'- -
 
 THE 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 ADAM SMITH
 
 ESS AY S 
 
 I. MORAL SENTIMENTS; 
 II. ASTRONOMICAL INQUIRIES; 
 
 III. FORMA TION OF LANG UA GES ; 
 
 IV. HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHYSICS; 
 
 V. ANCIENT LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS; 
 
 VI. THE IMITATIVE ARTS; 
 VII. MUSIC, DANCING, POETRY; 
 
 VIII. THE EXTERNAL SENSES; 
 IX. ENGLISH ANl> ITALIAN VERSES. 
 
 BY 
 
 ADAM SMITH,. LL.D. F.R.S., 
 
 Author of the ' Inquiry into the Natrtre and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.* 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ALEX. MURRAY & CO., 30, QUEEN SQUARE, W.C. 
 
 1872.
 
 LONDON: 
 BRADBCTRV, KVANS, AND CO., PRWTTERS, WHITKFEIAH3.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
 
 ADAM SMITH, the author of these Essays and of the 'Inquiry into 
 the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,' was born at 
 Kirkaldy, June 5, 1723, a few months after the death of his father. 
 He was a sickly child, and indulged by his mother, who was the object 
 of his filial gratitude for sixty years. When about three years old, and 
 at the house of Douglass of Strathenry, his mother's brother, he was 
 carried off by tinkers or gipsies, but soon recovered from them. At the 
 burgh school of his native town he made rapid progress, and soon 
 attracted notice by his passion for books, and by the extraordinary 
 powers of his memory. His weakness of body prevented him joining 
 in athletic sports, but his generous and friendly temperament made 
 him a favourite with his schoolmates ; and he was noted then, as 
 through after life, for absence in company and a habit of speaking 
 to himself when alone. From the grammar school of Kirkaldy, he was 
 sent, in 1737, to the University of Glasgow, whence, in 1740, he went 
 to Baliol College, Oxford, enjoying an exhibition on the Snell founda- 
 tion. When at Glasgow College, his favourite studies were mathe- 
 matics and natural philosophy, but that did not long divert his mind 
 from pursuits more congenial to him, more particularly the political 
 history of mankind, which gave scope to the power of his com- 
 prehensive genius, and gratified his ruling passion of contributing 
 to the happiness and the improvement of society. To his early taste 
 for Greek generally, may be due the clearness and fulness with which 
 he states his political reasonings. At Oxford he employed himself fre- 
 quently in the practice of translation, with a view to the improvement 
 of his own style, and used to commend such exercises to all who culti- 
 vate the art of composition. He also cultivated with the greatest care 
 the study of languages ; and his knowledge of them led him to a 
 peculiar experience in everything that could illustrate the institutions, 
 the manners, and the ideas of different ages and nations. 
 
 After a residence at Oxford of seven years, he returned to Kirkaldy, 
 and lived two years with his mother, engaged in studies, but without 
 any fixed plan for his future life. He had been originally destined for 
 the Church of England ; but not finding the ecclesiastical profession 
 suitable to his taste, he took chance of obtaining some of those mode- 
 rate preferments, to which literary attainments lead in Scotland. 
 Removing to Edinburgh in 1748, he read lectures on rhetoric and 
 belles lettres, under the patronage of Lord Kames ; and when in 
 Edinburgh became intimate with David Hume. 
 
 In 1751 he was elected Professor of Logic in the University of 
 Glasgow; and, the year following, he became Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy there ; a situation he held for thirteen years, and used to 
 look back on as the most useful and happy of his life; and, though but 
 a narrow scene for his ambition, may have led to the future eminence 
 of his literary character. In delivering his lectures, Mr. Smith trusted 
 
 209494.-?
 
 S BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
 
 almost entirely to extemporary elocution. His manner, though not 
 graceful, was plain and unaffected, and he never failed to interest his 
 hearers. Each discourse consisted commonly of several distinct pro- 
 positions, which he successively endeavoured to prove and illustrate. 
 At first he often appeared to speak with hesitation ; but, as he advanced, 
 the matter seemed to crowd upon him, his manner became warm and 
 animated, and his expression easy and fluent. His reputation as a 
 philosopher attracted a multitude of students from a great distance to 
 the University ; and those branches of science which he taught became 
 fashionable, and his opinions were the chief topics of discussion in the 
 clubs and literary societies of Glasgow. While Adam Smith became 
 thus eminent as a public lecturer, he was gradually laying the founda- 
 tion of a more extensive reputation by preparing for the press his 
 System of Morals ; and the first edition of his Essays appeared in 
 1757, under the title of THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 
 
 Of this essay, Dugald Stewart remarks, 'that whatever opinion we 
 may entertain of the justness of its conclusions, it must be allowed to 
 be a singular effort of invention, ingenuity, and subtilty ; that it con- 
 tains a large mixture of important truth, and has had the merit of 
 directing the attention of philosophers to a view of human nature, 
 which had formerly in a great measure escaped their notice ; and no 
 work, undoubtedly, can be mentioned, ancient or modern, which ex- 
 hibits so complete a view of those facts with respect to our moral per- 
 ceptions, which it is one great object of this branch of science to refer 
 to their general laws ; and well deserves the careful study of all whose 
 taste leads them to prosecute similar enquiries. These facts are pre- 
 sented in the most happy and beautiful lights ; and when the subject 
 leads him to address the imagination and the heart, the variety and 
 felicity of his illustrations, the richness and fluency of his eloquence ; 
 and the skill with which he wins the attention and commands the pas- 
 sions of his readers, leave him, among our English moralists, without a 
 rival. Towards the close of 1763, Mr. Smith arranged to visit the 
 continent with the Duke of Buccleugh, returning to London in 1766. 
 For the next ten years he lived quietly with his mother at Kirkaldy ; 
 and in 1776, accounted to the world for his long retreat, by the public- 
 ation of his 'INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE 
 WEALTH OF NATIONS.' In 1778, Mr. Smith was appointed a Com- 
 missioner of Customs in Scotland, the pecuniary emoluments of which 
 were considerable. In 1784, he lost his mother. In 1788, his cousin, 
 Miss Douglass, died, to whom he had been strongly attached ; and in 
 July, 1790, he died, having, a short while before, in conversation with 
 his friend Riddell, regretted that ' HE HAD DONE so LITTLE.' 
 
 [Above biographic notes and literary opinions have been abridged from a paper on ' The 
 Life and Writings of Adam Smith,' by Professor Dugald Stewart, of Edinburgh, 1793- A. M.J
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 TO THE SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 SINCE the first publication of the THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS, 
 which was in the beginning of the year 1759, several corrections, and a 
 good many illustrations of the doctrines contained in it, have occurred 
 to me. But the various occupations in which the different accidents of 
 my life necessarily involved me, have till now prevented roe from 
 revising this work with the care and attention which I always intended. 
 The reader will find the principal alterations which I have made in this 
 New Edition, in the last Chapter of the third Section of Part First ; 
 and in the four first Chapters of Part Third. Part Sixth, as it stands 
 in this New Edition, is altogether new. In Part Seventh, I have 
 brought together the greater part of the different passages concerning 
 the Stoical Philosophy, which, in the former Editions, had been scat- 
 tered about in different parts of the work. I have likewise endeavoured 
 to explain more fully, and examine more distinctly, some of the doc- 
 trines of that famous sect. In the fourth and last Section of the same 
 Part, I have thrown together a few additional observations concerning 
 the duty and the principle of veracity. There are, besides, in other 
 parts of the work, a few other alterations and corrections of no 
 great moment. 
 
 In the last paragraph of the first Edition of the present work, I said 
 that I should in another discourse endeavour to give an account of the 
 general principles of law and government, and of the different revolu- 
 tions which they had undergone in the different ages and periods of 
 society ; not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, 
 revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of law. In the 
 Inquiry concerning the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 
 I have partly executed this promise ; at least so far as concerns police, 
 revenue, and arms. What remains, the theory of jurisprudence, which 
 I have long projected, I have hitherto been hindered from executing, by 
 the same occupations which had till now prevented me from revising 
 the present work. Though my very advanced age leaves me, I acknow- 
 ledge, very little expectation of 'ever being able to execute this great 
 work to my own satisfaction ; yet, as I have not altogether abandoned 
 the design, and as I wish still to continue under the obligation of doing 
 what I can, I have allowed the paragraph to remain as it was published 
 more than thirty years ago, when I entertained no doubt of being able 
 to execute every thing which it announced.
 
 ESSAYS BY ADAM SMITH 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITORS. 
 
 THE much lamented author of these Essays left them in the hands 
 of his friends to be disposed of as they thought proper, having im- 
 mediately before his death destroyed many other manuscripts which 
 he thought unfit for being made public. When these were inspected, 
 the greater number of them appeared to be parts of a plan he once 
 had formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and 
 elegant arts. It is long since he found it necessary to abandon that 
 plan as far too extensive ; and these parts of it lay beside him 
 neglected until his death. His friends are persuaded, however, that 
 the reader will find in them that happy connection, that full and 
 accurate expression, and that clear illustration which are conspicuous 
 in the rest of his works ; and that though it is difficult to add much to 
 the great fame he so justly acquired by his other writings, these will 
 be read with satisfaction and pleasure. 
 
 JOSEPH BLACK. 
 JAMES HUTTON.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 
 PART I. 
 
 OF THE PROPRIETY OF ACTIONS. 
 
 PACE 
 SEC. I. Of the Sense of Propriety . . . '.(,"'. . . 9 
 
 CH. I. Of Sympathy ..''".''. 9-13 
 
 CH. II. Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy .... 13-16 
 
 CH. III., IV. Of the manner in which we judge of the Propriety or 
 Impropriety of theJAffections of other Men, by their Concord or 
 
 Dissonance with our own ....... 16-23 
 
 CH. V. Of the amiable and respectable Virtues . . . . 23-26 
 
 SEC. II. Of the Degrees of the different Passions which are con- 
 sistent with Propriety 26 
 
 CH. I. Of the Passions which take their Origin from the Body . 26-30 
 CH. II. Of those Passions which take their Origin from a par- 
 ticular Turn or Habit of the Imagination .... 30-32 
 CH. III. Of the unsocial Passions . . . . - . . 32-37 
 
 CH. IV. Of the social Passions 37-39 
 
 CH. V. Of the selfish Passions 39~4i 
 
 SEC. 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 Approbation in the one 
 State than in the other. 42 
 
 CH. 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 42-47 
 
 CH. II. Of the Origin of Ambition, and of the Distinction of Ranks 47-56 
 CH. 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 . 56-60 
 
 PART II. 
 
 OF MERIT AND DEMERIT J OR, OF THE OBJECTS OF REWARD AND 
 
 PUNISHMENT. 
 
 SEC. I. Of the Sense of Merit and Demerit Introduction . 6l 
 CH. I. 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, ap- 
 pears to deserve Punishment 61-63
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CH. II. Of the proper Objects of Gratitude and Resentment. . 63-65 
 CH. 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 ...... 65-67 
 
 CH. IV. Recapitulation of the foregoing Chapters. . . . 67-68 
 
 CH. V. The Analysis of the Sense of Merit and Demerit . . 68-70 
 
 SEC. II. Of Justice and Beneficence 
 
 CH. I. Comparison of those two Virtues ..... 7~75 
 CH. II. Of the sense of Justice, of Remorse, and of the Conscious- 
 ness of Merit 75~7S 
 
 CH. III. Of the Utility of this Constitution of Nature . . . 78-84 
 
 SEC. III. Of the Influence of Fortune upon the Sentiments of Man- 
 kind, with regard to the Merit or Demerit of Actions 
 Introduction 84 85 
 
 CH. I. Of the Causes of this Influence of Fortune . . . 85-88 
 CH. II. Of the Extent of this Influence of Fortune . . . 88-95 
 CH. III. Of the final Cause of this Irregularity of Sentiments . 96-99 
 
 PART III. 
 
 OF THE FOUNDATION OF OUR JUDGMENTS CONCERNING OUR OWN SENTI- 
 MENTS AND CONDUCT, AND OF THE SENSE OF DUTY. 
 
 CH. I. Of the Principle of Self-approbation and of Self-disappro- 
 bation 99-102 
 
 CH. II. Of the Love of Praise, and of that of Praise -worthiness ; and 
 
 of the Dread of Blame, and of that of Blame-worthiness. . 102-118 
 
 CH. III. Of the Influence and Authority of Conscience . . 118-137 
 
 CH. IV. Of the Nature of Self-deceit, and of the Origin and Use 
 
 of general Rules 137-142 
 
 CH. V. Of the Influence and Authority of the general Rules of 
 Morality, and that they are justly regarded as the Laws of the 
 Deity . . . . 142-150 
 
 CH. VI. In what Cases the Sense of Duty ought to be the sole Prin- 
 ciple of our Conduct ; and in what Cases it ought to concur 
 with other Motives .... ... 150-158 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 OF THE EFFECT OF UTILITY UPON THE SENTIMENT OF APPROBATION. 
 
 CH. I. Of the Beauty which the Appearance of Utility bestows upon 
 all the Productions of Art, and of the extensive Influence of 
 this Species of Beauty 158-165 
 
 CH. II. Of the Beauty which the Appearance of Utility bestows 
 upon the Characters and Actions of Men; and how far the Per- 
 ception of this Beauty may be regarded as one of the original 
 Principles of Approbation 165-171
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM AND FASHION UPON THE SENTIMENTS 
 OF MORAL APPROBATION AND DISAPPROBATION. 
 
 Cil. I. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our Notions 
 
 of Beauty and Deformity 171-176 
 
 CH. II. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral 
 
 Sentiments . . . . . . . . . . 176-187 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 OF THE CHARACTER OF VIRTUE. INTRODUCTION, 187. 
 
 SEC. I. Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it affects his 
 
 own Happiness ; or of Prudence ....,-. 187-192 
 
 SEC. II. Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it can affect 
 
 the Happiness of other People Introduction .... 192-193 
 
 CH. I. Of the Order in which Individuals are recommended by 
 
 Nature to our Care and Attention ...... 193-201 
 
 CH. II. Of the Order in which Societies are by Nature recom- 
 mended to our Beneficence , . 201-208 
 
 CH. III. Of universal Benevolence ...... 208-210 
 
 SEC. III. Of Self-command 210-233 
 
 Conclusion of the Sixth Part 233-236 
 
 PART VII. 
 
 OF SYSTEMS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 SEC. I. Of the Questions which ought to be examined in a Theory 
 
 of Moral Sentiments ........ 236-237 
 
 SEC. II. Of the different Accounts which have been given of the 
 
 Nature of Virtue Introduction 237 
 
 CH. I. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in Propriety 237-260 
 CH. II. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in Prudence . 260-265 
 CH. III. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in Benevo- 
 lence ...... 265-271 
 
 CH. IV. Of licentious Systems 271-278 
 
 SEC. III. Of the different Systems which have been formed con- 
 cerning the Principle of Approbation Introduction . . 279 
 
 CH. I. Of those Systems which deduce the Principle of Approba- 
 tion from Self-love ........ 279-281 
 
 CH. II. Of those Systems which make Reason the Principle of 
 
 Approbation ..... ; . . . 282-284 
 
 CH. III. Of those Systems which make Sentiment the Principle 
 
 of Approbation . . . . . . . . . 285-290 
 
 SEC. IV. Of the Manner in which different Authors have treated of 
 
 the practical Rules of Morality 290-304
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 305-325 
 
 ESSAYS ON PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT PHILOSOPHICAL IN- 
 QUIRIES, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY 327-328 
 
 SEC. I. Of the Effects of Unexpectedness, or of Surprise . . 328-331 
 
 SEC. II. Of Wonder, or the Effects of Novelty .... 331-339 
 
 SEC. III. Of the Origin of Philosophy 340-344 
 
 SEC. IV. The History of Astronomy 344-384 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT PHILOSOPHICAL IN- 
 QUIRIES, ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT 
 
 PHYSICS 3^5-395 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT PHILOSOPHICAL IN- 
 QUIRIES, ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT LOGICS 
 
 AND METAPHYSICS 395-405 
 
 OF THE NATURE OF THAT IMITATION WHICH TAKES PLACE IN 
 
 WHAT ARE CALLED THE IMITATIVE ARTS .... 405 
 
 Part 1., 405-415. Part II., 415-432. Part III 432-434 
 
 OF THE AFFINITY BETWEEN Music, DANCING, AND POETRY . 434-438 
 
 OF THE EXTERNAL SENSES 438-439 
 
 Of the Sense of Touching, 439-444. Of the Sense of Tasting, 444- 
 445. Of the Sense of Smelling, 445. Of the Sense of Hear- 
 ing, 445-450. Of the Sense of Seeing 450-468 
 
 OF THE AFFINITY BETWEEN CERTAIN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN 
 
 VERSES 468-473
 
 THE 
 
 THE O RY 
 
 OF 
 
 Part I. Of the Propriety of Action. 
 
 SEC. 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 com- 
 passion, 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 conceiv- 
 ing 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 imagina- 
 tion 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 repre- 
 senting 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 imagi- 
 nations 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 some- 
 thing 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,
 
 10 EMOTIONS RULED BY THE STRENGTH OF THE CONCEPTION. 
 
 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 sor- 
 row, 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 demon- 
 strated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought suffi- 
 ciently 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 cor- 
 responding part of their own bodies. The horror which they conceive 
 at the misery of those wretches affects that particular part in them- 
 selves 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 
 emption 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 what, by bringing the case home to himself, he 
 imagines should be the sentiments of the sufferer.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. n 
 
 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 impro- 
 'priety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion 
 whatever. 
 
 Upon some occasions sympathy may seem 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, in- 
 stantaneously, 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 everybody 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 anything 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, sympathise 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 pas- 
 sion, 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
 
 12 SYMPATHY ARISES FROM THE SITUATION WHICH EXCITES IT. 
 
 disposition to sympathize with him, than any actual sympathy that is 
 very sensible. The first qnestion 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 con- ' 
 jectures about what it may be, yet our fellow-feeling is not very con- 
 siderable. 
 
 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 
 aiises 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 per- 
 haps is impossible, was at the same time able to regard it with his pre- 
 sent 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 de- 
 fend 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 13 
 
 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 happi- 
 ness 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 circum- 
 stances, 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 in- 
 justice 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, con- 
 scious 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
 
 14 PLEASURE AND PAIN OF SYMPATHY FELT INSTANTANEOUSLY. 
 
 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 no- 
 body 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 itj 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 pas- 
 sions, 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 dis-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 15 
 
 tress : 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 remem- 
 brance of those circumstances which occasion 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, how- 
 ever, 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 cruellest 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 ac- 
 cordingly 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 indiffer- 
 ent 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 success- 
 ful, 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 pain- 
 fulness of that sorrow with which the view of his situation affects us. 
 On the contrary, it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sym- 
 pathize with him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption 
 from sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his un- 
 easiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which 
 however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we feel, can produce
 
 1 6 OUR SENTIMENTS THE MEASURES WE JUDGE OTHERS BV. 
 
 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 com- 
 panion laughs louder or longer at ajoke 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 our 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 sympa- 
 thize 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 indig- 
 nation 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 con- 
 sidering 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.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 17 
 
 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 senti- 
 ments 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, conse- 
 quently, 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 experi- 
 ence, 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 mode 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 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 ;
 
 1 8 OUR FACULTIES THE MEASURE BY WHICH WE JUDGE OTHERS. 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ultimately depend, 
 may be considered under two different aspects, or in two different rela- 
 tions ; 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 dispropor- 
 tion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or object which 
 excites it, consists the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungrace- 
 fulness 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 punish- 
 ment. 
 
 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 effect 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 dread- 
 ful, 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 pro- 
 portioned 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.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 19 
 
 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 ob- 
 jects 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. 
 
 i. 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 produce them ; all the general subjects of science and taste, are 
 what we and our companions 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 wo 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, con- 
 stitutes 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
 
 20 THE UTILITY OF QUALITIES JUDGED IN AN AFTERTHOUGHT. 
 
 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 recom- 
 mends 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 afterthought, 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 at 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 corres- 
 pondence 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, arc 
 quite opposite to mine, I can easily overlook this opposition ; and if I
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 21 
 
 have any degree of temper, I may still find some entertainment m 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 
 cither 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 senti- 
 ments 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 princi- 
 pally 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 osvn, 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
 
 22 THE BREAST IS CALMED WHEN A FRIEND APPEARS. 
 
 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 circumstance of the person principally concerned, so 
 she teaches this last in some measure to assume those of the specta- 
 tors. As they are continually placing themselves in his situation, and 
 thence conceiving emotions similar to what he feels ; so he is as con- 
 stantly 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 them- 
 selves would feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is as con- 
 stantly 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 out- 
 lines of our situation which he is willing to consider. We expect still 
 less sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we assume, there- 
 fore, 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 unfor- 
 tunately lost it ; as well as the best preservatives of that equal and
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 23 
 
 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-govern- 
 ment, of that command of the passions which subjects all the move- 
 ments of our nature to what our own dignity and honour, and the pro- 
 priety of our own conduct require, take their origin from the other. 
 
 How amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart seems 
 to re-echo 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 com- 
 passion with sighs and tears and importunate lamentations. But we 
 reverence that reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow, which dis- 
 covers 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
 
 24 TASTK AND GOOD JUDGMENT DESERVE ADMIRATION. 
 
 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 part 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 found 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 appre- 
 hended 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 man- 
 kind. The great and 1 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 ability ; so in the common 
 degree of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence, some- 
 thing 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-com- 
 mand which astonishes by its amazing superiority over the most un- 
 governable 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 pro- 
 priety, 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 wh^n we are hungry, is certainly, upon
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 25 
 
 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 situa- 
 tions 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 wholly 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 pro- 
 priety 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 blamable and im- 
 perfect. 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 par- 
 ticular 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 
 
 3
 
 26 IN MEDIOCRITY CONSISTS THE POINT OF PROPRIETY. 
 
 much nearer to perfection than the greater part of those works which 
 can be brought into competition with it. 
 
 SEC. 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. 
 i. 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 agree- 
 able 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.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 27 
 
 We can sympathize with the distress which excessive hunger occasions 
 when we read the description of it in the 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 per- 
 sons 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 should to a man is improper : it is expected 
 that their company should inspire us with more gaiety, more pleasantry, 
 and more attention ; and an entire 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 disagree- 
 able. 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 which 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 
 
 3*
 
 28 NOTHING is so SOON FORGOT AS PAIN. 
 
 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 outcry, as I cannot go along with him, I never fail to des- 
 pise 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, con- 
 tempt from his enemies, dependence, want, and misery, coming fast 
 upon him ; and we sympathize with him the more strongly upon this 
 account, because our imaginations can the more readily mould them- 
 selves 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 mis- 
 fortune 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 ima- 
 gination continues to fret and rankle within, from the thought of it. 
 
