
the
person to whom the good office has been done. His benefactor
seems
unworthy of it. As when we place ourselves in the situation
of the
person obliged, we feel that we could conceive no great
reverence
for such a benefactor, we easily absolve him from a
great
deal of that submissive veneration and esteem which we
should
think due to a more respectable character; and provided he
always
treats his weak friend with kindness and humanity, we are
willing
to excuse him from many attentions and regards which we
should
demand to a worthier patron. Those Princes, who have
heaped,
with the greatest profusion, wealth, power, and honours,
upon
their favourites, have seldom excited that degree of
attachment
to their persons which has often been experienced by
those
who were more frugal of their favours. The well-natured,
but
injudicious prodigality of James the First of Great Britain
seems
to have attached nobody to his person; and that Prince,
notwithstanding
his social and harmless disposition, appears to
have
lived and died without a friend. The whole gentry and
nobility
of England exposed their lives and fortunes in the cause
of his
more frugal and distinguishing son, notwithstanding the
coldness
and distant severity of his ordinary deportment.
2. Secondly, I say, That wherever the
conduct of the agent
appears
to have been entirely directed by motives and affections
which
we thoroughly enter into and approve of, we can have no
sort of
sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, how great
soever
the mischief which may have been done to him. When two
people
quarrel, if we take part with, and entirely adopt the
resentment
of one of them, it is impossible that we should enter
into
that of the other. Our sympathy with the person whose
motives
we go along with, and whom therefore we look upon as in
the
right, cannot but harden us against all fellow-feeling with
the
other, whom we necessarily regard as in the wrong. Whatever
this
last, therefore, may have suffered, while it is no more than
what we
ourselves should have wished him to suffer, while it is
no more
than what our own sympathetic indignation would have
prompted
us to inflict upon him, it cannot either displease or
provoke
us. When an inhuman murderer is brought to the scaffold,
though
we have some compassion for his misery, we can have no
sort of
fellow-feeling with his resentment, if he should be so
absurd
as to express any against either his prosecutor or his
judge.
The natural tendency of their just indignation against so
vile a
criminal is indeed the most fatal and ruinous to him. But
it is
impossible that we should be displeased with the tendency
of a
sentiment, which, when we bring the case home to ourselves,
we feel
that we cannot avoid adopting.
Chap.
IV
Recapitulation
of the foregoing chapters
1. We do not, therefore, thoroughly and
heartily sympathize
with
the gratitude of one man towards another, merely because
this
other has been the cause of his good fortune, unless he has
been
the cause of it from motives which we entirely go along
with.
Our heart must adopt the principles of the agent, and go
along
with all the affections which influenced his conduct,
before
it can entirely sympathize with, and beat time to, the
gratitude
of the person who has been benefited by his actions. If
in the
conduct of the benefactor there appears to have been no
propriety,
how beneficial soever its effects, it does not seem to
demand,
or necessarily to require, any proportionable recompense.
But when to the beneficent tendency of the
action is joined
the
propriety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we
entirely
sympathize and go along with the motives of the agent,
the
love which we conceive for him upon his own account, enhances
and
enlivens our fellow-feeling with the gratitude of those who
owe
their prosperity to his good conduct. His actions seem then
to
demand, and, if I may say so, to call aloud for a
proportionable
recompense. We then entirely enter into that
gratitude
which prompts to bestow it. The benefactor seems then
to be
the proper object of reward, when we thus entirely
sympathize
with, and approve of, that sentiment which prompts to
reward
him. When we approve of, and go along with, the affection
from
which the action proceeds, we must necessarily approve of
the
action, and regard the person towards whom it is directed, as
its
proper and suitable object.
2. In the same manner, we cannot at all
sympathize with the
resentment
of one man against another, merely because this other
has
been the cause of his misfortune, unless he has been the
cause
of it from motives which we cannot enter into. Before we
can
adopt the resentment of the sufferer, we must disapprove of
the
motives of the agent, and feel that our heart renounces all
sympathy
with the affections which influenced his conduct. If
there
appears to have been no impropriety in these, how fatal
soever
the tendency of the action which proceeds from them to
those
against whom it is directed, it does not seem to deserve
any
punishment, or to be the proper object of any resentment.