 Pain never calls forth any very lively sympathy unless it is accom- 
 panied with danger. We sympathize with the fear, though not with the 
 agony of the sufferer. Fear, however, is a passion derived altogether
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 29 
 
 from the imagination, which represents, with an uncertainty and fluc,- 
 tuation that increases our anxiety, not what we really feel, but what we 
 may hereafter possibly suffer. The gout or the tooth-ache, though ex- 
 quisitely 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 opera- 
 tion, 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 frac- 
 ture. 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 com- 
 passion, by the representation of the agonies of bodily pain. Philo- 
 ctetes cries out and faints from the extremity of his sufferings. Hip- 
 polytus 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 circumstance. 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 interest- 
 ing 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
 
 30 ALL STRONG EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE RIDICULOUS TO STRANGERS. 
 
 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 dis- 
 posed 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 31 
 
 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 gross- 
 ness 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 pas- 
 sion 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 mea- 
 sure, 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
 
 32 A PHILOSOPHER TS COMPANY TO A PHILOSOPHER ONLY. 
 
 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 dispropor- 
 tioned 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 grace- 
 ful 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 imme- 
 diately, we have the greatest propensity to sympathize, even notwith- 
 standing 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. Notwith- 
 standing 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 com- 
 panions 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 per- 
 son who feels them, and the person who is the object of them. The
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 33 
 
 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, there- 
 fore, 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 lago 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 the resentment against 
 the person who injured him. The amiableness of the character exas- 
 perates their sense of the atrocity of the injury. 
 
 These passions, however, are regarded as necessary parts of the cha- 
 racter 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 insensi- 
 bility : we call his behaviour mean-spiritedness, and are as really pro- 
 voked 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 ap- 
 plaud, and sympathize with it. It enlivens their own indignation 
 against his enemy, whom they rejoice to see him attack in turn, and 
 are as really gratified 6y 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 render- 
 ing it dangerous to insult or to 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 pas-
 
 34 WHAT RENDERS OBJECTS AGREEAHI.E TO THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 sions 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 offen- 
 sive 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 disagree- 
 able 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 con- 
 veniency, 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 haHs and 
 dining rooms. A trophy of the same kind, composed of the instru- 
 ments of surgery, of dissecting and amputation-knives, of saws for 
 cutting the bones, of trepanning instruments, &c., 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 imme- 
 diate effect of them is pain and suffering, the sight of them always 
 displeases us. Instruments of war are agreeable, though their imme- 
 diate 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 con- 
 nected 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 archi- 
 tecture. 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 35 
 
 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 happi- 
 ness 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 con- 
 sidering. 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 con- 
 tinued, forces us almost involuntarily to fly to his assistance. The sight 
 of a smiling countenance, in the same manner, elevates even the pen- 
 sive 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, in- 
 stantly expanded and elated. But it is quite otherwise with the expres- 
 sions 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 over- 
 come 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 situ- 
 ation 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 power- 
 fully 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.
 
 36 HATRED AXD ANGER ARE AS POISON TO A GOOD MIND. 
 
 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 en- 
 tertainment may consist, without any impropriety, of the imitation 
 of the social and agreeable passions. It would be a strange enter- 
 tainment 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 ingrati- 
 tude 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. \Vhat 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 resent- 
 ment completely agreeable, and to make the spectator thoroughly sym- 
 pathize 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 anything 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 pro- 
 priety 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 37 
 
 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 en- 
 noble the expressions of this disagreeable passion. This motive must 
 characterize our whole style and deportment. These must be plain, 
 open, and direct ; determined without positiveness, and elevated with- 
 out insolence ; not only free from petulance and low scurrility, but gen- 
 erous, 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 ex- 
 tinguished 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 disagree- 
 able : 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 pas- 
 sions, 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 senti- 
 ments of the other, whose emotions are employed about the same 
 object. We have always, therefore, the strongest disposition to sympa- 
 thize 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 advan- 
 tage which he can expect to derive from it. What character is so detest- 
 able as that of one who takes pleasure to sow dissention 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 friend- 
 ship continued, they might have expected from one another ? It is in
 
 38 THE AMIABLE PASSIONS NEVER REGARDED WITH AVERSION. 
 
 depriving them of that friendship itself, in robbing them of each other's 
 affections, from which both derived so much satisfaction ; it is in dis- 
 turbing 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 soothes 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 companious for one another, without any other differ- 
 ence 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 agree- 
 able 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 aver- 
 sion, 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
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 39 
 
 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 in- 
 terest 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 ex- 
 pect, 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 lie 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 be- 
 come his dependents : nor does he always acquire any new ones ; the
 
 40 DECENT TO BE HUMBLE AMIDST GREAT PROSPERITY. 
 
 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 modification 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 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 satis- 
 faction 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 ns in the same agreeable aspect in which it pre- 
 sents 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 em- 
 brace 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 un- 
 easy 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 
 shown 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 41 
 
 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 diver- 
 sions 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 oc- 
 casion. 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 sympa- 
 thetic 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 con- 
 sidered 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, there- 
 fore, under any signal calamity, if by some extraordinary misfortune 
 you are fallen into poverty, into diseases, into disgrace and disappoint- 
 ment ; even though your own fault may have been, in part, the occa- 
 sion, 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.
 
 42 PAIN A MORE PUNGENT SENSATION THAN PLEASURE. 
 
 SEC. 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 
 APPROBATION 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 neces- 
 sary 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 har- 
 mony 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 weakness 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 show 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 observa- 
 tion 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.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 43 
 
 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 reluct- 
 ance. 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 ap- 
 proaches 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 intem- 
 perance 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 be 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 situa- 
 tion, all accessions of fortune may properly be said to be superfluous ; 
 and if he is much elevated on 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 
 
 4
 
 44 WE SYMPATHIZE WITH GRIEF WITH RELUCTANCE. 
 
 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 hesita- 
 tion : 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 com- 
 pletes! sympathy. He does not fear, therefore, to announce himself 
 with shouts of exultation, in full confidence that we are heartily dis- 
 posed to go along with him. 
 
 Why should we be more ashamed to weep than to laugh before com- 
 pany ? 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 
 
 It has been objected to me that as I found the sentiment of approbation, which is always 
 agreeable, upon sympathy, it is inconsistent with my system to admit any disagreeable sym- 
 pathy. I answer, that in the sentiment of approbation there are two things to be taken notice 
 of; first, the sympathetic passion of the spectator; and secondly, the emotion which arises 
 from his observing the perfect coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and 
 the original passion in the person principally concerned. This last emotion, in which the 
 sentiment of approbation properly consists, is always agreeable and delightful. The other 
 may either be agreeable or disagreeable, according to the nature of the original passion, whose 
 features it must always, in some measure, retain.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 45 
 
 always miserable to complain, even when we are oppressed by the most 
 dreadful calamities. But the triumph of victory is not always ungrace- 
 ful. 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 with- 
 out 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 plea- 
 sure : 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 afflic- 
 tions, 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 circum- 
 stances of their misfortune, we listen to them with gravity and atten- 
 tion. But while their narration is every moment interrupted by those 
 natural bursts of passion which often seem almost to choke them in the 
 midst of it ; how far are the languid emotions of our hearts from keep- 
 ing 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 our- 
 selves 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 how- 
 ever, 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 they were enough, and therefore did not com- 
 mand 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
 
 46 THE MAGNANIMITY OF CATO EXTOLLED BY SENECA. 
 
 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 take 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 miser- 
 able 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 themselves, than for those who give way to all the weakness 
 of sorrow and in 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 sympa- 
 thetic 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.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 47 
 
 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 irre- 
 sistibly determined. The weakness of sorrow never appears in any 
 respect agreeable, except when it arises 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 his 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 weak- 
 ness, 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 oj 
 
 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
 
 48 THE DESIRES AND WANTS OF THE RICH AND THE POOR. 
 
 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 pre-eminence? Is it to supply the necessities of nature? The 
 wages of the meanest labourer can supply them. We see that they 
 can afford him food and clothing, the comfort of a house and of a 
 family. If we examine his ceconomy with rigour, we should find that 
 he spends a great part of them upon conveniences, 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 
 the great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition ? 
 To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sym- 
 pathy, complacency, and approbation, arc 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 advan- 
 tages 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 man- 
 kind, 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 49 
 
 cares and painful attentions which occupy those in his situation, afford 
 no amusement to the dissipated and the gay. They turn away their 
 their eyes from him, 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 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 observ- 
 ation 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 mankind, all that toil, all that 
 anxiety, all those mortifications which must be undergone in the pur- 
 suit 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 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 chil- 
 dren. Great king, live for ever ! is the compliment which, after. the 
 manner of eastern adulation, we should readily make them, if experi- 
 ence 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 misfortune of 
 kings only which afford the proper subjects for tragedy. They resemble
 
 go FOUNDATION OF THE DISTINCTION OF RANKS IN SOCIETY 
 
 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 they are 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 
 goodwill. 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 recompense but 
 the vanity or the honour of obliging them. Neither is our deference 
 to the 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 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 frorri it, as the severest of all morti- 
 fications. 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 similarity 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 those passions, before the bulk of the people can 
 be brought to oppose them with violence, or to desire to see them
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 51 
 
 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 ot 
 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 pre-emi- 
 nence, 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 grace- 
 ' fulness of his shape, and the majestic beauty of his features. The
 
 52 THE PERSONAL QUALITIES OF LOUIS LE GRAND. 
 
 ' 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 fal- 
 ' tered in asking him a favour, and not being able to conclude his dis- 
 ' course, 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 benefi- 
 cence 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 53 
 
 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 for- 
 ward 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 dis- 
 tinction, 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 govern- 
 ments, 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 mean- 
 ness 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 ^Emilius, their mis- 
 fortunes, 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 sent!-
 
 54 AMBITION IS THE MASTER PASSION OF LIFE. 
 
 ment, 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 pro- 
 tection 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 Rochefaucault, ' 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 des- 
 pise 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 in 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 55 
 
 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 advantange is capable of overbalancing. But rank, dis- 
 tinction, 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 supe- 
 riority over his fellows. 
 
 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 suf- 
 ferer, 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 gene- 
 ral officer at the head of his army, disgraced him irrecoverably. The 
 punishment would have been much less had he shot him through his 
 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 gene- 
 rous people, as the most dreadful of any. With regard to persons of 
 that rank, therefore, they are universally laid aside, and the law, while
 
 56 LOSS OF REPUTATION ATTENDS THE WANT OF SUCCESS. 
 
 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 Euro- 
 pean 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 be- 
 haviour 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 sym- 
 pathy 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 situa- 
 tion 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 to 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 con- 
 tempt of mankind, all other external evils are easily supported. 
 
 CHAP. III. Of the Corruption of our Moral Sentiments, -which is occa- 
 sioned 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 57 
 
 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 senti- 
 ments. 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 com- 
 plaint 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 osten- 
 tatious avidity ; the other, of humble modesty and equitable justice. . 
 Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, accord- 
 ing 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 disin- 
 terested admirers and worshippers, of wealth and greatness. 
 
 The respect which we feel for wisdom and virtue is, no doubt, dif- 
 ferent 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 consider- 
 able 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. Jt is scarce 
 
 5
 
 58 SOLID PROFESSIONAL ABILITIES SELDOM FAIL OF SUCCESS. 
 
 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 con- 
 sidered 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 sing-le transgression of the rules of 
 temperance and propriety, is commonly more resented, than the con- 
 stant 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 con- 
 duct, 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 per- 
 fectly 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 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 intelli- 
 gent 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
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 59 
 
 masculine virtues of a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, or a legis- 
 lator. 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 Louis the Thirteenth, to give his advice in 
 some great emergency, he observed the favourites and courtiers whis- 
 pering 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 i:i 
 the very qualities which dishonour and degrade them. Vain men often 
 give themselves airs of a fashionable profligacy, which, in their heart?, 
 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 praiseworthy, and are 4 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 ; arid 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 praiseworthy 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 expense. Many a poor man places his glory in being thought rich, 
 without considering that the duties (if one may call such follies by so 
 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
 
 60 NOT EASE BUT HONOUR IS THE AIM OF THE AMBITIOUS. 
 
 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 rebel- 
 lion 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 denied by the 
 baseness of the means through which he rose to it. Though by the 
 profusion of every liberal expense ; 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 obli- 
 vion. 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 sus- 
 picions. 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 de- 
 signs 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.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 61 
 
 Part II. Of Merit and Demerit ; or, of the Objects of 
 Reward and Punishment. 
 
 SEC. 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 im- 
 propriety, 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 affec- 
 tion seems to bear to the cause or object which excites it, depends the 
 propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the conse- 
 quent 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 con- 
 sider, wherein consists that of their good or ill desert. 
 
 CHAP. I. That whatever appears to be the proper Object of Gratitude 7 
 appears to deserve Reward j 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.
 
 62 WE HAVE PLEASURE IN THE MISFORTUNES OF THOSE WE HATE. 
 
 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 as to be instruments of either. The 
 love and esteem which grow upon acquaintance and habitual approba- 
 tion, 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 satis- 
 fied, 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 happi- 
 ness, 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 the 
 habitual disapprobation, would often lead us to take a malicious plea- 
 sure 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 bring- 
 ing 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 imagina- 
 tion of so execrable a design ; and if he could imagine himself capable 
 of such an enormity, he would begin to regard to himself in the same 
 odious light in which he had considered the person who was the object 
 
 his dislike. But it is quite otherwise with resentment : if the person
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 63 
 
 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 soothe our hatred, it would not fully gratify our resentment. Re- 
 sentment 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 punish- 
 ment ; the correction of the criminal, and 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 punish- 
 ment, 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 punish- 
 ment, which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that 
 account rejoices to see punished. 
 
 i. As we sympathize with the joy of our companions, when in pros- 
 perity, so we join with them in the complacency and satisfaction with 
 which they naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good fortune.
 
 64 WE SYMPATHIZE WITH THE OPPRESSED AND SHARE HIS FEELINGS. 
 
 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 de- 
 stroyed, 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 vigor- 
 ous and active sentiment by which we go along with him in the effort 
 he makes, either to repeal 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 when- 
 ever 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 con- 
 cerned is incapable of feeling, and which yet we feel by an illusive
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 65 
 
 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 reflection upon the utility of punish- 
 ment, 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 thf 
 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 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 pro- 
 priety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the affec- 
 tions 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. 
 
 i. First, I say, that wherever we cannot sympathize with the affec- 
 tions 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
 
 66 INJUDICIOUS PRODIGALITY SELDOM MAKES ATTACHED FRIENDS. 
 
 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 surname happen to be 
 the same with those of the giver. Such services do not seem to de- 
 mand 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 experi- 
 enced 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, notwith- 
 standing his social and harmless disposition, appears to have lived and 
 died without a friend. The whole gentry and nobility of England ex- 
 posed their lives and fortunes in the cause of Charles I., 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 67 
 
 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. 
 
 i. 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 pro- 
 priety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we entirely sym- 
 pathize 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 appuove 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 resent- 
 ment 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 resent- 
 ment 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 resent- 
 ment. 
 
 But when to the hurtfulness of the action is joined the impropriety 
 of the affection from whence it proceeds, when our heart rejects with
 
 68 SCIPIO, CAMILLUS, TIMOLEON, ARISTIDES ALWAYS ADMIRED. 
 
 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 there- 
 by approve of, that resentment which prompts to inflict it. The of- 
 fender 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 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. 
 
 i. 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 per- 
 son 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 dis- 
 tinct emotions ; a direct sympathy with the sentiments of the agents, 
 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 ani- 
 mated 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 situa- 
 tion 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 69 
 
 readily sympathizes with the highest transports of their grateful affec- 
 tion. 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 situa- 
 tion of those principally concerned, we feel ourselves naturally trans- 
 ported 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 resent- 
 ment 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 senti- 
 ment, and to be made up of two distinct emotions ; a direct antipathy 
 to the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the re- 
 sentment 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 influ- 
 enced 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 be- 
 trayed, what indignation do we not feel against such insolent and inhu- 
 man 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 occa- 
 sioned 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
 
 70 THE RUDE IMPULSE OF RESENTMENT MAY BE DISCIPLINED. 
 
 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 reta- 
 liation, our whole sense and feeling, in short, of its ill desert, of the pro- 
 priety 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 in- 
 dignation which naturally boils up in the breast of the spectator, 
 whenever he thoroughly brings home to himself the case of the 
 sufferer.* 
 
 SECT. 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 spec- 
 tator. 
 
 Actions of a hurtful tendency, which proceed from improper motives, 
 seem alone to deserve punishment; because such. alone are the ap- 
 proved objects of resentment, or excite the sympathetic resentment of 
 the spectator. 
 
 Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force, the mere 
 
 * To ascribe in this manner our natural sense of the ill desert of human actions to a sympathy 
 with the resentment of the sufferer, may seem, to the greater part of the people, to be a degra- 
 dation of that sentiment. Resentment is commonly regarded as so odious a passion, that they 
 will be apt to think it impossible that so laudable a principle, as the sense of the ill desert 
 of vice, should in any respect be founded upon it. They will be more willing, per- 
 haps, to admit that our sense of the merit of good actions is founded upon a sympathy with 
 the gratitude of the persons who receive the benefit of them ; because gratitude, as well as all 
 the other benevolent passions, is regarded as an amiable principle, which can take nothing 
 from the worth of whatever is founded upon it. Gratitude and resentment, however, are in 
 every respect, it is evident, counterparts to one another ; and if our sense of merit arises from 
 a sympathy with the one, our sense of demerit can scarce miss to proceed from a fellow-feeling 
 with the other. 
 
 Let it be considered, too, that resentment, though in the degree in which we too often see it, 
 the most odious, perhaps, of all the passions, is not disapproved of when properly humbled and 
 entirely brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the spectator. When we 
 who are the bystanders, feel that our own animosity entirely corresponds with that of the 
 sufferer, when the resentment of this last does not in any respect go beyond our own, when no 
 word, no gesture, escapes him that denotes an emotion more violent than what we can keep 
 time to, and when he never aims at inflicting any punishment beyond what we should 
 rejoice to see inflicted, or what we ourselves would upon this account even desire to be the 
 instruments of inflicting, it is impossible that we should not entirely approve of his sentiment. 
 Our own emotion in this case must, in our eyes, undoubtedly justify his. And as experience 
 teaches us how much the greater part of mankind are incapable of this moderation, and how 
 great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and undisciplined impulse of 
 resentment to this suitable temper, we cannot avoid conceiving a considerable degree of esteem
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 71 
 
 want of it exposes to no punishment ; because the mere want of bene- 
 ficence tends to do no real positive evil. It may disappoint of the 
 
 and admiration for one who appears capable of exerting so much self-command over one of the 
 most ungovernable passions of his nature. When indeed the animosity of the sufferer exceeds, 
 as it almost always does, that we can go along with, as we cannot enter into it, we necessarily 
 disapprove of it. We even disapprove of it more than we should of an equal excess of almost 
 any other passion derived from the imagination. And this too violent resentment, instead of 
 carrying us along with it becomes itself the object of our resentment and indignation. We 
 enter into the opposite resentment of the person who is the object of this unjust emotion, and 
 who is in danger of suffering from it. Revenge, therefore, the excess of resentment, appears 
 to be the most detestable of all the passions, and is the object of the horror and indignation of 
 every body. And as in the way in which this passion commonly discovers itself among man- 
 kind, it is excessive a hundred times for once that it is immoderate, we are very apt to consider 
 it as altogether odious and detestable, because in its most ordinary appearances it is so. Na- 
 ture, however, even in the present depraved state of mankind, does not seem to have dealt so 
 unkindly with us, as to have endowed us with any principle which is wholly and in every 
 respect'evil, orwhich, in no degree and in no direction, can be the proper object of praise and 
 approbation. Upon some occasions we are sensible that this passion, which is generally too 
 strong, may likewise be too weak. We. sometimes complain that a particular person shows 
 too little spirit, and has too little sense of the injuries that have been done to him; and we are 
 as ready to despise him for the defect, as to hate him for the excess of this passion. 
 
 The inspired writers would not surely have talked so frequently or so strongly of the wrath 
 and anger of God, if they had regarded every degree of those passions as vicious and evil, even 
 in so weak and imperfect a creature as man. 
 
 Let it be considered too, that the present inquiry is not concerning a matter of right, if I may 
 say so, but concerning a matter of fact. We are not at present examining upon what prin- 
 ciples a perfect being would approve of the punishment of bad actions ; but upon what princi- 
 ples so weak and imperfect a creature as man actually and in fact approves of it. The prin- 
 ciples which I have just now mentioned, it is evident, have a very great effect upon his senti- 
 ments ; and it seems wisely ordered that it should be so. The very existence of society requires 
 that unmerited and unprovoked malice should be restrained by proper punishments ; and con- 
 sequently, that to inflict those punishments should be regarded as a proper and laudable action. 
 Though man, therefore, be naturally endowed with a desire of the welfare and preservation of 
 society, yet the Author of nature has not entrusted it to his reason to find out that a certain 
 application of punishments is the proper means of attaining this end ; but has endowed him 
 with an immediate and instinctive approbation of that very application which is most proper to 
 attain it. The oeconomy of nature is in this respect exactly of a piece with what it is upon 
 many other occasions. With regard to all those ends which, upon account of their peculiar 
 importance, may be regarded, if such an expression is allowable, as the favourite ends of nature, 
 she has constantly in this manner not only endowed mankind with an appetite for the end 
 which she proposes, but likewise with an appetite for the means by which alone this end can be 
 brought about, for their own sakes, and independent of their tendency to produce it. Thus 
 self-preservation, and the propagation of the species, are the great ends which Nature seems 
 to have proposed in the formation of all animals. Mankind are endowed with a desire of those 
 ends, and an aversion to the contrary ; with a love of life, and a dread of dissolution ; with a ' 
 desire of the continuance and perpetuity of the species, and with an aversion to the thoughts 
 of its entire extinction. But though we are in this manner endowed with a very strong desire 
 of those ends, it has not been intrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason 
 to find out the proper means of bringing them about. Nature has directed us to the greater 
 part of these by original and immediate instincts. Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites 
 the two sexes, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for 
 their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends 
 which the great Director of nature intended to produce by them. 
 
 Before I conclude this note, I must take notice of a difference between the approbation of 
 propriety and that of merit or beneficence. Before we approve of the sentiments of any person 
 as proper and suitable to their objects, we must not only be affected in the same manner 
 as he i=, but we must perceive this harmony and correspondence of sentiments between him 
 and ourselves. Thus, though upon hearing of a misfortune that had befallen my friend, I should
 
 72 RESENTMENT SEEMS GIVEN US BY NATURE FOR DEFENCE. 
 
 good which might reasonably have been expected, .and upon that 
 account it may justly excite dislike and disapprobation : it cannot, how- 
 ever, 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 spec- 
 tator 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 perform- 
 ing, 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 obliga- 
 tion. 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 
 
 conceive precisely that degree of concern which he gives way to ; yet till I am informed of the 
 manner in which he behaves, till I perceive the harmony between his emotions and mine, I 
 cannot be said to approve of the sentiments which influence his behaviour. The approbation 
 of propriety therefore requires, not only that we should entirely sympathize with the person 
 who acts, but that we should perceive this perfect concord between his sentiments and our own. 
 On the contrary, when I hear of a benefit that has been bestowed upon another person, let 
 him who has received it be affected in what manner he pleases, if, by bringing his case home 
 to myself, I feel gratitude arise in my own breast, I necessarily approve of the conduct of his 
 benefactor, and regard it as meritorious, and the proper object of reward. Whether the person 
 who has received the benefit conceives gratitude or not, cannot, it is evident, in any degree 
 alter our sentiments with regard to the merit of him who has bestowed it. No actual corres- 
 pondence of sentiments, therefore, is here required. It is sufficient that if he was grateful, 
 they would correspond ; and our sense of merit is often founded upon one of those illusive 
 sympathies, by which, when we bring home to ourselves the case of another, we are often 
 affected in a manner in which the person principally concerned is incapable of being affected. 
 There is a similar difference between our disapprobation of demerit, and that of imp/opriety
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 73 
 
 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, nor 
 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 mea- 
 sure 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 pre- 
 cepts of the other. 
 
 We must always, however, carefully distinguish what is only blam- 
 able, 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 experi- 
 ence 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 
 
 6
 
 74 KINDNESS AMONG EQUALS CANNOT BE EXTORTED BY FORCE. 
 
 unexpected, though still proper and suitable kindness, or on the con- 
 trary, by extraordinary and unexpected as well as unsuitable unkind- 
 ness, 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 indi- 
 vidual is naturally, and antecedent to the institution of civil govern- 
 ment, 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 con- 
 duct 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 discourag- 
 ing every sort of vice and impropriety ; he may prescribe rules, there- 
 fore, 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 75 
 
 neglect it altogether exposes the commonwealth to many gross dis- 
 orders 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 pro- 
 priety. 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 reputa- 
 tion 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 ob- 
 serves 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 Conscious- 
 ness 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 
 
 6 *
 
 76 THE INDIVIDUAL OF SMALL IMPORTANCE TO MANKIND. 
 
 may be of equal or of more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at 
 the expense of other people, the natural preference which every man 
 has for his own happiness above that of other people, is what no im- 
 partial 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 con- 
 cerns 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 mis- 
 fortune, 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, accord- 
 ing to the proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the rest of man- 
 kind 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 per- 
 son. Thus far, whenever they place themselves in his situation, they 
 will readily go along with him. In the race for wealth, for 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 spec- 
 tators 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
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 77 
 
 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 against him. 
 
 As the greater and more irreparable the evil that is done, the resent- 
 ment 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 pro- 
 perty, 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 posses- 
 sions ; and last of all come those which guard what are called his per- 
 sonal rights, or what is due to him from the promises of others. 
 
 The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on 
 the sentiments which mankind must entertain with regard to him, with- 
 out seeing all the agonies of shame, and horror, and consternation. 
 When his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to reflect on his past 
 conduct, he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. 
 They appear now as detestable to him as they did always to other 
 people. By sympathizing with the hatred and abhorrence which other 
 men must entertain for him, he becomes in some measure the object 
 of his own hatred and abhorrence. The situation of the person, who 
 suffered by his injustice, now calls upon his pity. He is grieved at the 
 thought of it ; regrets the unhappy effects of his own conduct, and feels 
 at the same time that they have rendered him the proper object of the 
 resentment and indignation of mankind, and of what is the natural 
 consequence of resentment, vengeance and punishment. The thought 
 of this perpetually haunts him, and fills him with terror and amaze- 
 ment He dares no longer look society in the face, but imagines him- 
 self as it were rejected, and thrown out from the affections of all 
 mankind. He cannot hope for the consolation of sympathy in this his 
 greatest and most dreadful distress. The remembrance of his crimes 
 has shut out all fellow-feeling with him from the hearts of his fellow- 
 creatures. The sentiments which they entertain with regard to him, 
 are the very thing which he is most afraid of. Every thing seems hos-
 
 78 THE HORRORS OF REMORSE ARE EVER MOST DREADFUL. 
 
 tile, and he would be glad to fly to some inhospitable desert, where he 
 might never more behold the face of a human creature, nor read in the 
 countenance of mankind the condemnation of his crimes. But solitude 
 is still more dreadful than society. His own thoughts can present him 
 with nothing but what is black, unfortunate, and disastrous, the melan- 
 choly forebodings of incomprehensible misery and ruin. The horror 
 of solitude drives him back into society, and he comes again into the 
 presence of mankind, astonished to appear before them, loaded with 
 shame and distracted with fear, in order to supplicate some little pro- 
 tection from the countenance of those very judges, who he knows have 
 already all unanimously condemned him. Such is the nature of that 
 sentiment, which is properly called remorse ; of all the sentiments 
 which can enter the human heart the most dreadful. It is made up of 
 shame from the sense of the impropriety of past conduct ; of grief for 
 the effects of it ; of pity for those who suffer by it ; and of the dread 
 and terror of punishment from the consciousness of the justly provoked 
 resentment of all rational creatures. 
 
 The opposite behaviour naturally inspires the opposite sentiment. 
 The man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has 
 performed a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he 
 has served, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and 
 gratitude, and, by sympathy with them, of the esteem and appro- 
 bation of all mankind. And when he looks backward to the motive 
 from which he acted, and surveys it in the light in which the indifferent 
 spectator will survey it, he still continues to enter into it, and applauds 
 himself by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed impartial 
 judge. In both these points of view his own conduct appears to him 
 every way agreeable. His mind, at the thought of it, is filled with 
 cheerfulness, serenity, and composure. He is in friendship and har- 
 mony with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with 
 confidence and benevolent satisfaction, secure that he has rendered 
 himself worthy of their most favourable regards. In the combination 
 of all these sentiments consists the consciousness of merit, or of de- 
 served reward. 
 
 CHAP. III. Of the Utility of this Constitution of Nature. 
 
 IT is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by 
 nature to that situation for which he was made. All the members of 
 human society stand in need of each others assistance, and are likewise 
 exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reci- 
 procally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and es- 
 teem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members 
 of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection,
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 79 
 
 and are, as it were, thereby drawn to one common centre of mutual 
 good offices. 
 
 But though the necessary assistance should not be afforded from 
 such generous and disinterested motives, though among the different 
 members of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, 
 the society, though less happy and agreeable, will not necessarily be 
 dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among dif- 
 ferent merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love 
 or affection ; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be 
 bound in gratitude to any ether, it may still be upheld by a mercenary 
 exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation. 
 
 Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times 
 ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, 
 the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the 
 bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it 
 consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the vio- 
 lence and opposition of their discordant affections. If there is any 
 society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to 
 the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another. 
 Beneficence, therefore, is less essential to the existence of society than 
 justice. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, 
 without beneficence ; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly de- 
 stroy it. 
 
 Though Nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, 
 by the pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought 
 it necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of 
 merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament 
 which embellishes, not the foundation which supports, the building, and 
 which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend, but by no means 
 necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that 
 upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense 
 fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and support seems in 
 this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care 
 of Nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms. In order to enforce 
 the observation of justice, therefore, Nature has implanted in the 
 human breast that consciousness of ill-desert, those terrors of merited 
 punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safeguards of 
 the association of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent, 
 and to chastise the guilty. Men, though naturally sympathetic, feel so 
 little for another, with whom they have no particular connexion, in 
 comparison of what they feel for themselves ; the misery of one, who 
 is merely their fellow-creature, is of so little importance to them in 
 comparison even of a small conveniency of their own ; they have it so- 
 much in their power to hurt him, and may have so many temptations 
 to do so, that if this principle did not stand up within them in his de-
 
 80 SOCIETV CANNOT SUBSIST UNLESS JUSTICE IS OBSERVED. 
 
 fence, and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would, 
 Kke wild beasts, be at all times ready to fly upon him ; and a man would 
 enter an assembly of men as he enters a den of lions. 
 
 In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the 
 nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce ; and in 
 the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is 
 contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support 
 of the individual, and the propagation of the species. But in these, 
 and in all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final 
 cause of their several motions and organizations. The digestion of 
 the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several 
 juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary 
 for the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to ac- 
 count for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor 
 imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own 
 accord, and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or 
 digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the 
 end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various 
 motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they 
 were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not 
 do it better. Yet we never ascribe any such desire or intention to them, 
 but to the watch-maker, and we know that they are put into motion by 
 a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But 
 though, in accounting for the operations of bodies, we never fail to dis- 
 tinguish in this manner the efficient from the final cause, in accounting 
 for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different 
 things with one another. When by natural principles we are led to 
 advance those ends which a refined and enlightened reason would re- 
 commend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their 
 efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those 
 ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is 
 the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view, this cause seems suffi- 
 cient to produce the effects which are ascribed to it ; and the system of 
 human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its dif- 
 ferent operations are thus deduced from a single principle. 
 
 As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably ob- 
 served, as no social intercourse can take place among men who do not 
 generally abstain from injuring one another ; the consideration of this 
 necessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved 
 of the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those 
 who violated them. Man, it has been said, has a natural love for 
 society, and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for 
 its own sake, and though he himself was to derive no benefit from it. 
 The orderly and flourishing state of society is agreeable to him, and he 
 takes delight in contemplating it. Its disorder and confusion, on the
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 81 
 
 contrary, is the object of his aversion, and he is chagrined at whatever 
 tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own interest is con.- 
 nected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness, perhaps 
 the preservation of his existence, depends upon its preservation. Upon 
 every account, therefore, he has an abhorrence at whatever can tend 
 to destroy society, and is willing to make use of every means, which 
 can hinder so hated and so dreadful an event. Injustice necessarily 
 tends to destroy it. Every appearance of injustice, therefore, alarms 
 him, and he runs (if I may say so), to stop the progress of what, if 
 allowed to go on, would quickly put an end to every thing that is dear 
 to him. If he cannot restrain it by gentle and fair means, he must bear 
 it down by force and violence, and at any rate must put a stop to its 
 further progress. Hence it is, they say, that he often approves of the 
 enforcement of the laws of justice even by the capital punishment of 
 those who violate them. The disturber of the public peace is hereby 
 removed out of the world, and others are terrified by his fate from 
 imitating his example. 
 
 Such is the account commonly given of our approbation of the 
 punishment of injustice. And so far this account is undoubtedly true, 
 that we frequently have occasion to confirm our natural sense of the 
 propriety and fitness of punishment, by reflecting how necessary it is 
 for preserving the order of society. When the guilty is about to suffer 
 that just retaliation, which the natural indignation of mankind tells 
 them is due to his crimes ; when the insolence of his injustice is broken 
 and humbled by the terror of his approaching punishment ; when he 
 ceases to be an object of fear, with the generous and humane he begins 
 to be an object of pity. The thought of what he is about to suffer 
 extinguishes their resentment for the sufferings of others to which he 
 has given occasion. They are disposed to pardon and forgive him, 
 and to save him from that punishment, which in all their cool hours 
 they had considered as the retribution due to such crimes. Here, 
 therefore, they have occasion to call to their assistance the consider- 
 ation of the general interest of society. They counterbalance the im- 
 pulse of this weak and partial humanity by the dictates of a humanity 
 that is more generous and comprehensive. They reflect that mercy to 
 the guilty is cruelty to the innocent, and oppose to the emotions of 
 compassion which they feel for a particular person, a more enlarged 
 compassion which they feel for mankind. 
 
 Sometimes too we have occasion to defend the propriety of observ- 
 ing the geneKal rules of justice by the consideration of their necessity 
 to the support of society. We frequently hear the young and the 
 licentious ridiculing the most sacred rules of morality, and professing, 
 sometimes from the corruption, but more frequently from the vanity of 
 their hearts, the most abominable maxims of conduct. Our indigna- 
 tion rouses, and we are eager to refute and expose such detestable
 
 82 ALL MEN ABHOR FRAUD, PERFIDY, AND INJUSTICE, 
 
 principles. But though it is their intrinsic hatefulness and detestable- 
 ness, which originally inflames us against them, we are unwilling to 
 assign this as the sole reason why we condemn them, or to pretend that 
 it is merely because we ourselves hate and detest them. The reason, 
 we think, would not appear to be conclusive. Yet why should it not, 
 if we hate and detest them because they are the natural and proper 
 objects of hatred and detestation ? But when they are asked why we 
 should not act in such or such a manner, the very question seems to 
 suppose that, to those who ask it, this manner of acting does not 
 appear to be for its own sake the natural and proper object of those 
 sentiments. We must show them, therefore, that it ought to be so for 
 the sake of something else. Upon this account we generally cast 
 about for other arguments, and the consideration which first occurs to 
 us, is the disorder and confusion of society which would result from 
 the universal prevalence of such practices. We seldom fail, therefore, 
 to insist upon this topic. 
 
 But though it commonly requires no great discernment to see the 
 destructive tendency of all licentious practices to the welfare of society, 
 it is seldom this consideration which first animates us against them. 
 All men, even the most stupid and unthinking, abhor fraud, perfidy 
 and injustice, and delight to see them punished. But few men have 
 reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of society, how 
 obvious soever that necessity may appear to be. 
 
 That it is not a regard to the preservation of society, which origin- 
 ally interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against indivi- 
 duals, may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations. The 
 concern which we take in the fortune and happiness of individuals 
 does not, in common cases, arise from that which we take in the 
 fortune and happiness of society. We are no more concerned for the 
 destruction or loss of a single man, because this man is a member or 
 part of society, and because we should be concerned for the destruc- 
 tion of society, than we are concerned for the loss of a single guinea, 
 because this guinea is a part of a thousand guineas, and because we 
 should be concerned for the loss of the whole sum. In neither case 
 does our regard for the individuals arise from our regard for the multi- 
 tude : but in both cases our regard for the multitude is compounded 
 and made up of the particular regards which we feel for the different 
 individuals of which it is composed. As when a small sum is unjustly 
 taken from us, we do not so much prosecute the injury from a regard 
 to the preservation of our whole fortune, as from a regard to that par- 
 ticular sum which we have lost ; so when a single man is injured or 
 destroyed, we demand the punishment of the wrong that has been done 
 to him, not so much from a concern for the general interest of society, 
 as from a concern for that very individual who has been injured. It is 
 to be observed, however, that this concern does not necessarily include
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 83 
 
 in it any degree of those exquisite sentiments which are commonly 
 called love, esteem, and affection, and by which we distinguish our 
 particular friends and acquaintance. The concern which is requisite 
 for this, is no more than the general fellow-feeling which we have with 
 every man merely because he is our fellow-creature. We enter into 
 the resentment even of an odious person, when he is injured by those 
 to whom he has given no provocation. Our disapprobation of his 
 ordinary character and conduct does not in this case altogether prevent 
 our fellow-feeling with his natural indignation ; though with those who 
 are not either extremely candid, or who have not been accustomed to 
 correct and regulate their natural sentiments by general rules, it is 
 very apt to damp it. 
 
 Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punish- 
 ment, merely from a view to the general interest of society, which, we 
 imagine, cannot otherwise be secured. Of this kind are all the punish- 
 ments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil police, or 
 military discipline. Such crimes do not immediately or directly hurt 
 any particular person ; but their remote consequences, it is supposed, 
 do produce, or might produce, either a considerable inconveniency, or 
 a great disorder in the society. A sentinel, for example, who falls asleep 
 upon his watch, suffers death by the laws of war, because such care- 
 lessness might endanger the whole army. This severity may, upon 
 many occasions, appear necessary, and, for that reason, just and proper. 
 When the preservation of an individual is inconsistent with the safety 
 of a multitude, nothing can be more just than that the many should be 
 preferred to the one. Yet this punishment, how necessary soever, 
 always appears to be excessively severe. The natural atrocity of the 
 crime seems to be so little, and the punishment so great, that it is with 
 great difficulty that our heart can reconcile itself to it. Though such 
 carelessness appears very blamable, yet the thought of this crime does 
 not naturally excite any such resentment as would prompt us to take 
 such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must recollect himself, 
 must make an effort, and exert his whole firmness and resolution, 
 before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go along with it 
 when it is inflicted by others. It is not, however, in this manner, that 
 he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful murderer or parri- 
 cide. His heart, in this case, applauds with ardour, and even with 
 transport, the just retaliation which seems due to such detestable 
 crimes, and which, if, by any accident, they should happen to escape, 
 he would be highly enraged and disappointed. The very different 
 sentiments with which the spectator views those different punishments, 
 is a proof that his approbation of the one is far from being founded 
 upon the same principles with that of the other. He looks upon the 
 sentinel as an unfortunate victim, who, indeed, must, and ought to be, 
 devoted to the safety of numbers, but whom still, in his heart, he would
 
 84 IN EVERY RELIGION A TARTARUS AND AN ELYSIUM. 
 
 be glad to save ; and he is only sorry, that the interest of the many 
 should oppose it. But if the murderer should escape from punishment, 
 it would excite his highest indignation, and he would call upon God to 
 avenge, in another world, that crime which the injustice of mankind 
 had neglected to chastise upon earth. 
 
 For it well deserves to be taken notice of, that we are so far from 
 imagining that injustice ought to be punished in this life, merely on 
 account of the order of society, which cannot otherwise be maintained, 
 that Nature teaches us to hope, and religion, we suppose, authorises 
 us to expect, that it will be punished, even in a life to come. Our 
 sense of its ill desert pursues it, if I may say so, even beyond the grave, 
 though the example of its punishment there cannot serve to deter the 
 rest of mankind, who see it not, who know it not, from being guilty of 
 the like practices here. The justice of God, however, we think, still 
 requires, that he should hereafter avenge the injuries of the widow and 
 the fatherless, who are here so often insulted with impunity. In every 
 religion, and in eveiy superstition that the world has ever beheld, 
 accordingly, there has been a Tartarus as well as an Elysium ; a place 
 provided for the punishment of the wicked, as well as one for the 
 reward of the just. 
 
 SECT. III. OF THE INFLUENCE OF FORTUNE UPON THE SENTI- 
 MENTS OF MANKIND, WITH REGARD TO THE MERIT OR DEMERIT 
 OF THEIR ACTIONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. Whatever praise or blame can be due to any action, 
 must belong either, first, to the intention or affection of the heart, from 
 which it proceeds, or, secondly, to the external action or movement of 
 the body, which this affection gives occasion to ; or, lastly, to the good 
 or bad consequences, which actually, and in fact, proceed from it. 
 These three different things constitute the whole nature and circum- 
 stances of the action, and must be the foundation of whatever quality 
 can belong to it. 
 
 That the two last of these three circumstances cannot be the founda- 
 tion of any praise or blame, is abundantly evident ; nor has the contrary 
 ever been asserted by any body. The external action or movement of 
 the body is often the same in the most innocent and in the most blam- 
 able actions. He who shoots a bird, and he who shoots a man, both of 
 them perform the same external movement : each of them draws the 
 trigger of a gun. The consequences which actually, and in fact, hap- 
 pen to proceed from any action, are, if possible, still more indifferent 
 either to praise or blame, than even the external movement of the body. 
 As they depend, not upon the agent, but upon fortune, they cannot be
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 85 
 
 the proper foundation for any sentiment, of which his character and 
 conduct are the objects. 
 
 The only consequences for which he can be answerable, or by which 
 he can deserve either approbation or disapprobation of any kind, are 
 those which were some way or other intended, or those which, at 
 least, show some agreeable or disagreeable quality in the intention of 
 the heart, from which he acted. To the intention or affection of the 
 heart, therefore, to the propriety or impropriety, to the beneficence or 
 hurtfulness of the design, all praise or blame, all approbation or disap- 
 probation, of any kind, which can justly be bestowed upon any action 
 must ultimately belong. 
 
 When this maxim is thus proposed, in abstract and general terms, 
 there is nobody who does not agree to it. Its self-evident justice is 
 acknowledged by all the world, and there is not a dissenting voice 
 among all mankind. Every body allows, that how different soever the 
 accidental, the unintended and unforeseen consequences of different 
 actions, yet, if the intentions or affections from which they arose were, 
 on the one hand, equally proper and equally beneficent, or, on the 
 other, equally improper and equally malevolent, the merit or demerit of 
 the actions is still the same, and the agent is equally the suitable object 
 either of gratitude or of resentment. 
 
 But how well soever we may seem to be persuaded of the truth of 
 this equitable maxim, when we consider it after this manner, in abstract, 
 yet when we come to particular cases, the actual consequences which 
 happen to proceed from any action, have a very great effect upon our 
 sentiments concerning its merit or demerit, and almost always either 
 enhance or diminish our sense of both. Scarce, in any one instance, 
 perhaps, will our sentiments be found, after examination, to be entirely 
 regulated by this rule, which we all acknowledge ought entirely to regu- 
 late them. 
 
 This irregularity of sentiment, which every body feels, which scarce 
 any body is sufficiently aware of, and which nobody is willing to acknow- 
 ledge, I proceed now to explain ; and I shall consider, first, the cause 
 which gives occasion to it, or the mechanism by which Nature produces 
 it ; secondly, the extent of its influence ; and, last of all, the end which 
 it answers, or the purpose which the Author of nature seems to have 
 intended by it 
 
 CHAP. I. Of the Causes of this Influence of Fortune. 
 