But when to the hurtfulness of the action
is joined the
impropriety
of the affection from whence it proceeds, when our
heart
rejects with abhorrence all fellow-feeling with the motives
of the
agent, we then heartily and entirely sympathize with the
resentment
of the sufferer. Such actions seem then to deserve,
and, if
I may say so, to call aloud for, a proportionable
punishment;
and we entirely enter into, and thereby approve of,
that
resentment which prompts to inflict it. The offender
necessarily
seems then to be the proper object of punishment,
when we
thus entirely sympathize with, and thereby approve of,
that
sentiment which prompts to punish. In this case too, when we
approve,
and go along with, the affection from which the action
proceeds,
we must necessarily approve of the action, and regard
the
person against whom it is directed, as its proper and
suitable
object.
Chap. V
The
analysis of the sense of Merit and Demerit
1. As our sense, therefore, of the
propriety of conduct
arises
from what I shall call a direct sympathy with the
affections
and motives of the person who acts, so our sense of
its
merit arises from what I shall call an indirect sympathy with
the
gratitude of the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon.
As we cannot indeed enter thoroughly into
the gratitude of
the
person who receives the benefit, unless we beforehand approve
of the
motives of the benefactor, so, upon this account, the
sense
of merit seems to be a compounded sentiment, and to be made
up of two
distinct emotions; a direct sympathy with the
sentiments
of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the
gratitude
of those who receive the benefit of his actions.
We may, upon many different occasions,
plainly distinguish
those
two different emotions combining and uniting together in
our
sense of the good desert of a particular character or action.
When we
read in history concerning actions of proper and
beneficent
greatness of mind, how eagerly do we enter into such
designs?
How much are we animated by that high-spirited
generosity
which directs them? How keen are we for their success?
How
grieved at their disappointment? In imagination we become the
very
person whose actions are represented to us: we transport
ourselves
in fancy to the scenes of those distant and forgotten
adventures,
and imagine ourselves acting the part of a Scipio or
a
Camillus, a Timoleon or an Aristides. So far our sentiments are
founded
upon the direct sympathy with the person who acts. Nor is
the
indirect sympathy with those who receive the benefit of such
actions
less sensibly felt. Whenever we place ourselves in the
situation
of these last, with what warm and affectionate
fellow-feeling
do we enter into their gratitude towards those who
served
them so essentially? We embrace, as it were, their
benefactor
along with them. Our heart readily sympathizes with
the
highest transports of their grateful affection. No honours,
no
rewards, we think, can be too great for them to bestow upon
him.
When they make this proper return for his services, we
heartily
applaud and go along with them; but are shocked beyond
all
measure, if by their conduct they appear to have little sense
of the
obligations conferred upon them. Our whole sense, in
short,
of the merit and good desert of such actions, of the
propriety
and fitness of recompensing them, and making the person
who
performed them rejoice in his turn, arises from the
sympathetic
emotions of gratitude and love, with which, when we
bring
home to our own breast the situation of those principally
concerned,
we feel ourselves naturally transported towards the
man who
could act with such proper and noble beneficence.
2. In the same manner as our sense of the
impropriety of
conduct
arises from a want of sympathy, or from a direct
antipathy
to the affections and motives of the agent, so our
sense
of its demerit arises from what I shall here too call an
indirect
sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer.
As we cannot indeed enter into the
resentment of the
sufferer,
unless our heart beforehand disapproves the motives of
the
agent, and renounces all fellow-feeling with them; so upon
this
account the sense of demerit, as well as that of merit,
seems
to be a compounded sentiment, and to be made up of two
distinct
emotions; a direct antipathy to the sentiments of the
agent,
and an indirect sympathy with the resentment of the
sufferer.
We may here too, upon many different
occasions, plainly
distinguish
those two different emotions combining and uniting
together
in our sense of the ill desert of a particular character
or
action. When we read in history concerning the perfidy and
cruelty
of a Borgia or a Nero, our heart rises up against the
detestable
sentiments which influenced their conduct, and
renounces
with horror and abomination all fellow-feeling with
such
execrable motives. So far our sentiments are founded upon
the
direct antipathy to the affections of the agent: and the
indirect
sympathy with the resentment of the sufferers is still
more
sensibly felt. When we bring home to ourselves the situation
of the
persons whom those scourges of mankind insulted, murdered,
or
betrayed, what indignation do we not feel against such
insolent
and inhuman oppressors of the earth? Our sympathy with
the
unavoidable distress of the innocent sufferers is not more
real
nor more lively, than our fellow-feeling with their just and
natural
resentment: The former sentiment only heightens the
latter,
and the idea of their distress serves only to inflame and
blow up
our animosity against those who occasioned it. When we
think
of the anguish of the sufferers, we take part with them
more
earnestly against their oppressors; we enter with more
eagerness
into all their schemes of vengeance, and feel ourselves
every
moment wreaking, in imagination, upon such violators of the
laws of
society, that punishment which our sympathetic
indignation
tells us is due to their crimes. Our sense of the
horror
and dreadful atrocity of such conduct, the delight which
we take
in hearing that it was properly punished, the indignation
which
we feel when it escapes this due retaliation, our whole
sense
and feeling, in short, of its ill desert, of the propriety
and
fitness of inflicting evil upon the person who is guilty of
it, and
of making him grieve in his turn, arises from the
sympathetic
indignation which naturally boils up in the breast of
the
spectator, whenever he thoroughly brings home to himself the
case of
the sufferer.(1*)
Section
II
Of
Justice and Beneficence
Chap. I
Comparison
of those two virtues
Actions of a beneficent tendency, which
proceed from proper
motives,
seem alone to require reward. because such alone are the
approved
objects of gratitude, or excite the sympathetic
gratitude
of the spectator.