 THE causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they are, or however they 
 operate, seem to be the objects, which, in all animals, immediately ex- 
 cite those two passions of gratitude and resentment. They are excited 
 by inanimated, as well as by animated objects. We are angry, for a
 
 86 DRYADS AND LARES SYMBOLIZE FEELINGS OF ANCIENTS. 
 
 moment, even at the stone that hurts us. A child beats it, a dog barks 
 at it, a choleric man is apt to curse it. The least reflection, indeed, 
 corrects this sentiment, and we soon become sensible, that what has no 
 feeling is a very improper object of revenge. When the mischief, how- 
 ever, is very great, the object which caused it becomes disagreeable to 
 us ever after, and we take pleasure to burn or destroy it. We should 
 treat, in this manner, the instrument which had accidentally been the 
 cause of the death of a friend, and we should often think ourselves 
 guilty of a sort of inhumanity, if we neglected to vent this absurd sort 
 of vengeance upon it. 
 
 We conceive, in the same manner, a sort of gratitude for those inan- 
 imated objects, which have been the causes of great or frequent plea- 
 sure to us. The sailor, who, as soon as he got ashore, should mend his 
 fire with the plank upon which he had just escaped from a shipwreck, 
 would seem to be guilty of an unnatural action. We should expect 
 that he would rather preserve it with care and affection, as a monument 
 that was, in some measure, dear to him. A man grows fond of a snuff- 
 box, of a pen-knife, of a staff which he has long made use of, and con- 
 ceives something like a real love and affection for them. If he breaks 
 or loses them, he is vexed out of all proportion to the value of the 
 damage. The house which we have long lived in, the tree, whose ver- 
 dure and shade we have long enjoyed, are both looked upon with a sort 
 of respect that seems due to such benefactors. The decay of the one, 
 or the ruin of the other, affects us with a kind of melancholy, though 
 we should sustain no loss by it. The Dryads and the Lares of the 
 ancients, a sort of genii of trees and houses, were probably first sug- 
 gested by this sort of affection, which the authors of those superstitions 
 felt for such objects, and which seemed unreasonable, if there was 
 nothing animated about them. 
 
 But, before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude or resent- 
 ment, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain, it must like- 
 wise be capable of feeling them. Without this other quality, those 
 passions cannot vent themselves with any sort of satisfaction upon it. 
 As they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain, so their gratifi- 
 cation consists in retaliating those sensations upon what gave occasion 
 to them ; which it is to no purpose to attempt upon what has no sensi- 
 bility. Animals, therefore, are less improper objects of gratitude and 
 resentment than animated objects. The dog that bites, the ox that 
 gores, are both of them punished. If they have been the causes of the 
 death of any person, neither the public, nor the relations of the slain, 
 can be satisfied, unless they are put to death in their turn : nor is this 
 merely for the security of the living, but, in some measure, to revenge 
 the injury of the dead. Those animals, on the contrary, that have been 
 remarkably serviceable to their masters, become the objects of a very 
 lively gratitude. We are shocked at the brutality of that officer, men-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 87 
 
 tioned in the Turkish Spy, who stabbed the horse that had carried him 
 across an arm of the sea, lest that animal should afterwards distinguish 
 some other person by a similar adventure. 
 
 But, though animals are not only the causes of pleasure and pain, 
 but are also capable of feeling those sensations, they are still far from 
 being complete and perfect objects, either of gratitude or resentment ; 
 and those passions still feel, that there is something wanting to their 
 entire gratification. What gratitude chiefly desires, is not only to make 
 the benefactor feel pleasure in his turn, but to make him conscious that 
 he meets with this reward on account of his past conduct, to make him 
 pleased with that conduct, and to satisfy him that the person upon 
 whom he bestowed his good offices was not unworthy of them. What 
 most of all charms us in our benefactor, is the concord between his 
 sentiments and our own, with regard to what interests us so nearly as 
 the worth of our own character, and the esteem that is due to us. We 
 are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and 
 distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike 
 that with which we distinguish ourselves. To maintain in him these 
 agreeable and flattering sentiments, is one of the chief ends proposed 
 by the returns we are disposed to make to him. A generous mind often 
 disdains the interested thought of extorting new favours from its bene- 
 factor, by what may be called the importunities of its gratitude. But 
 to preserve and to increase his esteem, is an interest which the greatest 
 mind does not think unworthy of its attention. And this is the founda- 
 tion of what I formerly observed, and when we cannot enter into the 
 motives of our benefactor, when his conduct and character appear un- 
 worthy of our approbation, let his services have been ever so great, our 
 gratitude is always sensibly diminished. We are less flattered by the 
 distinction ; and to preserve the esteem of so weak, or so worthless a 
 patron, seems to be an object which does not deserve to be pursued for 
 its own sake. 
 
 The object, on the contrary, which resentment is chiefly intent upon, 
 is not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his turn, as to make him 
 conscious that he feels it upon account of his past conduct, to make him 
 repent of that conduct, and to make him sensible, that the person whom 
 he injured did not deserve to be treated in that manner. What chiefly 
 enrages us against the man who injures or insults us, is the little account 
 which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which he 
 gives to himself above us, and that absurd self-love, by which he seems 
 to imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to his con- 
 veniency or his humour. The glaring impropriety of his conduct, the 
 gross insolence and injustice which it seems to involve in it, often shock 
 and exasperate us more than all the mischief which we have suffered. 
 To bring him back to a more just sense of what is due to other people, 
 to make him sensible of what he owes us, and of the wrong that he has
 
 88 THE EXCITING CAUSES OF PLEASURE OR PAIN. 
 
 done to us, is frequently the principal end proposed in our revenge, 
 which is always imperfect when it cannot acomplish this. When our 
 enemy appears to have done us no injury, when we are sensible that he 
 acted quite properly, that, in his situation, we should have done the 
 same thing, and that we deserved from him all the mischief we met 
 with ; in that case, if we have the least spark either of candour or jus- 
 tice, we can entertain no sort of resentment. 
 
 Before any thing, therefore, can be the complete and proper object, 
 either of gratitude or resentment, it must possess three different quali- 
 fications. First, it must be the cause of pleasure in the one case, and 
 of pain in the other. Secondly, it must be capable of feeling those 
 sensations. And, thirdly, it must not only have produced those sensa- 
 tions, but it must have produced them from design, and from a design 
 that is approved of in the one case, and disapproved of in the other. 
 It is by the first qualification, that any object is capable of exciting 
 those passions : it is by the second, that it is in any respect capable of 
 gratifying them : the third qualification is not only necessary for their 
 complete satisfaction, but as it gives a pleasure or pain that is both ex- 
 quisite and peculiar, it is likewise an additional exciting cause of those 
 passions. 
 
 As what gives pleasure or pain, therefore, either in one way or 
 another, is the sole exciting cause of gratitude and resentment ; though 
 the intentions of any person should be ever so proper and beneficent, 
 on the one hand, or ever so improper and malevolent on the other ; 
 yet, if he has failed in producing either the good or the evil which he 
 intended, as one of the exciting causes is wanting in both cases, less 
 gratitude seems due to him in the one, and less resentment in the other. 
 And, on the contrary, though in the intentions of any person, there 
 was either no laudable degree of benevolence on the one hand, or no 
 blamable degree of malice on the other ; yet, if his actions should 
 produce either great good or great evil, as one of the exciting causes 
 takes place upon both these occasions, some gratitude is apt to arise 
 towards him in the one, and some resentment in the other. A shadow 
 of merit seems to fall upon him in the first, a shadow of demerit in the 
 second. And, as the consequences of actions are altogether under the 
 empire of Fortune, hence arises her influence upon the sentiments of 
 mankind with regard to merit and demerit. 
 
 CHAP. II. Of the Extent of this Influence of Fortune. 
 THE effect of this influence of fortune is, first, to diminish our sense of 
 the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the most laud- 
 able or blamable intentions, when they fail of producing their proposed 
 effects : and, secondly, to increase our sense of the merit or demerit of
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 89 
 
 actions, beyond what is due to the motives or affections from which 
 they proceed, when they accidentally give occasion either to extra- 
 ordinary pleasure or pain. 
 
 i. First, I say, though the intentions of any person should be ever 
 so proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so improper and 
 malevolent, on the other, yet, if they fail in producing their effects, his 
 merit seems imperfect in the one case, and his demerit incomplete in 
 the other. Nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who 
 are immediately affected by the consequence of any action. It is felt, 
 in some measure, even by the impartial spectator. The man who 
 solicits an office for another, without obtaining it, is regarded as his 
 friend, and seems to deserve his love and affection. But the man who 
 not only solicits, but procures it, is more peculiarly considered as his 
 patron and benefactor, and is entitled to his respect and gratitude. 
 The person obliged, we are apt to think, may, with some justice, 
 imagine himself on a level with the first . but we cannot enter into his 
 sentiments, if he does not feel himself inferior to the second. It is 
 common indeed to say, that we are equally obliged to the man who has 
 endeavoured to serve, as to him who actually did so. It is the speech 
 which we constantly make upon every unsuccessful attempt of this 
 kind ; but which, like all other fine speeches, must be understood with 
 a grain of allowance. The sentiments which a man of generosity 
 entertains for the friend who fails, may often indeed be nearly the same 
 with those which he conceives for him who succeeds : and the more 
 generous he is, the more nearly will those sentiments approach to an 
 exact level. With the truly generous, to be beloved, to be esteemed 
 by those whom they themselves think worthy of esteem, gives more 
 pleasure, and thereby excites more gratitude, than all the advantages 
 which they can ever expect from those sentiments. When they lose 
 those advantages therefore, they seem to lose but a trifle, which is 
 scarce worth regarding. They still however lose something. Their 
 pleasure therefore, and consequently their gratitude, is not perfectly 
 complete : and accordingly if, between the friend who fails and the friend 
 who succeeds, all other circumstances are equal, there will, even in the 
 noblest and best mind, be some little difference of affection in favour of 
 him who succeeds. Nay, so unjust are mankind in this respect, that 
 though the intended benefit should be procured, yet if it is not pro- 
 cured by the means of a particular benefactor, they are apt to think 
 that less gratitude is due to the man, who with the best intentions in 
 the world could do no more than help it a little forward. As their 
 gratitude is in this case divided among the different persons who con- 
 tributed to their pleasure, a smaller share of it seems due to any one. 
 Such a person, we hear men commonly say, intended no doubt to serve 
 us ; and we really believe exerted himself to the utmost of his abilities 
 for that purpose. We are not, however, obliged to him for this benefit ; 
 
 7
 
 go POMPEY ENJOYED THE FAME EARNED BY LUCULLUS. 
 
 since, had it not been for the concurrence of others, all that he could 
 have done would never have brought it about. This consideration, 
 they imagine, should, even in the eyes of the impartial spectator, 
 diminish the debt which they owe to him. The person himself who has 
 unsuccessfully endeavoured to confer a benefit, has by no means the 
 same dependency upon the gratitude of the man whom he meant to 
 oblige, nor the same sense of his own merit towards him, which he 
 would have had in the case of success. 
 
 Even the merit of talents and abilities which some accident has 
 hindered from producing their effects, seems in some measure imper- 
 fect, even to those who are fully convinced of their capacity to produce 
 them. The general who has been hindered by the envy of ministers 
 from gaining some great advantage over the enemies of his country, 
 regrets the loss of the opportunity for ever after. Nor is it only upon 
 account of the public that he regrets it. He laments that he was 
 hindered from performing an action which would have added a new 
 lustre to his character in his own eyes, as well as in those of every 
 other person. It satisfies neither himself nor others to reflect that the 
 plan or design was all that depended on him, that no greater capacity 
 was required to execute it than what was necessary to concert it : that 
 he was allowed to be every way capable of executing it, and that had 
 he been permitted to go on, success was infallible. He still did not 
 execute it ; and though he might deserve all the approbation which is 
 due to a magnanimous and great design, he still wanted the actual 
 merit of having performed a great action. To take the management of 
 any affair of public concern from the man who has almost brought it 
 to a conclusion, is regarded as the most invidious injustice. As he had 
 done so much, he should, we think, have been allowed to acquire the 
 complete merit of putting an end to it. It was objected to Pompey, 
 that he came in upon the victories of Lucullus, and gathered those 
 laurels which were due to the fortune and valour of another. The 
 glory of Lucullus, it seems, was less complete even in the opinion of 
 his own friends, when he was not permitted to finish that conquest 
 which his conduct and courage had put in the power of almost any 
 man to finish. It mortifies an architect when his plans are either 
 not executed at all, or when they are so far altered as to spoil the 
 effect of the building. The plan, however, is all that depends upon 
 the architect. The whole of his genius is, to good judges, as com- 
 pletely discovered in that as in the actual execution. Bjut a plan does 
 not, even to the most intelligent, give the same pleasure as a noble 
 and magnificent building. They may discover as much both of taste 
 and genius in the one as in the other. But their effects are still 
 vastly different, and the amusement derived from the first, never 
 approaches to the wonder and admiration which are sometimes excited 
 by the second. We may believe of many men, that their talents are
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 91 
 
 superior to those of Caesar and Alexander ; and that in the same 
 situations they would perform still greater actions. In the mean 
 time, however, we do not behold them with that astonishment and 
 admiration with which those two heroes have been regarded in all 
 ages and nations. The calm judgments of the mind may approve of 
 them more, but they want the splendour of great actions to dazzle and 
 transport it. The superiority of virtues and talents has not, even upon 
 those who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect with the 
 superiority of achievements. 
 
 As the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to do good seems thus, 
 in the eyes of ungrateful mankind, to be diminished by the miscarriage, 
 so does likewise the demerit of an unsuccessful attempt to do evil. 
 The design to commit a crime, how clearly soever it may be proved, is 
 scarce ever punished with the same severity as the actual commission 
 of it. The case of treason is perhaps the only exception. That crime 
 immediately affecting the being of the government itself, the govern- 
 ment is naturally more jealous of it than of any other. In the punish- 
 ment of treason, the sovereign resents the injuries which are immedi- 
 ately done to himself : in the punishment of other crimes he resents 
 those which are done to other men. It is his own resentment which he 
 indulges in the one case ; it is that of his subjects which by sympathy 
 he enters into in the other. In the first case, therefore, as he judges 
 in his own cause, he is very apt to be more violent and sanguinary in 
 his punishments than the impartial spectator can approve of. His 
 resentment too rises here upon smaller occasions, and does not always, 
 as in other cases, wait for the perpetration of the crime, or even for 
 the attempt to, commit it. A treasonable concert, though nothing has 
 been done, or even attempted in consequence of it, nay, a treasonable 
 conversation, is in many countries punished in the same manner as the 
 actual commission of treason. With regard to all other crimes, the 
 mere design, upon which no attempt has followed, is seldom punished 
 at all, and is never punished severely. A criminal design, and a crimi- 
 nal action, it may be said indeed, do not necessarily suppose the same 
 degree of depravity, and ought not therefore to be subjected to the same 
 punishment. We are capable, it may be said, of resolving, and even 
 of taking measures to execute, many things which, when it comes to 
 the point, we feel ourselves altogether incapable of executing. But 
 this reason can have no place when the design has been carried the 
 length of the last attempt. The man, however, who fires a pistol at his 
 enemy but misses him, is punished with death by the laws of scarce 
 any country. By the old law of Scotland, though he should wound 
 him, yet, unless death ensues within a certain time, the assassin is not 
 liable to the last punishment. The resentment of mankind, however, 
 runs so high against this crime, their terror for the man who shows 
 himself capable of committing it is so great, that the mere attempt to 
 
 7*
 
 92 INTENTIONS SELDOM HELD AS CRIMINAL AS ACTIONS. 
 
 commit it ought in all countries to be capital. The attempt to commit 
 smaller crimes is almost always punished very lightly, and sometimes 
 is not punished at all. The thief, whose hand has been caught in his 
 neighbour's pocket before he had taken any thing out of it, is punished 
 with ignominy only. If he had got time to take away an handkerchief, 
 he might have been put to death. The house-breaker, who has been 
 found setting a ladder to his neighbour's window, but had not got into 
 it, is not exposed to the capital punishment. The attempt to ravish is 
 not punished as a rape. The attempt to seduce a married woman is 
 not punished at all, though seduction is punished severely. Our resent- 
 ment against the person who only attempted to do a mischief, is seldom 
 so strong as to bear us out in inflicting the same punishment upon him, 
 which we should have thought due if he had actually done it. In the 
 one case, the joy of our deliverance alleviates our sense of the atrocity 
 of his conduct ; in the other, the grief of our misfortune increases it. 
 His real demerit, however, is undoubtedly the same in both cases, 
 since his intentions were equally criminal ; and there is in this respect, 
 therefore an irregularity in the sentiments of all men, and a conse- 
 quent relaxation of discipline in the laws of, I believe, all nations of 
 the most civilized, as well as of the most barbarous. The humanity of 
 a civilized people disposes them either to dispense with, or to mitigate 
 punishments, wherever their natural indignation is not goaded on by 
 the consequences of the crime. Barbarians, on the other hand, when 
 no actual consequence has happened from any action, are not apt to 
 be very delicate or inquisitive about the motives. 
 
 The person himself who either from passion, or from the influence of 
 bad company, has resolved, and perhaps taken measures to perpetrate 
 some crime, but who has fortunately been prevented by an accident 
 which put it out of his power, is sure, if he has any remains of con- 
 science, to regard this event all his life after as a great and signal 
 deliverance. He can never think of it without returning thanks to 
 Heaven, for having been thus graciously pleased to save him from the 
 guilt in which he was just ready to plunge himself, and to hinder him 
 from rendering all the rest of his life a scene of horror, remorse, and 
 repentance. But though his hands are innocent, he is conscious that 
 his heart is equally guilty as if he had actually executed what he was 
 so fully resolved upon. It gives great ease to his conscience, however, 
 to consider that the crime was not executed, though he knows that the 
 failure arose from no virtue in him. He still considers himself as less 
 deserving of punishment and resentment ; and this good fortune either 
 diminishes, or takes away altogether, all sense of guilt. To remember 
 how much he was resolved upon it, has no other effect than to make 
 him regard his escape as the greater and more miraculous : for he still 
 fancies that he has escaped, and he looks back upon the danger to 
 which his peace of mind was exposed, with that terror, with which one
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 93 
 
 who is in safety may sometimes remember the hazard he was in of fall- 
 ing over a precipice, and shudder with horror at the thought. 
 
 2. The second effect of this influence of fortune, is to increase our 
 sense of the merit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the 
 motives or affection from which they proceed, when they happen to 
 give occasion to extraordinary pleasure or pain. The agreeable or dis- 
 agreeable effects of the action often throw a shadow of merit or 
 demerit upon the agent, though in his intention there was nothing that 
 deserved either praise or blame, or at least that deserved them in the 
 degree in which we are apt to bestow them. Thus, even the messenger 
 of bad news is disagreeable to us, and, on the contrary, we feel a sort 
 of gratitude for the man who brings us good tidings. For a moment 
 we look upon them both as the authors, the one of our good, the other 
 of our bad fortune, and regard them in some measure as if they had 
 really brought about the events which they only give an account of. 
 The first author of our joy is naturally the object of a transitory grati- 
 tude : we embrace him with warmth and affection, and should be glad, 
 during the instant of our prosperity, to reward him as for some signal 
 service. By the custom of all courts, the officer, who brings the news 
 of a victory, is entitled to considerable preferments, and the general 
 always chooses one of his principal favourites to go upon so agreeable 
 an errand. The first author of our sorrow is, on the contrary, just as 
 naturally the object of a transitory resentment. We can scarce avoid 
 looking upon him with chagrin and uneasiness; and the rude and 
 brutal are apt to vent upon him that spleen which his intelligence gives 
 occasion to. Tigranes, King of Armenia, struck off the head of the 
 man who brought him the first account of the approach of a formidable 
 enemy. To punish in this manner the author of bad tidings, seems 
 barbarous and inhuman : yet, to reward the messenger of good news, 
 is not disagreeable to us; we think it suitable to the bounty of kings. 
 But why do we make this difference, since, if there is no fault in the 
 one, neither is there any merit in the other ? It is because any sort of 
 reason seems sufficient to authorize the exertion of the social and be- 
 nevolent affections ; but it requires the most solid and substantial to 
 make us enter into that of the unsocial and malevolent. 
 
 But though in general we are averse to enter into the unsocial and 
 malevolent affections, though we lay it down for a rule that we ought 
 never to approve of their gratification, unless so far as the malicious 
 and unjust intention of the person, against whom they are directed, 
 renders him their proper object ; yet, upon some occasions, we relax of 
 this severity. When the negligence of one man has occasioned some 
 unintended damage to another, we generally enter so far into the 
 resentment of the sufferer, as to approve of his inflicting a punishment 
 upon the offender much beyond what the offence would have appeared 
 to deserve, had no such unlucky consequence followed from it.
 
 94 GROSS NEGLIGENCE EQUAL TO MALICIOUS DESIGN. 
 
 There is a degree of negligence, which would appear to deserve some 
 chastisement though it should occasion no damage to any body. Thus, 
 if a person should throw a large stone over a wall into a public street 
 without giving warning to those who might be passing by, and without 
 regarding where it was likely to fall, he would undoubtedly deserve 
 some chastisement. A very accurate police would punish so absurd an 
 action, even though it had done no mischief. The person who has been 
 guilty of it, shows an insolent contempt of the happiness and safety of 
 others. There is real injustice in his conduct. He wantonly exposes 
 his neighbour to what no man in his senses would choose to expose him- 
 self, and evidently wants that sense of what is due to his fellow- 
 creatures, which is the basis of justice and of society. Gross negligence 
 therefore is, in the law, said to be almost equal to malicious design. 
 (Lata culpa prope dolum est.) When any unlucky consequences happen 
 from such carelessness, the person who has been guilty of it, is often 
 punished as if he had really intended those consequences ; and his 
 conduct, which was only thoughtless and insolent, and what deserved 
 some chastisement, is considered as atrocious, and as liable to the 
 severest punishment. Thus if, by the imprudent action above-men- 
 tioned, he should accidentally kill a man, he is, by the laws of many 
 countries, particularly by the old law of Scotland, liable to the last 
 punishment. And though this is no doubt excessively severe, it is not 
 altogether inconsistent with our natural sentiments. Our just indigna- 
 tion against the folly and inhumanity of his conduct is exasperated by 
 our sympathy with the unfortunate sufferer. Nothing, however, would 
 appear more shocking to our natural sense of equity, than to bring a 
 man to the scaffold merely for having thrown a stone carelessly into 
 the street without hurting any body. The folly and inhumanity of his 
 conduct, however, would in this case be the same ; but still our senti- 
 ments would be very different. The consideration of this difference 
 may satisfy us how much the indignation, even of the spectator, is apt 
 to be animated by the actual consequences of the action. In cases of 
 this kind there will, if I am not mistaken, be found a great degree of 
 severity in the laws of almost all nations ; as I have already observed 
 that in those of an opposite kind there was a very general relaxation of 
 discipline. 
 
 There is another degree of negligence which does not involve in it 
 any sort of injustice. The person who is guilty of it treats his neigh- 
 bour as he treats himself, means no harm to any body, and is far from 
 entertaining any insolent contempt for the safety and happiness of 
 others. He is not, however, so careful and circumspect in his conduct 
 as he ought to be, and deserves upon this account some degree of blame 
 and censure, but no sort of punishment. Yet if, by a negligence (Culpa 
 levis) of this kind he should occasion some damage to another person, 
 he is by the laws of, I believe, all countries, obliged to compensate it.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 95 
 
 And though this is, no doubt, a real punishment, and what no mortal 
 would have thought of inflicting upon him, had it not been for the 
 unlucky accident which his conduct gave occasion to ; yet this decision 
 of the law is approved of by the natural sentiments of all mankind. 
 Nothing, we think, can be more just than that one man should not 
 suffer by the carelessness of another ; and that the damage occasioned 
 by blamable negligence, should be made up by the person who was 
 guilty of it. 
 
 There is another species of negligence (Culpa levissima), which con- 
 sists merely in a want of the most anxious timidity and circumspection, 
 with regard to all the possible consequences of our actions. The want 
 of this painful attention, when no bad consequences follow from it, is 
 so far from being regarded as blamable, that the contrary quality is 
 rather considered as such. That timid circumspection which is afraid 
 of every thing, is never regarded as a virtue, but as a quality which 
 more than any other incapacitates for action and business. Yet when, 
 from a want of this excessive care, a person happens to occasion some 
 damage to another, he is often by the law obliged to compensate it. 
 Thus, by the Aquilian law, the man, who not being able to manage a 
 horse that had accidentally taken fright, should happen to ride down 
 his neighbour's slave, is obliged to compensate the damage. When an 
 accident of this kind happens, we are apt to think that he ought not to 
 have rode such a horse, and to regard his attempting it as an unpardon- 
 able levity; though without this accident we should not only have made 
 no such reflection, but should have regarded his refusing it as the effect 
 of timid weakness, and of an anxiety about merely possible events, 
 which it is to no purpose to be aware of. The person himself, who by 
 an accident even of this kind has involuntarily hurt another, seems to 
 have some sense of his own ill desert, with regard to him. He natu- 
 rally runs up to the sufferer to express his concern for what has 
 happened, and to make every acknowledgment in his power. If he 
 has any sensibility, he necessarily desires to compensate the damage, 
 and to do every thing he can to appease that animal resentment which 
 he is sensible will be apt to arise in the breast of the sufferer. To 
 make no apology, to offer no atonement, is regarded as the highest 
 brutality. Yet why should he make an apology more than any other 
 person ? Why should he, since he was equally innocent with any other 
 by-stander, be thus singled out from among all mankind, to make up 
 for the bad fortune of another? This task would surely never be 
 imposed upon him, did not even the impartial spectator feel some 
 indulgence for what may be regarded as the unjust resentment of 
 that other.
 
 g6 SENTIMENTS, ETC. NOT OBJECTS OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 CHAP. III. Of the final Cause of this Irregularity of Sentiments. 
 
 SUCH is the effect of the good or bad consequence of actions upon -the 
 sentiments both of the person who performs them, and of others ; and 
 thus, Fortune, which governs the world, has some influence where we 
 should be least willing to allow her any, and directs in some measure 
 the sentiments of mankind, with regard to the character and conduct 
 both of themselves and others. That the world judges by the event, 
 and not by the design, has been in all ages the complaint, and is the 
 great discouragement of virtue. Every body agrees to the general 
 maxim, that as the event does not depend on the agent, it ought to 
 have no influence upon our sentiments, with regard to the merit or 
 propriety of his conduct. But when we come to particulars, we find 
 that our sentiments are scarce in any one instance exactly conformable 
 to what this equitable maxim would direct. The happy or unpros- 
 perous event of any action, is not only apt to give us a good or bad 
 opinion of the prudence with which it was conducted, but almost 
 always too animates our gratitude or resentment, our sense of the 
 merit or demerit of the design. 
 
 Nature, however, when she implanted the seeds of this irregularity 
 in the human breast, seems, as upon all other occasions, to have in- 
 tended the happiness and perfection of the species. If the hurtfulness 
 of the design, if the malevolence of the affection, were alone the causes 
 which- excited our resentment, we should feel all the furies of that pas- 
 sion against any person in whose breast we suspected or believed such 
 designs or affections were harboured, though they had never broke out 
 into any actions. Sentiments, thoughts, intentions, would become the 
 objects of punishment ; and if the indignation of mankind run as high 
 against them as against actions ; if the baseness of the thought which 
 had given birth to no action, seemed in the eyes of the world as much 
 to call aloud for vengeance as the baseness of the action, every court 
 of judicature would become a real inquisition. There would be no 
 safety for the most innocent and circumspect conduct. Bad wishes, 
 bad views, bad designs, might still be suspected : and while these 
 excited the same indignation with bad conduct, while bad intentions 
 were as much resented as bad actions, they would equally expose the 
 person to punishment and resentment. Actions, therefore, which 
 either produce actual evil, or attempt to produce it, and thereby put us 
 in the immediate fear of it, are by the Author of nature rendered the 
 only proper and approved objects of human punishment and resent- 
 ment. Sentiments, designs, affections, though it is from these that 
 according to cool reason human actions derive their whole merit or 
 demerit, are placed by the great Judge of hearts beyond the limits of 
 every human jurisdiction, and are reserved for the cognisance of his 
 own unerring tribunal. That necessary rule of justice, therefore, thai
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 97 
 
 men in this life are liable to punishment for their actions only, not for 
 their designs and intentions, is founded upon this salutary and useful 
 irregularity in human sentiments concerning merit or demerit, which at 
 first sight appears so absurd and unaccountable. But every part of 
 nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the providen- 
 tial care of its Author, and we may admire the wisdom and goodness 
 of God even in the weakness and folly of men. 
 
 Nor is that irregularity of sentiments altogether without its utility, 
 by which the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to serve, and much 
 more that of mere good inclinations and kind wishes, appears to be 
 imperfect. Man was made for action, and to promote by the exertion 
 of his faculties such changes in the external circumstances both of him- 
 self and others, as may seem most favourable to the happiness of all. 
 He must not be satisfied with indolent benevolence, nor fancy himself 
 the friend of mankind, because in his heart he wishes well to the pros- 
 perity of the world. That he may call forth the whole vigour of his 
 soul, and strain every nerve, in order to produce those ends which it is 
 the purpose of his being to advance, Nature has taught him, that 
 neither himself nor mankind can be fully satisfied with his conduct, 
 nor bestow upon it the full measure of applause, unless he has actually 
 produced them. He is made to know, that the praise of good inten- 
 tions, without the merit of good offices, will be but of little avail to 
 excite either the loudest acclamations of the world, or even the highest 
 degree of self applause. The man who has performed no single action 
 of importance, but whose whole conversation and deportment express 
 the justest, the noblest, and most generous sentiments, can be entitled 
 to demand no very high reward, even though his inutility should be 
 owing to nothing but the want of an opportunity to serve. We can 
 still refuse it him without blame. We can still ask him, What have 
 you done ? What actual service can you produce, to entitle you to so 
 great a recompense ? We esteem you, and love you ; but we owe you 
 nothing. To reward indeed that latent virtue which has been useless 
 only for want of an opportunity to serve, to bestow upon it those 
 honours and preferments, which, though in some measure it may be 
 said to deserve them, it could not with propriety have insisted upon, is 
 the effect of the most divine benevolence. To punish, on the contrary, 
 for the affections of the heart only, where no crime has been committed, 
 is the most insolent and barbarous tyranny. The benevolent affections 
 seem to deserve most praise, when they do not wait till it becomes 
 almost a crime for them not to exert themselves. The malevolent, on 
 the contrary, can scarce be too tardy, too slow, or deliberate. 
 
 It is even of considerable importance, that the evil which is done 
 without design should be regarded as a misfortune to the doer as well 
 as to the sufferer. Man is thereby taught to reverence the happiness 
 of his brethren, to tremble lest he should, even unknowingly, do any thing
 
 98 EVENTS NOT DEPENDING ON US DIMINISH NOT OUR MERITS. 
 
 that can hurt them, and to dread that animal resentment which, he 
 feels, is ready to burst out against him, if he should, without design, 
 be the unhappy instrument of their calamity. As in the ancient 
 heathen religion, that holy ground which had been consecrated to 
 some god, was not to be trod upon but upon solemn and necessary 
 occasions, and the man who had even ignorantly violated it, became 
 piacular from that moment, and, until proper atonement should be 
 made, incurred the vengeance of that powerful and invisible being to 
 whom it had been set apart ; so by the wisdom of nature, the happi- 
 ness of every innocent man is, in the same manner, rendered holy, 
 consecrated, and hedged round against the approach of every other 
 man ; not to be wantonly trod upon, not even to be, in any respect, 
 ignorantly and involuntarily violated, without requiring some expiation, 
 some atonement in proportion to the greatness of such undesigned 
 violation. A man of humanity, who accidentally, and without the 
 smallest degree of blamable negligence, has been the cause of the 
 death of another man, feels himself piacular, though not guilty. 
 During his whole life he considers this accident as one of the greatest 
 misfortunes that could have befallen him. If the family of the slain is 
 poor, and he himself in tolerable circumstances, he immediately takes 
 them under his protection, and, without any other merit, thinks them 
 entitled to every degree of favour and kindness. If they are in better 
 circumstances, he endeavours by eveiy submission, by every expression 
 of sorrow, by rendering them every good office which he can devise or 
 they accept of, to atone for what has happened, and to propitiate, as 
 much as possible, their, perhaps natural, though no doubt most unjust 
 resentment, for the great, though involuntary, offence which he has 
 given unto them. 
 
 The distress which an innocent person feels, who, by some accident, 
 has been led to do something which, if it had been done with know- 
 ledge and design, would have justly exposed him to the deepest re- 
 proach, has given occasion to some of the finest and most interesting 
 scenes both of the ancient and of the modern drama. It is this 
 fallacious sense of guilt, if I may call it so, which constitutes the whole 
 distress of Oedipus and Jocasta upon the Greek, of Monimia and Isa- 
 bella upon the English, theatre. They are all in the highest degree 
 piacular, though not one of them is in the smallest degree guilty. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, all these seeming irregularities of senti- 
 ment, if man should unfortunately either give occasion to those evils 
 which he did not intend, or fail in producing that good which he in- 
 tended, Nature has not left his innocence altogether without consola- 
 tion, nor his virtue altogether without reward. He then calls to his 
 assistance that just and equitable maxim, That those events which did 
 not depend upon our conduct, ought not to diminish the esteem that is 
 due to us. He summons up his whole magnanimity and firmness of
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 99 
 
 soul, and strives to regard himself, not in the light in which he at 
 present appears, but in that in which he ought to appear, in which he 
 would have appeared had his generous designs been crowned with 
 success, and in which he would still appear, notwithstanding their mis- 
 carriage, if the sentiments of mankind were either altogether candid 
 and equitable, or even perfectly consistent with themselves. The more 
 candid and humane part of mankind entirely go along with the efforts 
 which he thus makes to support himself in his own opinion. They 
 exert their whole generosity and greatness of mind, to correct in them- 
 selves this irregularity of human nature, and endeavour to regard his 
 unfortunate magnanimity in the same light in which, had it been suc- 
 cessful, they would, without any such generous exertion, have naturally 
 been disposed to consider it. 
 
 Part III. Of the Foundation of our Jiidgments concerning 
 our own Sentiments and Conduct, and of the Sense of Duty. 
 
 CHAP. I. Of the Principle of Self -approbation and of Self -disappro- 
 bation. 
 
 IN the two foregoing parts of this discourse, I have chiefly considered 
 the origin and foundation of our judgments concerning the sentiments 
 and conduct of others. I come now to consider more particularly the 
 origin of those concerning our own. 
 
 The principle by which we naturally either approve or disapprove of 
 our own conduct, seems to be altogether the same with that by which 
 we exercise the like judgments concerning the conduct of other people. 
 We either approve or disapprove of the conduct of another man accord- 
 ing as we feel that, when we bring his case home to ourselves, we either 
 can or cannot entirely sympathize with the sentiments and motives 
 which directed it. And, in the same manner, we either approve or dis- 
 approve of our own conduct, according as we feel that, when we place 
 ourselves in the situation of another man, and view it, as it were, with 
 his eyes and from his station, we either can or cannot entirely enter 
 into and sympathize with the sentiments and motives which influenced 
 it. We can never survey our own sentiments and motives, we can 
 never form any judgment concerning them ; unless we remove our- 
 selves, as it were, from our own natural station, and endeavour to view 
 them as at a certain distance from us. But we can do this in no other 
 way than by endeavouring to view them with the eyes of other people, 
 or as other people are likely to view them. Whatever judgment we 
 can form concerning them, accordingly, must always bear some secret 
 reference, either to what are, or to what, upon a certain condition,
 
 100 THE INFLUENCE OK SOCIETV ON SENTIMENTS AND ACTIONS. 
 
 would be, or to what, we imagine, ought to be the judgment of others. 
 We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other 
 fair and impartial spectator would examine it. If, upon placing our- 
 selves in his situation, we thoroughly enter into all the passions and 
 motives which influenced it, we approve of it, by sympathy with the 
 approbation of this supposed equitable judge. If otherwise, we enter 
 into his disapprobation, and condemn it. 
 
 Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood 
 in some solitary place, without any communication with his own species, 
 he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or de- 
 merit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of 
 his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. All 
 these are objects which he cannot easily see, which naturally he does 
 not look at, and with regard to which he is provided with no mirror 
 which can present them to his view. Bring him into society, and he 
 is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before. It 
 is placed in the countenance and behaviour of those he lives with, 
 which always mark when they enter into, and when they disapprove of 
 his sentiments ; and it is here that he first views the propriety and im- 
 propriety of his own passions, the beauty and deformity of his own 
 mind. To a man who from his birth was a stranger to society, the 
 objects of his passions, the external bodies which either pleased or hurt 
 him, would occupy his whole attention. The passions themselves, the 
 desires or aversions, the joys or sorrows, which those objects excited, 
 though of all things the most immediately present to him, could scarce 
 ever be the objects of his thoughts. The idea of them could never 
 interest him so much as to call upon his attentive consideration. The 
 consideration of his joy could in him excite no new joy, nor that of his 
 sorrow any new sorrow, though the consideration of the causes of those 
 passions might often excite both. Bring him into society and all his 
 own passions will immediately become the causes of new passions. He 
 will observe that mankind approve of some of them, and are disgusted 
 by others. He will be elevated in the one case, and cast down in the 
 other ; his desires and aversions, his joys and sorrows, will now often 
 become the causes of new desires and new aversions, new joys and new 
 sorrows : they will now, therefore, interest him deeply, and often call 
 upon his most attentive consideration. 
 
 Our first ideas of personal beauty and deformity, are drawn from the 
 shape and appearance of others, not from our own. We soon be- 
 come sensible, however, that others exercise the same criticism upon 
 us. We are pleased when they approve of our figure, and are dis- 
 obliged when they seem to be disgusted. We become anxious to know 
 how far our appearance deserves either their blame or approbation. 
 We examine our persons limb by limb, and by placing ourselves before 
 a looking-glass, or by some such expedient, endeavour as much as poj-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 101 
 
 sible, to view ourselves at the distance and with the eyes of other peo- 
 ple. If, after this examination, we are satisfied with our own appear- 
 ance, we can more easily support the most disadvantageous judgments 
 of others. If, on the contrary, we are sensible that we are the natural 
 objects of distaste, every appearance of their disapprobation mortifies us 
 beyond all measure. A man who is tolerably handsome, will allow you to 
 laugh at any little irregularity in his person ; but all such jokes are 
 commonly unsupportable to one who is really deformed. It is evident, 
 however, that we are anxious about our own beauty and deformity, 
 only upon account of its effect upon others. If we had no connexion 
 with society, we should be altogether indifferent about either. 
 
 In the same manner our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the 
 characters and conduct of other people ; and we are all very forward 
 to observe how each of these affects us. But we soon learn, that other 
 people are equally frank with regard to our own. We become anxious 
 to know how far we deserve their censure or applause, and whether to 
 them we must necessarily appear those agreeable or disagreeable crea- 
 tures which they represent us. We begin, upon this account, to exa- 
 mine our own passions and conduct, and to consider how these must 
 appear to them; by considering how they would appear to us if 
 in their situation. We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own 
 behaviour, and endeavour to imagine what effect it would, in this light, 
 produce upon us. This is the only looking-glass by which we can, in 
 some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety of 
 our own conduct. If in this view it pleases us, we are tolerably satis- 
 fied. We can be more indifferent about the applause, and, in some 
 measure, despise the censure of the world ; secure that, however mis- 
 understood or misrepresented, we are the natural and proper objects of 
 approbation. On the contrary, if we are doubtful about it, we are often, 
 upon that very account, more anxious to gain their approbation, and, 
 provided we have not already, as they say, shaken hands with infamy, 
 we are altogether distracted at the thoughts of their censure, which 
 then strikes us with double severity. 
 
 When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour 
 to pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is 
 evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two per- 
 sons ; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different cha- 
 racter from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into 
 and judged of. The first is the spectator, whose sentiments with re- 
 gard to my own conduct I endeavour to enter into, by placing myself 
 in his situation, and by considering how it would appear to me, when 
 seen from that particular point of view. The second is the agent, the 
 person whom I properly call myself, and of whose conduct, under the 
 character of a spectator, I was endeavouring to form some opinion. 
 The first is the judge ; the second the person judged of. But that the
 
 102 EMULATION FOUNDED ON THE ADMIRATION OF EXCELLENCE. 
 
 judge should, in every respect, be the same with the person judged of, 
 is as impossible, as that the cause should, in every respect, be the 
 same with the effect. 
 
 To be amiable and to be meritorious ; that is, to deserve love and to 
 deserve reward, are the great characters of virtue ; and to be odious 
 and punishable, of vice. But all these characters have an immediate 
 reference to the sentiments of others. Virtue is not said to be amiable, 
 or to be meritorious, because it is the object of its own love, or of its 
 own gratitude ; but because it excites those sentiments in other men. 
 The consciousness that it is the object of such favourable regards, is 
 the source of that inward tranquillity and self-satisfaction with which it 
 is naturally attended, as the suspicion of the contrary gives occasion to 
 the torments of vice. What so great happiness as to be beloved, and 
 to know that we deserve to be beloved ? What so great misery as to 
 be hated, and to know that we deserve to be hated ? 
 
 CHAP. II. Of the Love of Praise, and of that of P raise-worthiness; 
 and of the dread of Blame, and of that of Blame-worthiness. 
 
 MAN naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely ; or to be 
 that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally 
 dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful ; or to be that thing 
 which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only 
 praise, but praise-worthiness ; or to be that thing which, though it 
 should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper 
 object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blame-worthiness ; 
 or to be that thing which, though it should be blamed by nobody, is, 
 however, the natural and proper object of blame. 
 
 The love of praise-worthiness is by no means derived altogether 
 from the love of praise. Those two principles, though they resemble 
 one another, though they are connected, and often blended with one 
 another, are yet, in many respects, distinct and independent of one 
 another. 
 
 The love and admiration which we naturally conceive for those whose 
 character and conduct we approve of, necessarily dispose us to desire 
 to become ourselves the objects of the like agreeable sentiments, and to 
 be as amiable and as admirable as those whom we love and admire the 
 most. Emulation, the anxious desire that we ourselves should excel, is 
 originally founded in our admiration of the excellence of others. Nei- 
 ther can we be satisfied with being merely admired for what other 
 people are admired. We must at least believe ourselves to be admira- 
 ble for what they are admirable. But, in order to attain this satisfac- 
 tion, we must become the impartial spectators of our own character and 
 conduct. We must endeavour to view them with the eyes of other peo-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 103 
 
 pie, or as other people are likely to view them. When seen in this 
 light, if they appear to us as we wish, we are happy and contented. 
 But it greatly confirms this happiness and contentment when we find 
 that other people, viewing them with those very eyes with which we, in 
 imagination only, were endeavouring to view them, see them precisely 
 in the same light in which we ourselves had seen them. Their appro- 
 bation necessarily confirms our own self-approbation. Their praise 
 necessarily strengthens our own sense of our own praise-worthiness. 
 In this case, so far is the love of praise-worthiness from being derived 
 altogether from that of praise ; that the love of praise seems, at least 
 in a great measure, to be derived from that of praise-worthiness. 
 
 The most sincere praise can give little pleasure when it cannot be 
 considered as some sort of proof of praise-worthiness. It is by no 
 means sufficient that, from ignorance or mistake, esteem and admira- 
 tion should, in some way or other, be bestowed upon us. If we are 
 conscious that we do not deserve to be so favourably thought of, and 
 that if the truth were known, we should be regarded with very different 
 sentiments, our satisfaction is far from being complete. The man who 
 applauds us either for actions which we did not perform, or for motives 
 which had no sort of influence upon our conduct, applauds not us, but 
 another person. We can derive no sort of satisfaction from his praises. 
 To us they should be more mortifying than any censure, and should 
 perpetually call to our minds, the most humbling of all reflections, the 
 reflection of what we ought to be, but what we are not. A woman who 
 paints, could derive, one should imagine, but little vanity from the com- 
 pliments that are paid to her complexion. These, we should expect, 
 ought rather to put her in mind of the sentiments which her real com- 
 plexion would excite, and mortify her the more by the contrast. To be 
 pleased with such groundless applause is a proof of the most superfi- 
 cial levity and weakness. It is what is properly called vanity, and is 
 the foundation of the most ridiculous and contemptible vices, the vices 
 of affectation and common lying ; follies which, if experience did not 
 teach us how common they are, one should imagine the least spark of 
 common sense would save us from. The foolish liar, who endeavours 
 to excite the admiration of the company by the relation of adventures 
 which never had any existence ; the important coxcomb, who gives 
 himself airs of rank and distinction which he well knows he has no just 
 pretensions to ; are both of them, no doubt, pleased with the applause 
 which they fancy they meet with. But their vanity arises from so gross 
 an illusion of the imagination, that it is difficult to conceive how any 
 rational creature should be imposed upon by it. When they place 
 themselves in the situation of those whom they fancy they have deceived, 
 they are struck with the highest admiration for their own persons. They 
 look upon themselves, not in that light in which, they know, they ought 
 to appear to their companions, but in that in which they believe their
 
 104 IGNORANT AND GROUNDLESS PRAISE CAN GIVE NO SOLID JOY. 
 
 companions actually look upon them. Their superficial weakness and 
 trivial folly hinder them from ever turning their eyes inwards, or from 
 seeing themselves in that despicable point of view in which their own 
 consciences must tell them that they would appear to every body, if the 
 real truth should ever come to be known. 
 