Actions of a hurtful tendency, which
proceed from improper
motives,
seem alone to deserve punishment; because such alone are
the
approved objects of resentment, or excite the sympathetic
resentment
of the spectator.
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be
extorted by force,
the
mere want of it exposes to no punishment; because the mere
want of
beneficence tends to do no real positive evil. It may
disappoint
of the good which might reasonably have been expected,
and
upon that account it may justly excite dislike and
disapprobation:
it cannot, however, provoke any resentment which
mankind
will go along with. The man who does not recompense his
benefactor
when he has it in his power, and when his benefactor
needs
his assistance, is, no doubt, guilty of the blackest
ingratitude.
The heart of every impartial spectator rejects all
fellow-feeling
with the selfishness of his motives, and he is the
proper
object of the highest disapprobation. But still he does no
positive
hurt to any body. He only does not do that good which in
propriety
he ought to have done. He is the object of hatred, a
passion
which is naturally excited by impropriety of sentiment
and
behaviour. not of resentment, a passion which is never
properly
called forth but by actions which tend to do real and
positive
hurt to some particular persons. His want of gratitude,
therefore,
cannot be punished. To oblige him by force to perform
what in
gratitude he ought to perform, and what every impartial
spectator
would approve of him for performing, would, if
possible,
be still more improper than his neglecting to perform
it. His
benefactor would dishonour himself if he attempted by
violence
to constrain him to gratitude, and it would be
impertinent
for any third person, who was not the superior of
either,
to intermeddle. But of all the duties of beneficence,
those
which gratitude recommends to us approach nearest to what
is
called a perfect and complete obligation. What friendship,
what
generosity, what charity, would prompt us to do with
universal
approbation, is still more free, and can still less be
extorted
by force than the duties of gratitude. We talk of the
debt of
gratitude, not of charity, or generosity, nor even of
friendship,
when friendship is mere esteem, and has not been
enhanced
and complicated with gratitude for good offices.
Resentment seems to have been given us by
nature for defence,
and for
defence only. It is the safeguard of justice and the
security
of innocence. It prompts us to beat off the mischief
which
is attempted to be done to us, and to retaliate that which
is
already done; that the offender may be made to repent of his
injustice,
and that others, through fear of the like punishment,
may be
terrified from being guilty of the like offence. It must
be
reserved therefore for these purposes, nor can the spectator
ever go
along with it when it is exerted for any other. But the
mere
want of the beneficent virtues, though it may disappoint us
of the
good which might reasonably be expected, neither does, not
attempts
to do, any mischief from which we can have occasion to
defend
ourselves.
There is, however, another virtue, of
which the observance is
not
left to the freedom of our own wills, which may be extorted
by
force, and of which the violation exposes to resentment, and
consequently
to punishment. This virtue is justice: the violation
of
justice is injury: it does real and positive hurt to some
particular
persons, from motives which are naturally disapproved
of. It
is, therefore, the proper object of resentment, and of
punishment,
which is the natural consequence of resentment. As
mankind
go along with, and approve of the violence employed to
avenge
the hurt which is done by injustice, so they much more go
along
with, and approve of, that which is employed to prevent and
beat
off the injury, and to restrain the offender from hurting
his
neighbours. The person himself who meditates an injustice is
sensible
of this, and feels that force may, with the utmost
propriety,
be made use of, both by the person whom he is about to
injure,
and by others, either to obstruct the execution of his
crime,
or to punish him when he has executed it. And upon this is
founded
that remarkable distinction between justice and all the
other
social virtues, which has of late been particularly
insisted
upon by an author of very great and original genius,
that we
feel ourselves to be under a stricter obligation to act
according
to justice, than agreeably to friendship, charity, or
generosity;
that the practice of these last mentioned virtues
seems
to be left in some measure to our own choice, but that,
somehow
or other, we feel ourselves to be in a peculiar manner
tied,
bound, and obliged to the observation of justice. We feel,
that is
to say, that force may, with the utmost propriety, and
with
the approbation of all mankind, be made use of to constrain
us to
observe the rules of the one, but not to follow the
precepts
of the other.