 As ignorant and groundless praise can give no solid joy, no satisfac- 
 tion that will bear any serious examination, so, on the contrary, it often 
 gives real comfort to reflect, that though no praise should actually be 
 bestowed upon us, our conduct, however, has been such as to deserve 
 it, and has been in every respect suitable to those measures and rules 
 by which praise and approbation are naturally and commonly bestowed. 
 We are pleased, not only with praise, but with having done what is 
 praise-worthy. We are pleased to think that we have rendered our- 
 selves the natural objects of approbation, though no approbation should 
 ever actually be bestowed upon us : and we are mortified to reflect that 
 we have justly merited the blame of those we live with, though that 
 sentiment should never actually be exerted against us. The man who 
 is conscious to himself that he has exactly observed those measures of 
 conduct which experience informs him are generally agreeable, reflects 
 with satisfaction on the propriety of his own behaviour. When he 
 views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he 
 thoroughly enters into all the motives which influenced it. He looks 
 back upon every part of it with pleasure and approbation, and though 
 mankind should never be acquainted with what he has done, he regards 
 himself, not so much according to the light in which they actually re- 
 gard him, as according to that in which they would regard him if they 
 were better informed. He anticipates the applause and admiration 
 which in this case would be bestowed upon him, and he applauds and 
 admires himself by sympathy with sentiments, which do not indeed ac- 
 tually take place, but which the ignorance of the public alone hinders 
 from taking place, which he knows are the natural and ordinary effects 
 of such conduct, which his imagination strongly connects with it, and 
 which he has acquired a habit of conceiving as something that naturally 
 and in propriety ought to follow from it. Men have voluntarily thrown 
 away life to acquire after death a renown which they could no longer 
 enjoy. Their imagination, in the mean time, anticipated that fame 
 which was in future times to be bestowed upon them. Those applauses 
 which they were never to hear rung in their ears ; the thoughts of that 
 admiration, whose effects they were never to feel, played about their 
 hearts, banished from their breasts the strongest of all natural fears, 
 and transported them to perform actions which seem almost beyond 
 the reach of human nature. But in point of reality there is surely no 
 great difference between that approbation which is not to be bestowed 
 till we can no longer enjoy it, and that which, indeed, is never to be 
 bestowed, but which would be bestowed, if the world was ever made to
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 105 
 
 understand properly the real circumstances of our behaviour, If the 
 one often produces such violent effects, we cannot wonder that the 
 other should always be highly regarded. 
 
 Nature, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an 
 original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. 
 She taught him to feel pleasure in their favourable, and pain in their 
 unfavourable regard. She rendered their approbation most flattering 
 and most agreeable to him for its own sake ; and their disapprobation 
 most mortifying and most offensive. 
 
 But this desire of the approbation, and this aversion to the disappro- 
 bation of his brethren, would not alone have rendered him fit for that 
 society for which he was made. Nature, accordingly, has endowed him, 
 not only with a desire of being approved of, but with a desire of being 
 what ought to be approved of ; or of being what he himself approves 
 of in other men. The first desire could only have made him wish to 
 appear to be fit for society. The second was necessary in order to 
 render him anxious to be really fit. The first could only have prompted 
 him to the affectation of virtue, and to the concealment of vice. The 
 second was necessary in order to inspire him with the real love of virtue, 
 and with the real abhorrence of vice. In every well-formed mind this 
 second desire seems to be the strongest of the two. It is only the 
 weakest and most superficial of mankind who can be much delighted 
 with that praise which they themselves know to be altogether unmerit- 
 ed. A weak man may sometimes be pleased with it, but a wise man 
 rejects it upon all occasions. But, though a wise man feels little plea- 
 sure from praise where he knows there is no praise-worthiness, he often 
 feels the highest in doing what he knows to be praise-worthy, though he 
 knows equally well that no praise is ever to be bestowed upon it. To 
 obtain the approbation of mankind, where no approbation is due, can 
 never be an object of any importance to him. To obtain that appro- 
 bation where it is really due, may sometimes be an object of no great 
 importance to him. But to be that thing which deserves approbation, 
 must always be an object of the highest. 
 
 To desire, or even to accept of praise, where no praise is due, can be 
 the effect only of the most contemptible vanity. To desire it where it 
 is really due is to.desire no more than that a most essential act of jus- 
 tice should be done to us. The love of just fame, of true glory, even 
 for its own sake, and independent of any advantage which he can 
 derive from it, is not unworthy even of a wise man. He sometimes, 
 however, neglects, and even despises it ; and he is never more apt to 
 do so than when he has the most perfect assurance of the perfect pro- 
 priety of every part of his own conduct. His self-approbation, in 
 this case, stands in need of no confirmation from the approbation 
 of other men. It is alone sufficient, and he is contented with it. 
 This self-approbation, if not the only, is at least the principal object,
 
 106 WE DREAD INCURRING THE HATRED OF OUR FELLOWS. 
 
 about which he can or ought to be anxious. The love of it is the 
 love of virtue. 
 
 As the love and admiration which we naturally conceive for some 
 characters, dispose us to wish to become ourselves the proper objects 
 of such agreeable sentiments ; so the hatred and contempt which we 
 as naturally conceive for others, dispose us, perhaps still more strongly, 
 to dread the very thought of resembling them in any respect. Neither 
 is it, in this case, too, so much the thought of being hated and despised 
 that we are afraid of, as that of being hateful and despicable. We 
 dread the thought of doing any thing which can render us the just and 
 proper objects of the hatred and contempt of our fellow-creatures ; 
 even though we had the most perfect security that those sentiments were 
 never actually to be exerted against us. The man who has broke 
 through all those measures of conduct, which can alone render him 
 agreeable to mankind, though he should have the most perfect assu- 
 rance that what he had done was for ever to be concealed from every 
 human eye, it is all to no purpose. When he looks back upon it, and 
 views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he 
 finds that he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. 
 He is abashed and confounded at the thoughts of it, and necessarily 
 feels a very high degree of that shame which he would be exposed to, 
 if his actions should ever come to be generally known. His imagina- 
 tion, in this case too, anticipates the contempt and derision from which 
 nothing saves him but the ignorance of those he lives with. He still 
 feels that he is the natural object of these sentiments, and still trembles 
 at the thought of what he would suffer, if they were ever actually ex- 
 erted against him. But if what he had been guilty of was not merely 
 one of those improprieties which are the objects of simple disapproba- 
 tion, but one of those enormous crimes which excite detestation and 
 resentniv it, he could never think of it, as long as he had any sensibility 
 left, without feeling all the agony of horror and remorse ; and though 
 he could be assured that no man was ever to know it, and could even 
 bring himself to believe that there was no God to revenge it, he would 
 still feel enough of both these sentiments to embitter the whole of his 
 life : he would still regard himself as the natural object of the hatred 
 and indignation of all his fellow-creatures ; and, if his heart was not 
 grown callous by the habit of crimes, he could not think without terror 
 and astonishment even of the manner in which mankind would look 
 upon him, of what would be the expression of their countenance and 
 of their eyes, if the dreadful truth should ever come to be known. These 
 natural pangs of an affrighted conscience are the daemons, the avenging 
 furies, which, in this life, haunt the guilty, which allow them neither 
 quiet nor repose, which often drive them to despair and distraction, 
 from which no assurance of secrecy can protect them, from which no 
 principles of irreligion can entirely deliver them, and from which
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 107 
 
 nothing can free them but the vilest and most abject of all states, a 
 complete insensibility to honour and infamy, to vice and virtue. Men 
 of the most detestable characters, who, in the execution of the most 
 dreadful crimes, had taken their measures so coolly as to avoid even the 
 suspicion of guilt, have sometimes been driven, by the horror of their 
 situation, to discover, of their own accord, what no human sagacity 
 could ever have investigated. By acknowledging their guilt, by submitting 
 themselves to the resentment of their offended fellow-citizens, and, by 
 thus satiating that vengeance of which they were sensible that they had 
 become the proper objects, they hoped, by their death to reconcile them- 
 selves, at least in their own imagination, to the natural sentiments of 
 mankind ; to be able to consider themselves as less worthy of hatred and 
 resentment ; to atone, in some measure, for their crimes, and, by thus 
 becoming the objects rather of compassion than of horror, if possible, 
 to die in peace and with the forgiveness of all their fellow-creatures. 
 Compared to what they felt before the discovery, even the thought of 
 this, it seems was happiness. 
 
 In such cases, the horror of blame-worthiness seems, even in persons 
 who cannot be suspected of any extraordinary delicacy or sensibility of 
 character, completely to conquer the dread of blame. In order to allay 
 that horror, in order to pacify, in some degree, the remorse of their own 
 consciences, they voluntarily submitted themselves both to the reproach 
 and to the punishment which they knew were due to their crimes, but 
 which, at the same time, they might easily have avoided. 
 
 They are the most frivolous and superficial of mankind only who 
 can be much delighted with that praise which they themselves know to 
 be altogether unmerited. Unmerited reproach, however, is frequently 
 capable of mortifying very severely even men of more than ordinary 
 constancy. Men of the most ordinary constancy, indeed, easily learn 
 to despise those foolish tales which are so frequently circulated in 
 society, and which, from their own absurdity and falsehood, never fail 
 to die away in the course of a few weeks, or of a few days. But an 
 innocent man, though of more than ordinary constancy, is often, not 
 only shocked, but most severely mortified by the serious, though false, 
 imputation of a crime ; especially when that imputation happens unfor- 
 tunately to be supported by some circumstances which gave it an air 
 of probability. He is humbled to find that any body should think so 
 meanly of his character as to suppose him capable of being guilty of it. 
 Though perfectly conscious of his own innocence, the very imputation 
 seems often, even in his own imagination, to throw a shadow of dis- 
 grace and dishonour upon his character. His just indignation, too, at 
 so very gross an injury, which, however, it may frequently be improper 
 and sometimes even impossible to revenge, is itself a very painful sen- 
 sation. There is no greater tormentor of the human breast than violent 
 resentment which cannot be gratified. An innocent man, brought to 
 
 8 *
 
 108 PROFLIGATE CRIMINALS ARE RARELY SENSIBLE OF REMORSE. 
 
 the scaffold by the false imputation of an infamous or odious crime, 
 suffers the most cruel misfortune which it is possible for innocence to 
 suffer. The agony of his mind may, in this case, frequently be greater 
 than that of those who suffer for the like crimes, of which they have 
 been actually guilty. Profligate criminals, such as common thieves 
 and highwaymen, have frequently little sense of the baseness of their 
 own conduct, and consequently no remorse. Without troubling them- 
 selves about the justice or injustice of the punishment, they have 
 always been accustomed to look upon the gibbet as a lot very likely to 
 fall to them. When it does fall to them, therefore, they consider them- 
 selves only as not quite so lucky as some of their companions, and 
 submit to their fortune, without any other uneasiness than what may 
 arise from the fear of death ; a fear which, even by such worthless 
 wretches, we frequently see, can be so easily, and so very completely 
 conquered. The innocent man, on the contrary, over and above the 
 uneasiness which this fear may occasion, is tormented by his own 
 indignation at the injustice which has been done to him. He is struck 
 with horror at the thoughts of the infamy which the punishment may 
 shed upon his memory, and foresees, with the most exquisite anguish, 
 that he is hereafter to be remembered by his dearest friends and rela- 
 tions, not with regret and affection, but with shame, and even with 
 horror for his supposed disgraceful conduct : and the shades of death 
 appear to close round him with a darker and more melancholy gloom 
 than naturally belongs to them. Such fatal accidents, for the tran- 
 quillity of mankind, it is to be hoped, happen very rarely in any coun- 
 try ; _but they happen sometimes in all countries, even in those where 
 justice is in general very well administered. The unfortunate Galas, a 
 man of much more than ordinary constancy (broke upon the wheel and 
 burnt at Tholouse for the supposed murder of his own son, of which he 
 was perfectly innocent), seemed, with his last breath, to deprecate, not 
 so much the cruelty of the punishment, as the disgrace which the 
 imputation might bring upon his memory. After he had been broke, 
 and was just going to be thrown into the fire, the monk, who attended 
 the execution, exhorted him to confess the crime for which he had been 
 condemned. ' My father,' said Galas, ' can you yourself bring yourself 
 ' to believe that I am guilty ? ' 
 
 To persons in such unfortunate circumstances, that humble philosophy 
 which confines its views to this life, can afford, perhaps, but little con- 
 solation. Every thing that could render either life or death respectable 
 is taken from them. They are condemned to death and to everlasting 
 infamy. Religion can alone afford them any effectual comfort. She 
 alone can tell them that it is of little importance what man may think 
 of their conduct, while the all-seeing Judge of the world approves of it. 
 She alone can present to them the view of another world ; a world of 
 more candour, humanity, and justice, than the present ; where their
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 109 
 
 innocence is in due time to be declared, and their virtue to be finally 
 rewarded : and the same great principle which can alone strike terror 
 into triumphant vice, affords the only effectual consolation to disgraced 
 and insulted innocence. 
 
 In smaller offences, as well as in greater crimes, it frequently hap- 
 pens that a person of sensibility is much more hurt by the unjust 
 imputation, than the real criminal is by the actual guilt. A woman of 
 gallantry laughs even at the well-founded surmises which are circulated 
 concerning her conduct. The worst founded surmise of the same 
 kind is a mortal stab to an innocent virgin. The person who is 
 deliberately guilty of a disgraceful action, we may lay it down, I 
 believe, as a general rule, can seldom have much sense of the dis- 
 grace ; and the person who is habitually guilty of it, can scarce ever 
 have any. 
 
 When every man, even of middling understanding, so readily de- 
 spises unmerited applause, how it comes to pass that unmerited reproach 
 should often be capable of mortifying so severely men of the soundest 
 and best judgment, may, perhaps, deserve some consideration. 
 
 Pain, I have already had occasion to observe, is, in almost all cases, 
 a more pungent sensation than the opposite and correspondent plea- 
 sure. The one, almost always, depresses us much more below the 
 ordinary, or what may be called the natural, state of our happiness, 
 than the other ever raises us above it. A man of sensibility is apt to 
 be more humiliated by just censure than he is ever elevated by just 
 applause. Unmerited applause a wise man rejects with contempt 
 upon all occasions ; but he often feels very severely the injustice of 
 unmerited censure. By suffering himself to be applauded for what he 
 has not performed, by assuming a merit which does not belong to him, 
 he feels that he is guilty ot a mean falsehood, and deserves, not the 
 admiration, but the contempt of those very persons who, by mistake, 
 had been led to admire him. It may, perhaps, give him some well- 
 founded pleasure to find that he has been, by many people, thought 
 capable of performing what he did not perform. But, though he may 
 be obliged to his friends for their good opinion, he would think himself 
 guilty of the greatest baseness if he did not immediately undeceive 
 them. It gives him little pleasure to look upon himself in the light in 
 which other people actually look upon him, when he is conscious that, 
 if they knew the truth, they would look upon him in a very different 
 light. A weak man, however, is often much delighted with viewing 
 himself in this false and delusive light. He assumes the merit of every 
 laudable action that is ascribed to him, and pretends to that of many 
 which nobody ever thought of ascribing to him. He pretends to have 
 done what he never did, to have written what another wrote, to have 
 invented what another discovered ; and is led into all the miserable 
 vices of plagiarism and common lying. But though no man of mid-
 
 110 PAIN MORE PUNGENT THAN CORRESPONDING PLEASURE. 
 
 dling good sense can derive much pleasure from the imputation of a 
 laudable action which he never performed, yet a wise man may suffer 
 great pain from the serious imputation of a crime which he never com- 
 mitted. Nature, in this case, has rendered the pain, not only more 
 pungent than the opposite and correspondent pleasure, but she has 
 rendered it so in a much greater than the ordinary degree. A denial 
 rids a man at once of the foolish and ridiculous pleasure ; but it will 
 not always rid him of the pain. When he refuses the merit which is 
 ascribed to him, nobody doubts his veracity. It may be doubted when 
 he denies the crime which he is accused of. He is at once enraged at 
 the falsehood of the imputation, and mortified to find that any credit 
 should be given to it. He feels that his character is not sufficient to 
 protect him. He feels that his brethren, far from looking upon him in 
 that light in which he anxiously desires to be viewed by them, think 
 him capable of being guilty of what he is accused of. He knows per- 
 fectly that he has not been guilty. He knows perfectly what he has 
 done ; but, perhaps, scarce any man can know perfectly what he him- 
 self is capable of doing. What the peculiar constitution of his own 
 mind may or may not admit of, is, perhaps, more or less a matter of 
 doubt to every man. The trust and good opinion of his friends and 
 neighbours, tends more than any thing to relieve him from this most 
 disagreeable doubt ; their distrust and unfavourable opinion to increase 
 it. He may think himself very confident that their unfavourable judg- 
 ment is wrong : but this confidence can seldom be so great as to hinder 
 that judgment from making some impression upon him ; and the greater 
 his sensibility, the greater his delicacy, the greater his worth in short, 
 this impression is likdy to be the greater. 
 
 The agreement or disagreement both of the sentiments and judg- 
 ments of other people with our own, is, in all cases, it must be observed, 
 of more or less importance to us, exactly in proportion as we ourselves 
 are more or less uncertain about the propriety of our own sentiments, 
 about the accuracy of our own judgments. 
 
 A man of sensibility may sometimes feel great uneasiness lest he 
 should have yielded too much even to what may be called an honour- 
 able passion ; to his just indignation, perhaps, at the injury which may 
 have been done either to himself or to his friend. He is anxiously 
 afraid lest, meaning only to act with spirit, and to do justice, he may, 
 from the too great vehemence of his emotion, have done a real injury 
 to some other person ; who, though not innocent, may not have been 
 altogether so guilty as he at first apprehended. The opinion of other 
 people becomes, in this case, of the utmost importance to him. Their 
 approbation is the most healing balsam ; their disapprobation, the bit- 
 terest and most tormenting poison that can be poured into his uneasy 
 mind. When he is perfectly satisfied with every part of his own con- 
 duct, the judgment of other people is often of less importance to him.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. in 
 
 There are some very noble and beautiful arts, in which the degree of 
 excellence can be determined only by a certain nicety of taste, of which 
 the decisions, however, appear always, in some measure, uncertain. 
 There are others, in which the success admits, either of clear demon- 
 stration, or very satisfactory proof. Among the candidates for excel- 
 lence in those different arts, the anxiety about the public opinion is 
 always much greater in the former than in the latter. 
 
 The beauty of poetry is a matter of such nicety, that a young 
 beginner can scarce ever be certain that he has attained it. Nothing 
 delights him so much, therefore, as the favourable judgments of his 
 friends and of the public ; and nothing mortifies him so severely as 
 the contrary. The one establishes, the other shakes, the good opinion 
 which he is anxious to entertain concerning his own performances. 
 Experience and success may in time give him a little more confidence 
 in his own judgment. He is at all times, however, liable to be most 
 severely mortified by the unfavourable judgments of the public. Racine 
 was so disgusted by the indifferent success of his Phaedra, the finest 
 tragedy, perhaps, that is extant in any language, that, though in the 
 vigour of his life, and at the height of his abilities, he resolved to write 
 no more for the stage. That great poet used frequently to tell his son, 
 that the most paltry and impertinent criticism had always given him 
 more pain than the highest and justest eulogy had ever given him 
 pleasure. The extreme sensibility of Voltaire to the slightest censure 
 of the same kind is well known to every body. The Dunciad of 
 Mr. Pope is an everlasting monument of how much the most correct, 
 as well as the most elegant and harmonious of all the English poets, 
 had been hurt by the criticisms of the lowest and most contemptible 
 authors. Gray (who joins to the sublimity of Milton the elegance and 
 harmony of Pope, and to whom nothing is wanting to render him, per- 
 haps, the first poet in the English language, but to have written a little 
 more) is said to have been so much hurt by a foolish and impertinent 
 parody of two of his finest odes, that he never afterwards attempted 
 any considerable work. Those men of letters who value themselves 
 upon what is called fine writing in prose, approach somewhat to the 
 sensibility of poets. 
 
 Mathematicians, on the contrary, who may have the most perfect 
 assurance, both of the truth and of the importance of their discoveries, 
 are frequently very indifferent about the reception which they may 
 meet with from the public. The two greatest mathematicians that I 
 ever had the honour to be known to, and I believe, the two greatest 
 that have lived in my time, Dr. Robert Simpson of Glasgow, and Dr. 
 Matthew Stewart of Edinburgh, never seemed to feel even the slightest 
 uneasiness from the neglect with which the ignorance of the public 
 received some of their most valuable works. The great work of Sir 
 Isaac Newton, his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, I
 
 112 THE MORALS OF MEN OF LETTERS ARE VARIOUSLY AFFECTED. 
 
 have been told, was for several years neglected by the public. The 
 tranquillity of that great man, it is probable, never suffered, upon that 
 account, the interruption of a single quarter of an hour. Natural 
 philosophers, in their independency upon the public opinion, approach 
 nearly to mathematicians, and, in their judgments concerning the 
 merit of their own discoveries and observations, enjoy some degree of 
 the same security and tranquillity. 
 
 The morals of those different classes of men of letters are, perhaps, 
 sometimes somewhat affected by this very great difference in their situ- 
 ation with regard to the public. 
 
 Mathematicians and natural philosophers, from their independency 
 upon the public opinion, have little temptation to form themselves into 
 factions and cabals, either for the support of their own reputation, or 
 for the depression of that of their rivals. They are almost always men 
 of the most amiable simplicity of manners, who live in good harmony 
 with one another, are the friends of one another's reputation, enter into 
 no intrigue in order to secure the public applause, but are pleased when 
 their works are approved of, without being either much vexed or very 
 angry when they are neglected. 
 