We must always, however, carefully
distinguish what is only
blamable,
or the proper object of disapprobation, from what force
may be
employed either to punish or to prevent. That seems
blamable
which falls short of that ordinary degree of proper
beneficence
which experience teaches us to expect of every body;
and on
the contrary, that seems praise-worthy which goes beyond
it. The
ordinary degree itself seems neither blamable nor
praise-worthy.
A father, a son, a brother, who behaves to the
correspondent
relation neither better nor worse than the greater
part of
men commonly do, seems properly to deserve neither praise
nor
blame. He who surprises us by extraordinary and unexpected,
though
still proper and suitable kindness, or on the contrary by
extraordinary
and unexpected, as well as unsuitable unkindness,
seems
praise-worthy in the one case, and blamable in the other.
Even the most ordinary degree of kindness
or beneficence,
however,
cannot, among equals, be extorted by force. Among equals
each individual
is naturally, and antecedent to the institution
of
civil government, regarded as having a right both to defend
himself
from injuries, and to exact a certain degree of
punishment
for those which have been done to him. Every generous
spectator
not only approves of his conduct when he does this, but
enters
so far into his sentiments as often to be willing to
assist
him. When one man attacks, or robs, or attempts to murder
another,
all the neighbours take the alarm, and think that they
do right
when they run, either to revenge the person who has been
injured,
or to defend him who is in danger of being so. But when
a
father fails in the ordinary degree of parental affection
towards
a son; when a son seems to want that filial reverence
which
might be expected to his father; when brothers are without
the
usual degree of brotherly affection; when a man shuts his
breast
against compassion, and refuses to relieve the misery of
his
fellow-creatures, when he can with the greatest ease; in all
these
cases, though every body blames the conduct, nobody
imagines
that those who might have reason, perhaps, to expect
more
kindness, have any right to extort it by force. The sufferer
can
only complain, and the spectator can intermeddle no other way
than by
advice and persuasion. Upon all such occasions, for
equals
to use force against one another, would be thought the
highest
degree of insolence and presumption.
A superior may, indeed, sometimes, with
universal
approbation,
oblige those under his jurisdiction to behave, in
this
respect, with a certain degree of propriety to one another.
The
laws of all civilized nations oblige parents to maintain
their
children, and children to maintain their parents, and
impose
upon men many other duties of beneficence. The civil
magistrate
is entrusted with the power not only of preserving the
public
peace by restraining injustice, but of promoting the
prosperity
of the commonwealth, by establishing good discipline,
and by
discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety; he may
prescribe
rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual
injuries
among fellow-citizens, but command mutual good offices
to a
certain degree. When the sovereign commands what is merely
indifferent,
and what, antecedent to his orders, might have been
omitted
without any blame, it becomes not only blamable but
punishable
to disobey him. When he commands, therefore, what,
antecedent
to any such order, could not have been omitted without
the
greatest blame, it surely becomes much more punishable to be
wanting
in obedience. Of all the duties of a law-giver, however,
this,
perhaps, is that which it requires the greatest delicacy
and
reserve to execute with propriety and judgment. To neglect it
altogether
exposes the commonwealth to many gross disorders and
shocking
enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all
liberty,
security, and justice.
Though the mere want of beneficence seems
to merit no
punishment
from equals, the greater exertions of that virtue
appear
to deserve the highest reward. By being productive of the
greatest
good, they are the natural and approved objects of the
liveliest
gratitude. Though the breach of justice, on the
contrary,
exposes to punishment, the observance of the rules of
that
virtue seems scarce to deserve any reward. There is, no
doubt,
a propriety in the practice of justice, and it merits,
upon
that account, all the approbation which is due to propriety.
But as
it does no real positive good, it is entitled to very
little
gratitude. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a
negative
virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour.
The man
who barely abstains from violating either the person, or
the
estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very
little
positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what
is
peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his
equals
can with propriety force him to do, or which they can
punish
him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of
justice
by sitting still and doing nothing.
As every man doth, so shall it be done to
him, and
retaliation
seems to be the great law which is dictated to us by
Nature.