 It is not always the same case with poets, or with those who value 
 themselves upon what is called fine writing. They are very apt to 
 divide themselves into a sort of literary faction ; each cabal being often 
 avowedly, and almost always secretly, the mortal enemy of the reputa- 
 tion of every other, and employing all the mean arts of intrigue and 
 solicitation to pre-occupy the public opinion in favour of the works of 
 its own members, and against those of its enemies and rivals. In 
 France, Despreaux and Racine did not think it below them to set them- 
 selves at the head of a literary cabal, in order to depress the reputation, 
 first of Quinault and Perreault, and afterwards of Fontenelle and La 
 Motte, and even to treat the good La Fontaine with a species of most 
 disrespectful kindness. In England, the amiable Mr. Addison did not 
 think it unworthy of his gentle and modest character to set himself at 
 the head of a little cabal of the same kind, in order to keep down the 
 rising reputation of Mr. Pope. Mr. Fontenelle, in writing the lives 
 and characters of the members of the academy of sciences, a society of 
 mathematicians and natural philosophers, has frequent opportunities of 
 celebrating the amiable simplicity of their manners ; a quality which, 
 he observes, was so universal among them as to be characteristical, 
 rather of that whole class of men of letters, than of any individual. Mr. 
 D'Alembert, in writing the lives and characters of the members of the 
 French Academy, a society of poets and fine writers, or of those who 
 are supposed to be such, seems not to have had such frequent oppor- 
 tunities of making any remark of this kind, and no where pretends to 
 represent this amiable quality as characteristical of that class of men 
 of letters whom he celebrates.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 113 
 
 Our uncertainty concerning our own merit, and our anxiety to think 
 favourably of it, should together naturally enough make us desirous to 
 know the opinion of other people concerning it ; to be more than or- 
 dinarily elevated when that opinion is favourable, and to be more than 
 ordinarily mortified when it is otherwise : but they should not make us 
 desirous either of obtaining the favourable, or of avoiding the unfavour- 
 able opinion, by intrigue and cabal. When a man has bribed all the 
 judges, the most unanimous decision of the court, though it may gain 
 him his law-suit, cannot give him any assurance that he was in the 
 right : and had he carried on his law-suit merely to satisfy himself that 
 he was in the right, he never would have bribed the judges. But 
 though he wished to find himself in the right, he wished likewise 
 to gain his law-suit ; and therefore he bribed the judges. If praise 
 were of no consequence to us, but as a proof of our own praise- 
 worthiness, we never should endeavour to obtain it by unfair means. 
 But, though to wise men it is, at least in doubtful cases, of principal 
 consequence upon this account ; it is likewise of some consequence 
 upon its own account : and therefore (we cannot, indeed, upon such 
 occasions, call them wise men), but men very much above the common 
 level have sometimes attempted both to obtain praise, and to avoid 
 blame, by very unfair means. 
 
 Praise and blame express what actually are, praise-worthiness and 
 blame-worthiness what naturally ought to be, the sentiments of other 
 people with regard to our character and conduct. The love of praise 
 is the desire of obtaining the favourable sentiments of our brethren. 
 The love of praise-worthiness is the desire of rendering ourselves the 
 proper objects of those sentiments. So far those two principles re- 
 semble and are akin to one another. The like affinity and resemblance 
 take place between dread of blame and that of blame-worthiness. 
 
 The man who desires to do, or who actually does, a praise-worthy 
 action, may likewise desire the praise which is due to it, and some- 
 times, perhaps, more than is due to it. The two principles are in 
 this case blended together. How far his conduct may have been 
 influenced by the one, and how far by the other, may frequently be 
 unknown even to himself. It must almost always be so to other 
 people. They who are disposed to lessen the merit of his con- 
 duct, impute it chiefly or altogether to the mere love of praise, or to 
 what they call mere vanity. They who are disposed to think more 
 favourably of it, impute it chiefly or altogether to the love of praise- 
 worthiness ; to the love of what is really honourable and noble in 
 human conduct ; to the desire, not merely of obtaining, but of deserv- 
 ing the approbation and applause of his brethren. The imagination of 
 the spectator throws upon it either the one colour or the other, accord- 
 ing either to his habits of thinking, or to the favour or dislike which he 
 may bear to the person whose conduct he is considering.
 
 114 A WISE MAN MAY NEGLECT PRAISE EVEN WHEN DESERVED. 
 
 Some splenetic philosophers, in judging of human nature, have done 
 as peevish individuals are apt to do in judging of the conduct of one 
 another, and have imputed to the love of praise, or to what they call 
 vanity, every action which ought to be ascribed to that of praise- 
 worthiness. I shall hereafter have occasion to give an account of some 
 of their systems, and shall not at present stop to examine them. 
 
 Very few men can be satisfied with their own private consciousness 
 that they have attained those qualities, or performed those actions, 
 which they admire and think praise-worthy in other people ; unless it is, 
 at the same time, generally acknowledged that they possess the one, 
 or have performed the other ; or, in other words, unless they have 
 actually obtained that praise which they think due both to the one and 
 to the other. In this respect, however, men differ considerably from 
 one another. Some seem indifferent about the praise, when, in their 
 own minds, they are perfectly satisfied that they have attained the 
 praise-worthiness. Others appear much less anxious about the praise- 
 worthiness than about the praise. 
 
 No man can be completely, or even tolerably satisfied, with having 
 avoided every thing blame-worthy in his conduct, unless he has like- 
 wise avoided the blame or the reproach. A wise man may frequently 
 neglect praise, even when he has best deserved it ; but, in all matters 
 of serious consequence, he will most carefully endeavour so to regulate 
 his conduct as to avoid, not only blame-worthiness, but, as much as 
 possible, every probable imputation of blame. He will never, indeed, 
 avoid blame by doing any thing which he judges blame-worthy ; by 
 omitting any part of his duty, or by neglecting any opportunity of doing 
 any thing which he judges to be really and greatly praise-worthy. But, 
 with these modifications, he will most anxiously and carefully avoid it. 
 To show much anxiety about praise, even for praise-worthy actions, is 
 seldom a mark of great wisdom, but generally of some degree of weak- 
 ness. But, in being anxious to avoid the shadow of blame or reproach, 
 there may be no weakness, but frequently there may be the most 
 praise-worthy prudence. 
 
 ' Many people,' says Cicero, ' despise glory, who are yet most 
 ' severely mortified by unjust reproach ; and that most inconsistently.' 
 This inconsistency, however, seems to be founded in the unalterable 
 principles of human nature. 
 
 The all-wise Author of Nature has, in this manner, taught man to 
 respect the sentiments and judgments of his brethren ; to be more or 
 less pleased when they approve of his conduct, and to be more or less 
 hurt when they disapprove of it. He has made man, if I may say so, 
 the immediate judge of mankind ; and has, in this respect, as in many 
 others, created him after his own image, and appointed him his vice- 
 gerent upon earth, to superintend the behaviour of his brethren. They 
 are taught by nature, to acknowledge that power and jurisdiction which
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 115 
 
 has thus been conferred upon him, to be more or less humbled and 
 mortified when they have incurred his censure, and to be more or less 
 elated when they have obtained his applause. 
 
 But though man has, in this manner, been rendered the immediate 
 judge of mankind, he has been rendered so only in the first instance ; 
 and an appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tribunal, to 
 the tribunal of their own consciences, to that of the supposed im- 
 partial and well-informed spectator, to that of the man within the 
 breast, the great judge and arbiter of their conduct The jurisdictions 
 of those two tribunals are founded upon principles which, though in 
 some respects resembling and akin, are, however, in reality different and 
 distinct. The jurisdiction of the man without, is founded altogether in 
 the desire of actual praise, and in the aversion to actual blame. The 
 jurisdiction of the man within, is founded altogether in the desire of 
 praise-worthiness, and in the aversion to blame-worthiness ; in the 
 desire of possessing those qualities, and performing those actions, 
 which we love and admire in other people ; and in the dread of pos- 
 sessing those qualities, and performing those actions, which we hate 
 and despise in other people. If the man without should applaud us, either 
 for actions which we have not performed, or for motives which had no 
 influence upon us ; the man within can immediately humble that pride 
 and elevation of mind which such groundless acclamations might other- 
 wise occasion, by telling us, that as we know that we do not deserve 
 them, we render ourselves despicable by accepting them. If, on the 
 contrary, the man without should reproach us, either for actions which 
 we never performed, or for motives which had no influence upon those 
 which we may have performed, the man within may immediately 
 correct this false judgment, and assure us, that we are by no means 
 the proper objects of that censure which has so unjustly been be- 
 stowed upon us. But in this and in some other cases, the man with- 
 in seems sometimes, as it were, astonished and confounded by the 
 vehemence and clamour of the man without. The violence and loud- 
 ness with which blame is sometimes poured out upon us, seems to 
 stupify and benumb our natural sense of praise-worthiness and blame- 
 worthiness ; and the judgments of the man within, though not, perhaps, 
 absolutely altered or perverted, are, however, so much shaken in the 
 steadiness and firmness of their decision, that their natural effect, in 
 securing the tranquillity of the mind, is frequently in a great measure 
 destroyed. We scarce dare to absolve ourselves, when all our brethren 
 appear loudly to condemn us. The supposed impartial spectator of 
 our conduct seems to give his opinion in our favour with fear and hesi- 
 tation ; when that of all the real spectators, when that of all those with 
 whose eyes and from whose station he endeavours to consider it, is 
 unanimously and violently against us. In such cases, this demigod 
 within the breast appears, like the demigods of the poets, though
 
 IT 6 HAPPINESS IN THIS LIFE DEPENDS ON HOPE O I- THAT TO COMK. 
 
 partly of immortal, yet partly too of mortal extraction. When his 
 judgments are steadily and firmly directed by the sense of praise- 
 worthiness and blame-worthiness, he seems to act suitably to his 
 divine extraction : but when he suffers himself to be astonished and 
 confounded by the judgments of ignorant and weak man, he dis- 
 covers his connexion with mortality, and appears to act suitably, 
 rather to the human, than to the divine, part of his origin. 
 
 In such cases, the only effectual consolation of humbled and afflicted 
 man lies in an appeal to a still higher tribunal, to that of the all-seeing 
 Judge of the world, whose eye can never be deceived, and whose judg- 
 ments can never be perverted. A firm confidence in the unerring 
 rectitude of this great tribunal, before which his innocence is in due 
 time to be declared, and his virtue to be finally rewarded, can alone 
 support him under the weakness and despondency of his own mind, 
 under the perturbation and astonishment of the man within the breast, 
 whom nature has set up as, in this life, the great guardian, not only of 
 his innocence, but of his tranquillity. Our happiness in this life is thus, 
 upon many occasions, dependent upon the humble hope and expecta- 
 tion of a life to come : a hope and expectation deeply rooted in human 
 nature ; which can alone support its lofty ideas of its own dignity ; can 
 alone illumine the dreary prospect of its continually approaching mor- 
 tality, and maintain its cheerfulness under all the heaviest calamities 
 to which, from the disorders of this life, it may sometimes be exposed. 
 That there is a world to come, where exact justice will be done to every 
 man, where every man will be ranked with those who, in the moral and 
 intellectual qualities, are really his equals ; where the owner of those 
 humble talents and virtues which, from being depressed by fortunes, 
 had, in this life, no opportunity of displaying themselves ; which were 
 unknown, not only to the public, but which he himself could scarce be 
 sure that he possessed, and for which even the man within the breast 
 could scarce venture to afford him any distinct and clear testimony ; 
 where that modest, silent, and unknown merit, will be placed upon a 
 level, and sometimes above those who, in this world, had enjoyed the 
 highest reputation, and who, from the advantage of their situation, had 
 been enabled to perform the most splendid and dazzling actions ; is a 
 doctrine, in every respect so venerable, so comfortable to the weakness, 
 so flattering to the grandeur of human nature, that the virtuous man 
 who has the misfortune to doubt of it, cannot possibly avoid wishing 
 most earnestly and anxiously to believe it. It could never have been 
 exposed to the derision of the scoffer, had not the distribution of re- 
 wards and punishments, which some of its most zealous assertors have 
 taught us was to be made in that world to come, been too frequently in 
 direct opposition to all our moral sentiments. 
 
 That the assiduous courtier is often more favoured than the faithful 
 and active servant; that attendance and adulation are often shorter
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 117 
 
 and surer roads to preferment than merit or service ; and that a cam- 
 paign at Versailles or St. James's is often worth two either in Germany 
 or Flanders, is a complaint which we have all heard from many a 
 venerable, but discontented, old officer. But what is considered as the 
 greatest reproach even to the weakness of earthly sovereigns, has been 
 ascribed, as an act of justice, to divine perfection ; and the duties of 
 devotion, the public and private worship of the Deity, have been repre- 
 sented, even by men of virtue and abilities, as the sole virtues which 
 can either entitle to reward or exempt from punishment in the life to 
 come. They were the virtues perhaps, most suitable to their station, 
 and in which they themselves chiefly excelled ; and we are all naturally 
 disposed to over-rate the excellencies of our own characters. In the 
 discourse which the eloquent and philosophical Massillon pronounced, 
 on giving his benediction to the standards of the regiment of Catinat, 
 there is the following address to the officers : 'What is most deplorable 
 ' in your situation, gentlemen, is, that in a life hard and painful, in 
 ' which the services and the duties sometimes go beyond the rigour and 
 ' severity of the most austere cloisters ; you suffer always in vain for 
 ' the life to come, and frequently even for this life. Alas ! the solitary 
 ' monk in his cell, obliged to mortify the flesh and to subject it to the 
 ' spirit, is supported by the hope of an assured recompense, and by the 
 ' secret unction of that grace which softens the yoke of the Lord. But 
 ' you, on the bed of death, can you dare to represent to Him your 
 ' fatigues and the daily hardships of your employment ? can you dare 
 ' to solicit Him for any recompense ? and in all the exertions that you 
 ' have made, in all the violences that you have done to yourselves, what 
 ' is there that He ought to place to His own account ? The best days 
 ' of your life, however, have been sacrificed to your profession, and ten 
 ' years' servic t has more worn out your body, than would, perhaps, have 
 ' done a whole life of repentance and mortification. Alas ! my brother, 
 ' one single day of those sufferings, consecrated to the Lord, would, 
 'perhaps, have obtained you an eternal happiness. One single action, 
 ' painful to nature, and offered up to Him, would, perhaps, have secured 
 ' to you the inheritance of the saints. And you have done all this, and 
 ' in vain, for this world.' 
 
 To compare, in this manner, the futile mortifications of a monastery, 
 to the ennobling hardships and hazards of war ; to suppose that one 
 day, or one hour, employed in the former should, in the eye of the great 
 Judge of the world, have more merit than a whole life spent honourably 
 in the latter, is surely contrary to all our moral sentiments : to all the 
 principles by which nature has taught us to regulate our contempt or 
 admiration. It is this spirit, however, which, while it has reserved the 
 celestial regions for monks and friars, or for those whose conduct and 
 conversation resembled those of monks and friars, has condemned to 
 the infernal all the heroes, all the statesmen and lawgivers, all the poets
 
 llS APPROVAL OF CONSCIENCE DOES NOT ALWAYS CONTENT MAN. 
 
 and philosophers of former ages ; all those who have invented, improved, 
 or excelled in the arts, which contribute to the subsistence, to the con- 
 veniency, or to the ornament of human life ; all the great protectors, 
 instructors, and benefactors of mankind ; all those to whom our natural 
 sense of praise-worthiness forces us to ascribe the highest merit and 
 most exalted virtue. Can we wonder that so strange an application of 
 this most respectable doctrine should sometimes have exposed it to 
 contempt and derision ; with those at least who had themselves, per- 
 haps, no great taste or turn for the devout and contemplative virtues ?* 
 
 CHAP. III. Of the Influence and Authority of Conscience. 
 
 BUT though the approbation of his own conscience can scarce, upon 
 some extraordinary occasions, content the weakness of man ; though 
 the testimony of the supposed impartial spectator of the great inmate 
 of the breast, cannot always alone support him ; yet the influence and 
 authority of this principle is, upon all occasions, very great ; and it is 
 only by consulting this judge within, that we can ever see what relates 
 to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions ; or that we can ever 
 make any proper comparison between our own interests and those of 
 other people. 
 
 As to the eye of the body, objects appear great or small, not so much 
 according to their real dimensions, as according to the nearness or dis- 
 tance of their situation ; so do they likewise to what may be called the 
 natural eye of the mind : and we remedy the defects of both these 
 organs pretty much in the same manner. In my present situation an 
 immense landscape of lawns, and woods, and distant mountains, seems 
 to do no more than cover the little window which I write by, and to be 
 out of all proportion less than the chamber in which I am sitting. I 
 can form a just comparison between those great objects and the little 
 objects around me, in no other way, than by transporting myself, at 
 least in fancy, to a different station, from whence I can survey both at 
 nearly equal distances, and thereby form some judgment of their real 
 proportions. Habit and experience have taught me to do this so easily 
 and so readily, that I am scarce sensible that I do it ; and a man must 
 be, in some measure, acquainted with the philosophy of vision, before 
 he can be thoroughly convinced, how little those distant objects would 
 appear to the eye, if the imagination, from a knowledge of their real 
 magnitudes, did not swell and dilate them. 
 
 In the same manner, to the selfish and original passions of human 
 nature, the loss or gain of a very small interest of our own, appears to 
 be of vastly more importance, excites a much more passionate joy or 
 
 * Vous y grillez sage et docte Platon, 
 Divin Homere, eloquent Ciceron, etc. See Voltaire.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 119 
 
 sorrow, a much more ardent desire or aversion, than the greatest con- 
 cern of another with, whom we have no particular connexion. His 
 interests, as long as they are surveyed from this station, can never be 
 put into the balance with our own, can never restrain us from doing 
 whatever may tend to promote our own, how ruinous so ever to him. 
 Before we can make any proper comparison of those opposite interests, 
 we must change our position. We must view them, neither from our 
 own place nor yet from his, neither with our own eyes nor yet with his, 
 but from the place and with the eyes of a third person, who has no par- 
 ticular connexion with either, and who judges with impartiality between 
 us. Here, too, habit and experience have taught us to do this so easily 
 and so readily, that we are scarce sensible that we do it ; and it requires, 
 in this case too, some degree of reflection, and even of philosophy, to 
 convince us, how little interest we should take in the greatest concerns 
 of our neighbour, how little we should be affected by whatever relates 
 to him, if the sense of propriety and justice did not correct the other- 
 wise natural inequality of our sentiments. 
 
 Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads 
 of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let 
 us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of 
 connexion with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving 
 intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of 
 all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy 
 people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the pre- 
 cariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, 
 which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would, too, perhaps, 
 if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning 
 the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of 
 Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And 
 when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane senti- 
 ments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or 
 his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease 
 and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most 
 frivolous disaster which could befai himself would occasion a more 
 real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he 
 would not sleep to-night ; but, provided he never saw them, he will 
 snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred 
 millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude 
 seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry mis- 
 fortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to 
 himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a 
 hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them ? 
 Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, 
 in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a vil- 
 lain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this
 
 I2O WE MAY NOT PREFER THE INTEREST OF ONE TO THAT OF MANY. 
 
 difference ? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid 
 and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often 
 be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much 
 more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves than by what- 
 ever concerns other men, what is it which prompts the generous, 
 upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own 
 interests to the greater interests of others ? It is not the soft power 
 of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature 
 has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting 
 the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more 
 forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, 
 principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the 
 great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we 
 are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with 
 a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, 
 that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any 
 other in it ; and when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly 
 to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, 
 and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of 
 ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepre- 
 sentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial 
 spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the 
 deformity of injustice ; the propriety of resigning the greatest interests 
 of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of 
 doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest 
 benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the 
 love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the 
 practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful 
 affection, which generally ta'l :es place upon such occasions ; the love 
 of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and 
 superiority of our own characters. 
 
 When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect 
 upon our conduct, we dare yot, as self-love might suggest to us, prefer 
 the interest of one to that of many. The man within immediately 
 calls to us, that we value ourselves too much and other people too 
 little, and that, by doing so, we render ourselves the proper object of 
 the contempt and indignation of our brethren. Neither is this senti- 
 ment confined to men of extraordinary magnanimity and virtue. It is 
 deeply impressed upon every tolerably good soldier, who feels that he 
 would become the scorn of his companions, if he could be supposed 
 capable of shrinking from danger, or of hesitating, either to expose or 
 to throw away his life, when the good of the service required it. 
 
 One individual must never prefer himself so much even to any other 
 individual, as to hurt or injure that other, in order to benefit himself, 
 though the benefit to the one should be much greater than the hurt or
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 121 
 
 injury to the other. The poor man must neither defraud nor steal 
 from the rich, though the acquisition might be much more beneficial 
 to the one than the loss could be hurtful to the other. The man 
 within immediately calls to him in this case too, that he is no better 
 than his neighbour, and that by his unjust preference he renders 
 himself the proper object of the contempt and indignation of mankind ; 
 as well as of the punishment which that contempt and indignation 
 must naturally dispose them to inflict, for having thus violated one of 
 those sacred rules, upon the tolerable observation of which depend the 
 whole security and peace of human society. There is no commonly 
 honest man who does not more dread the inward disgrace of such an 
 action, the indelible stain which it would for ever stamp upon his own 
 mind, than the greatest external calamity which, without any fault of 
 his own, could possibly befal him ; and who does not inwardly feel the 
 truth of that great stoical maxim, that for one man to deprive another 
 unjustly of any thing, or unjustly to promote his own advantage by 
 the loss or disadvantage of another, is more contrary to nature, than 
 death, than poverty, than pain, than all the misfortunes which can 
 affect him, either in his body, or in his external circumstances. 
 
 When the happiness or misery of others, indeed, in no respect 
 depends upon our conduct, when our interests are altogether separated 
 and detached from theirs, so that there is neither connexion nor 
 competition between them, we do not always think it so necessary to 
 restrain, either our natural and, perhaps, improper anxiety about our 
 own affairs, or our natural and, perhaps, equally improper indifference 
 about those of other men. The most vulgar education teaches us to 
 act, upon all important occasions, with some sort of impartiality 
 between ourselves and others, and even the ordinary commerce of the 
 world is capable of adjusting our active principles to some degree of 
 propriety. But it is the most artificial and refined education only, it 
 has been said, which can correct the inequalities of our passive 
 feelings ; and we must for this purpose, it has been pretended, have 
 recourse to the severest, as well as to the profoundest philosophy. 
 