Beneficence and generosity we think due to the generous
and
beneficent. Those whose hearts never open to the feelings of
humanity,
should, we think, be shut out, in the same manner, from
the
affections of all their fellow-creatures, and be allowed to
live in
the midst of society, as in a great desert where there is
nobody
to care for them, or to inquire after them. The violator
of the
laws of justice ought to be made to feel himself that evil
which
he has done to another; and since no regard to the
sufferings
of his brethren is capable of restraining him, he
ought
to be over-awed by the fear of his own. The man who is
barely
innocent, who only observes the laws of justice with
regard
to others, and merely abstains from hurting his
neighbours,
can merit only that his neighbours in their turn
should
respect his innocence, and that the same laws should be
religiously
observed with regard to him.
Chap.
II
Of the
sense of Justice, of Remorse, and of the consciousness of
Merit
There can be no proper motive for hurting
our neighbour,
there
can be no incitement to do evil to another, which mankind
will go
along with, except just indignation for evil which that
other
has done to us. To disturb his happiness merely because it
stands
in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real
use to
him merely because it may be of equal or of more use to
us, or
to indulge, in this manner, at the expence of other
people,
the natural preference which every man has for his own
happiness
above that of other people, is what no impartial
spectator
can go along with. Every man is, no doubt, by nature,
first
and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is
fitter
to take care of himself than of any other person, it is
fit and
right that it should be so. Every man, therefore, is much
more
deeply interested in whatever immediately concerns himself,
than in
what concerns any other man: and to hear, perhaps, of the
death
of another person, with whom we have no particular
connexion,
will give us less concern, will spoil our stomach, or
break
our rest much less than a very insignificant disaster which
has
befallen ourselves. But though the ruin of our neighbour may
affect
us much less than a very small misfortune of our own, we
must
not ruin him to prevent that small misfortune, nor even to
prevent
our own ruin. We must, here, as in all other cases, view
ourselves
not so much according to that light in which we may
naturally
appear to ourselves, as according to that in which we
naturally
appear to others. Though every man may, according to
the
proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the rest of
mankind
he is a most insignificant part of it. Though his own
happiness
may be of more importance to him than that of all the
world
besides, to every other person it is of no more consequence
than
that of any other man. Though it may be true, therefore,
that
every individual, in his own breast, naturally prefers
himself
to all mankind, yet he dares not look mankind in the
face,
and avow that he acts according to this principle. He feels
that in
this preference they can never go along with him, and
that
how natural soever it may be to him, it must always appear
excessive
and extravagant to them. When he views himself in the
light
in which he is conscious that others will view him, he sees
that to
them he is but one of the multitude in no respect better
than
any other in it. If he would act so as that the impartial
spectator
may enter into the principles of his conduct, which is
what of
all things he has the greatest desire to do, he must,
upon
this, as upon all other occasions, humble the arrogance of
his
self-love, and bring it down to something which other men can
go
along with. They will indulge it so far as to allow him to be
more
anxious about, and to pursue with more earnest assiduity,
his own
happiness than that of any other person. Thus far,
whenever
they place themselves in his situation, they will
readily
go along with him. In the race for wealth, and honours,
and
preferments, he may run as hard as he can, and strain every
nerve
and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors.
But if
he should justle, or throw down any of them, the
indulgence
of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a
violation
of fair play, which they cannot admit of. This man is
to
them, in every respect, as good as he: they do not enter into
that
self-love by which he prefers himself so much to this other,
and
cannot go along with the motive from which he hurt him. They
readily,
therefore, sympathize with the natural resentment of the
injured,
and the offender becomes the object of their hatred and
indignation.
He is sensible that he becomes so, and feels that
those
sentiments are ready to burst out from all sides against
him.
As the greater and more irreparable the
evil that is done,
the resentment
of the sufferer runs naturally the higher; so does
likewise
the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, as well as
the
sense of guilt in the agent. Death is the greatest evil which
one man
can inflict upon another, and excites the highest degree
of
resentment in those who are immediately connected with the
slain.
Murder, therefore, is the most atrocious of all crimes
which
affect individuals only, in the sight both of mankind, and
of the
person who has committed it. To be deprived of that which
we are
possessed of, is a greater evil than to be disappointed of
what we
have only the expectation. Breach of property, therefore,
theft
and robbery, which take from us what we are possessed of,
are
greater crimes than breach of contract, which only
disappoints
us of what we expected. The most sacred laws of
justice,
therefore, those whose violation seems to call loudest
for
vengeance and punishment, are the laws which guard the life
and
person of our neighbour; the next are those which guard his
property
and possessions; and last of all come those which guard
what
are called his personal rights, or what is due to him from
the
promises of others.