 Two different sets of philosophers have attempted to teach us this 
 hardest of all the lessons of morality. One set have laboured to 
 increase our sensibility to the interests of others ; another, to diminish 
 that to our own. The first would have us feel for others as we naturally 
 feel for ourselves. The second would have us feel for ourselves as we 
 naturally feel for others. Both, perhaps, have carried their doctrines 
 a good deal beyond the just standard of nature and propriety. 
 
 The first are those whining and melancholy moralists, who are 
 perpetually reproaching us with our happiness, while so many of our 
 brethren are in misery, 1 who regard as impious the natural joy of 
 
 1 "Ah! little think the gay licentious proud," &c. See Thomson's Seasons, Winter. 
 See also Pascal.
 
 122 ARTIFICIAL COMMISERATION IS WHOLLY ABSURD. 
 
 prosperity, which does not think of the many wretches that are at 
 every instant labouring under all sorts of calamities, in the languor of 
 poverty, in the agony of disease, in the horrors of death, under the 
 insults and oppressions of their enemies. Commiseration for those 
 miseries which we never saw, which we never heard of, but which we 
 may be assured are at all times infesting such numbers of our fellow- 
 creatures, ought, they think, to damp the pleasures of the fortunate, 
 and to render a certain melancholy dejection habitual to all men. 
 But first of all, this extreme sympathy with misfortunes which we 
 know nothing about, seems altogether absurd and unreasonable. 
 Take the whole earth at an average, for one man who suffers pain or 
 misery, you will find twenty in prosperity and joy, or at least in 
 tolerable circumstances. No reason, surely, can be assigned why we 
 should rather weep with the one than rejoice with the twenty. This arti- 
 ficial commiseration, besides, is not only absurd, but seems altogether 
 unattainable; and those who affect this character have commonly 
 nothing but a certain affected and sentimental sadness, which, without 
 reaching the heart, serves only to render the countenance and con- 
 versation impertinently dismal and disagreeable. And last of all, this 
 disposition of mind, though it could be attained, would be perfectly 
 useless, and could serve no other purpose than to render miserable the 
 person who possessed it. Whatever interest we take in the fortune 
 of those with whom we have no acquaintance or connexion, and who 
 are placed altogether out of the sphere of our activity, can produce 
 only anxiety to ourselves without any manner of advantage to them. To 
 what purpose should we trouble ourselves about the world in the moon? 
 All men, even those at the greatest distance, are no doubt entitled to our 
 good wishes, and our good wishes we naturally give them. But if, not- 
 withstanding, they should be unfortunate, to give ourselves any anxiety 
 upon that account, seems to be no part of our duty. That we should 
 be but little interested, therefore, in the fortune of those whom we can 
 neither serve nor hurt, and who are in every respect so very remote 
 from us, seems wisely ordered by nature ; and if it were possible to 
 alter in this respect the original constitution of our frame, we could 
 yet gain nothing by the change. 
 
 It is never objected to us that we have too little fellow-feeling with 
 the joy of success. Wherever envy does not prevent it, the favour 
 which we bear to prosperity is rather apt to be too great; and the 
 same moralists who blame us for want of sufficient sympathy with the 
 miserable, reproach us for the levity with which we are too apt to 
 admire and almost to worship the fortunate and the powerful. 
 
 Among the moralists who endeavour to correct the natural inequality 
 of our passive feelings by diminishing our sensibility to what peculiarly 
 concerns ourselves, we may count all the ancient sects of philosophers, 
 but particularly the ancient Stoics. Man, according to the Stoics,
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 123 
 
 ought to regard himself, not as something separated and detached, 
 but as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast commonwealth of 
 nature. To the interest of this great community, he ought at all 
 times to be willing that his own little interest should be sacrificed. 
 Whatever concerns himself, ought to affect him no more than whatever 
 concerns any other equally important part of this immense system. 
 We should view ourselves, not in the light in which our own selfish 
 passions are apt to place us, but in the light in which any other citizen 
 of the world would view us. What befalls ourselves we should regard 
 as what befalls our neighbour, or, what comes to the same thing, as 
 our neighbour regards what befalls us. ' When our neighbour,' says 
 Epictetus, 'loses his wife, or his son, there is nobody who is not 
 ' sensible that this is a human calamity, a natural event altogether 
 ' according to the ordinary course of things ; but when the same thing 
 ' happens to ourselves, then we cry out, as if we had suffered the most 
 ' dreadful misfortune. We ought, however, to remember how we were 
 ' affected when this accident happened to another, and such as we 
 ' were in his case, such ought we to be in our own.' 
 
 Those private misfortunes, for which our feelings are apt to go be- 
 yond the bounds of propriety, are of two different kinds. They are 
 either such as aft'ect us only indirectly, by affecting, in the first place, 
 some other persons who are particularly dear to us ; such as our 
 parents, our children, our brothers and sisters, our intimate friends ; 
 or they are such as affect ourselves immediately and directly, either in 
 our body, in our fortune, or in our reputation ; such as pain, sickness, 
 approaching death, poverty, disgrace, etc. 
 
 In misfortunes of the first kind, our emotions may, no doubt, go very 
 much beyond what exact propriety will admit of ; but they may like- 
 wise fall short of it, and they frequently do so. The man who should 
 feel no more for the death or distress of his own father, or son, than 
 for those of any other man's father or son, would appear neither a 
 good son nor a good father. Such unnatural indifference, far from 
 exciting our applause, would incur our highest disapprobation. Of 
 these domestic affections, however, some are most apt to offend by 
 their excess, and others by their defect. Nature, for the wisest pur- 
 poses, has rendered, in most men, perhaps in all men, parental tender- 
 ness a much stronger affection than filial piety. The continuance and 
 propagation of the species depend altogether upon the former, and not 
 upon the latter, ' In ordinary cases, the existence and preservation of 
 the child depend altogether upon the care of the parents. Those of 
 the parents seldom depend upon that of the child. Nature, therefore, 
 has rendered the former affection so strong, that it generally requires 
 not to be excited, but to be moderated ; and moralists seldom endea- 
 vour to teach us how to indulge, but generally how to restrain our 
 fondness, our excessive attachment, the unjust preference which we 
 
 9 *
 
 124 EXCESS OF KIND AFFECTIONS NEVER APPEARS ODIOUS. 
 
 arc disposed to give to our own children above those of other people. 
 They exhort us, on the contrary, to an affectionate attention to our 
 parents, and to make a proper return to them, in their old age, for the 
 kindness which they had shown to us in our infancy and youth. In 
 the Decalogue we are commanded to honour our fathers and mothers. 
 No mention is made of the love of our children. Nature has suffi- 
 ciently prepared us for the performance of this latter duty. Men are 
 seldom accused of affecting to be fonder of their children than they 
 really are. They have sometimes been suspected of displaying their 
 piety to their parents with too much ostentation. The ostentatious sor- 
 row of widows has, for a like reason, been suspected of insincerity. 
 We should respect, could we believe it sincere, even the excess of such 
 kind affections ; and though we might not perfectly approve, we should 
 not severely condemn it. That it appears praise-worthy, at least in the 
 eyes of those who affect it, the very affectation is a proof. 
 
 Even the excess of those kind affections which are most apt to 
 offend by their excess, though it may appear blamable, never appears 
 odious. We blame the excessive fondness and anxiety of a parent, as 
 something which may, in the end, prove hurtful to the child, and which, 
 in the mean time, is excessively inconvenient to the parent ; but we 
 easily pardon it, and never regard it with hatred and detestation. But 
 the defect of this usually excessive affection appears always peculiarly 
 odious. The man who appears to feel nothing for his own children, 
 but who treats them upon all occasions with unmerited severity and 
 harshness, seems of all brutes the most detestable. The sense of 
 propriety, so far from requiring us to eradicate altogether that extra- 
 ordinary sensibility which we naturally feel for the misfortunes of our 
 nearest connections, is always much more offended by the defect, than 
 it ever is by the excess of that sensibility. The stoical apathy is, in 
 such cases, never agreeable, and all the metaphysical sophism by which 
 it is supported can seldom serve any other purpose than to blow up the 
 hard insensibility of a coxcomb to ten times its native impertinence. 
 The poets and romance writers, who best paint the refinements and 
 delicacies of love and friendship, and of all other private and domestic 
 affections, Racine and Voltaire ; Richardson, Maurivaux, and Ricco- 
 boni ; are, in such cases, much better instructors than the philosophers 
 Zeno, Chrysippus, or Epictetus. 
 
 That moderated sensibility to the misfortunes of others, which does 
 not disqualify us for the performance of any duty ; the melancholy and 
 affectionate remembrance of our departed friends ; the pang, as Gray 
 says, to secret sorrow dear; are by no means undelicious sensations. 
 Though they outwardly wear the features of pain and grief, they are 
 all inwardly stamped with the ennobling characters of virtue and of 
 self-approbation. 
 
 It is otherwise in the misfortunes which affect ourselves immediately
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 125 
 
 and directly, either in our body, in our fortune, or in our reputation. 
 The sense of propriety is much more apt to be offended by the excess, 
 than by the defect of our sensibility, and there are but few cases in which 
 we can approach too near to the stoical apathy and indifference. 
 
 That we have very little fellow-feeling with any of the passions which 
 take their origin from the body, has already been observed. That pain 
 which is occasioned by an evident cause ; such as, the cutting or tear- 
 ing of the flesh ; is, perhaps, the affection of the body with which the 
 spectator feels the most lively sympathy. The approaching death of 
 his neighbour, too, seldom fails to affect him a good deal. In both 
 cases, however, he feels so very little in comparison of what the person 
 principally concerned feels, that the latter can scarce ever offend the 
 former by appearing to suffer with too much ease. 
 
 The mere want of fortune, mere poverty, excites little compassion. 
 Its complaints are too apt to be the objects rather of contempt than of 
 fellow-feeling. We despise a beggar ; and, though his importunities 
 may extort an alms from us, he is scarce ever the object of any serious 
 commiseration. The fall from riches to poverty, as it commonly 
 occasions the most real distress to the sufferer, so it seldom fails to 
 excite the most sincere commiseration in the spectator. Though, in 
 the present state of society, this misfortune can seldom happen without 
 some misconduct, and some very considerable misconduct too, in the 
 sufferer ; yet he is almost always so much pitied that he is scarce ever 
 allowed to fall into the lowest state of poverty ; but by the means of 
 his friends, frequently by the indulgence of those very creditors who 
 have much reason to complain of his imprudence, is almost always 
 supported in some degree of decent, though humble, mediocrity. To 
 persons under such misfortunes, we could, perhaps, easily pardon some 
 degree of weakness ; but at the same time, they who carry the firmest 
 countenance, who accommodate themselves with the greatest ease to 
 their new situation, who seem to feel no humiliation from the change, 
 but to rest their rank in the society, not upon their fortune, but upon 
 their character and conduct, are always the most approved of, and 
 command our highest and most affectionate admiration. 
 
 As, of all the external misfortunes which can affect an innocent man 
 immediately and directly, the undeserved loss of reputation is certainly 
 the greatest ; so a considerable degree of sensibility to whatever can 
 bring on so great a calamity, does not always appear ungraceful or 
 disagreeable. We often esteem a young man the more, when he 
 resents, though with some degree of violence, any unjust reproach that 
 may have been thrown upon his character or his honour. The afflic- 
 tion of an innocent young lady, on account of the groundless surmises 
 which may have been circulated concerning her conduct, appears often 
 perfectly amiable. Persons of an advanced age, whom long experience 
 of the folly and injustice of the world has taught to pay little regard,
 
 126 A CHILD IN THE GREAT SCHOOL OF SELF-COMMAND. 
 
 either to its censure or to its applause, neglect and despise obloquy, 
 and do not even deign to honour its futile authors with any serious 
 resentment. This indifference, which is founded altogether on a firm 
 confidence in their own well-tried and well-established characters, 
 would be disagreeable in young people, who neither can nor ought to 
 have any such confidence. It might in them be supposed to forebode, 
 in their advancing years, a most improper insensibility to real honour 
 and infamy of character. 
 
 In all other private misfortunes which affect ourselves immediately 
 and directly, we can very seldom offend by appearing to be too little 
 affected. We frequently remember our sensibility to the misfortunes of 
 others with pleasure and satisfaction. We can seldom remember that 
 to our own, without some degree of shame and humiliation. 
 
 If we examine the different shades and gradations of weakness and 
 self-command, as we meet with them in common life, we shall very 
 easily satisfy ourselves that this control of our passive feeling must be 
 acquired, not from the abstruse syllogisms of a quibbling dialectic, 
 but from that great discipline which Nature has established for the 
 acquisition of this and of every other virtue ; a regard to the senti- 
 ments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct. 
 
 A very young child has no self-command ; but, whatever are its emo- 
 tions, whether fear, or grief, or anger, it endeavours always, by the vio- 
 lence of his outcries, to alarm, as much as it can, the attention of its 
 nurse or of its parents. While it remains under the custody of such 
 partial protectors, its anger is the first and, perhaps, the only passion 
 which it is taught to moderate. By noise and threatening they are, for 
 their own ease, often obliged to frighten it into good temper ; and the 
 passion which incites it to attack, is restrained by that whkh teaches it 
 to attend to its own safety. When it is old enough to go to school, or 
 to mix with its equals, it soon finds that they have no such indulgent 
 partiality. It naturally wishes to gain their favour, and to avoid their 
 hatred or contempt. Regard even to its own safety teaches it to do so ; 
 and it soon finds that it can do so in no other way than by moderating 
 not only its anger, but all its other passions, to the degree which its 
 play-fellows and companions are likely to be pleased with. It thus en- 
 ters into the great school of self-command, it studies to be more and 
 more master of itself, and begins to exercise over its own feelings a 
 discipline which the practice of the longest life is very seldom sufficient 
 to bring to complete perfection. 
 
 In all private misfortunes, in pain, in sickness, in sorrow, the weak- 
 est man, when his friend, and still more when a stranger visits him, is 
 immediately impressed with the view in which they are likely to look 
 upon his situation. Their view calls off his attention from his own 
 view ; and his breast is, in some measure, becalmed the moment they 
 come into his presence. This effect is produced instantaneously and,
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 127 
 
 as it were, mechanically ; but, with a weak man, it is not of long con- 
 tinuance. His own view of his situation immediately recurs upon him. 
 He abandons himself, as before, to sighs and tears and lamentations ; 
 and endeavours, like a child that has not yet gone to school, to produce 
 some sort of harmony between his own grief and the compassion of 
 the spectator, not by moderating the former, but by importunately 
 calling upon the latter. 
 
 With a man of a little more firmness, the effect is somewhat more 
 permanent. He endeavours, as much as he can, to fix his attention 
 upon the view which the company are likely to take of his situation. 
 He feels, at the same time, the esteem and approbation which they 
 naturally conceive for him when he thus preserves his tranquillity ; and, 
 though under the pressure of some recent and great calamity, appears 
 to feel for himself no more than what they really feel for him. He ap- 
 proves and applauds himself by sympathy with their approbation, and 
 the pleasure which he derives from this sentiment supports and enables 
 him more easily to continue this generous effort. In most cases he 
 avoids mentioning his own misfortune ; and his company, if they are 
 tolerably well bred, are careful to say nothing which can put him in 
 mind of it. He endeavours to entertain them, in his usual way, upon 
 indifferent subjects, or, if he feels himself strong enough to venture to 
 mention his misfortune, he endeavours to talk of it as, he thinks, they 
 are capable of talking of it, and even to feel it no further than they are 
 capable of feeling it. If he has not, however, been well inured to the 
 hard discipline of self-command, he soon grows weary of this restraint. 
 A long visit fatigues him ; and, towards the end of it, he is constantly 
 in danger of doing, what he never fails to do the moment it is over, of 
 abandoning himself to all the weakness of excessive sorrow. Modern 
 good manners, which are extremely indulgent to human weakness, for- 
 bid, for some time, the visits of strangers to persons under great family 
 distress, and permit those only of the nearest relations and most inti- 
 mate friends. The presence of the latter, it is thought, will impose less 
 restraint than that of the former ; and the sufferers can more easily 
 accommodate themselves to the feelings of those, from whom they have 
 reason to expect a more indulgent sympathy. Secret enemies, who 
 fancy that they are not known to be such, are frequently fond of 
 making those charitable visits as early as the most intimate friends. 
 The weakest man in the world, in this case, endeavours to support his 
 manly countenance, and, from indignation and contempt of their malice 
 to behave with as much gaiety and ease as he can. 
 
 The man of real constancy and firmness, the wise and just man who 
 has been thoroughly bred in the great school of self-command, in the 
 bustle and business of the world, exposed, perhaps, to the violence and 
 injustice of faction, and to the hardships and hazards of war, maintains 
 this control of his passive feelings upon all occasions ; and whether in
 
 128 JUDGMENTS OF THE IDEA.L MAN WITHIN THE BREAST. 
 
 solitude or in society, wears nearly the same countenance, and is affect- 
 ed very nearly in the same manner. In success and in disappoint- 
 ment, in prosperity and in adversity, before friends and before enemies, 
 he has often been under the necessity of supporting this manhood. He 
 has never dared to forget for one moment the judgment which the im- 
 partial spectator would pass upon his sentiments and conduct. He has 
 never dared to suffer the man within his breast to be absent one 
 moment from his attention. With the eyes of this great inmate he has 
 always been accustomed to regard whatever relates to himself. This 
 habit has become perfectly familiar to him. He has been in the con- 
 stant practice, and, indeed, under the constant necessity, of modelling, 
 or of endeavouring to model, not only his outward conduct and beha- 
 viour, but, as much as he can, even his inward sentiments and feelings, 
 according to those of this awful and respectable judge. He does not 
 merely affect the sentiments of the impartial spectator. He really 
 adopts them. He almost identifies himself with, he almost becomes 
 himself that impartial spectator, and scarce even feels but as that great 
 arbiter of his conduct directs him to feel. 
 
 The degree of the self-approbation with which every man, upon such 
 occasions, surveys his own conduct, is higher or lower, exactly in pro- 
 portion to the degree of self-command which is necessary in order to 
 obtain that self-approbation. Where little self-command is necessary, 
 little self-approbation is due. The man who has only scratched his 
 ringer, cannot much applaud himself, though he should immediately 
 appear to have forgot this paltry misfortune. The man who has lost 
 his leg by a cannon shot, and who, the moment after, speaks and acts 
 with his usual coolness and tranquillity, as he exerts a much higher 
 degree of self-command, so he naturally feels a much higher degree of 
 self-approbation. With most men, upon such an accident, their own 
 natural view of their own misfortune would force itself upon them with 
 such a vivacity and strength of colouring, as would entirely efface all 
 thought of every other view. They would feel nothing, they could at- 
 tend to nothing, but their own pain and their own fear ; and not only 
 the judgment of the ideal man within the breast, but that of the real 
 spectators who might happen to be present, would be entirely over- 
 looked and disregarded. 
 
 The reward which Nature bestows upon good behaviour under mis- 
 fortune, is thus exactly proportioned to the degree of that good beha- 
 viour. The only compensation she could possibly make for the bitter- 
 ness of pain and distress is thus, too, in equal degrees of good behaviour, 
 exactly proportioned to the degree of that pain and distress. In pro- 
 portion to the degree of self-command which is necessary in order to 
 conquer our natural sensibility, the pleasure and pride of the conquest 
 are so much the greater ; and this pleasure and pride are so great that 
 no man can be altogether unhappy who completely enjoys them. Misery
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 129 
 
 and wretchedness can never enter the breast in which dwells complete 
 self-satisfaction ; and though it may be too much, perhaps, to say, with 
 the Stoics, that, under such an accident as that above mentioned, the 
 happiness of a wise man is in every respect equal to what it could have 
 been under any other circumstances ; yet it must be acknowledged, at 
 least, that this complete enjoyment of his own self- applause, though it 
 may not altogether extinguish, must certainly very much alleviate his 
 sense of his own sufferings. 
 
 In such paroxysms of distress, if I may be allowed to call them so, 
 the wisest and firmest man, in order to preserve his equanimity, is 
 obliged, I imagine, to make a considerable, and even a painful exertion. 
 His own natural feeling of his own distress, his own natural view of his 
 own situation, presses hard upon him, and he cannot, without a very 
 great effort, fix his attention upon that of the impartial spectator. Both 
 views present themselves to him at the same time. His sense of hon- 
 our, his regard to his own dignity, directs him to fix his whole attention 
 upon the one view. His natural, his untaught, and undisciplined feel- 
 ings, are continually calling it off to the other. He does not, in this 
 case, perfectly identify himself with the ideal man within the breast, he 
 does not become himself the impartial spectator of his own conduct. 
 The different views of both characters exist in his mind separate and 
 distinct from one another, and each directing him to a behaviour differ- 
 ent from that to which the other directs him. When he follows that 
 Jview which honour and dignity point out to him, Nature does not, in- 
 deed, leave him without a recompense. He enjoys his own complete 
 self-approbation, and the applause of every candid and impartial spec- 
 tator. By her unalterable laws, however, he still suffers ; and the re- 
 compense which she bestows, though very considerable, is not sufficient 
 completely to compensate the sufferings which those laws inflict. 
 Neither is it fit that it should. If it did completely compensate them, 
 he could, from self-interest, have no motive for avoiding an accident 
 which must necessarily diminish his utility both to himself and to 
 society ; and Nature, from her parental care of both, meant that he 
 should anxiously avoid all such accidents. He suffers, therefore; and 
 though in the agony of the paroxysm, he maintains, not only the man- 
 hood of his countenance, but sedateness and sobriety of judgment, it 
 requires his utmost and most fatiguing exertions to do so. 
 
 By the constitution of human nature, however, agony can never be 
 permanent ; and, if he survives the paroxysm, he soon comes, without 
 any effort, to enjoy his ordinary tranquillity. A man with a wooden 
 leg suffers, no doubt, and foresees that he must continue to suffer 
 during the remainder of his life, a very considerable inconveniency. 
 He soon comes to view it, however, exactly as every impartial spectator 
 views it ; as an inconveniency under which he can enjoy all the ordi- 
 nary pleasures both of solitude and of society. He soon identifies him-
 
 130 THE GREAT SOURCE OF MISERY IN HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 self with the ideal man within the breast, he soon becomes himself the 
 impartial spectator of his own situation. He no longer weeps, he no 
 longer laments, he no longer grieves over it, as a weak man may some- 
 times do in the beginning. The view of the impartial spectator becomes 
 so perfectly habitual to him, that, without effort, without exertion, he 
 never thinks of surveying his misfortune in any other view. 
 
 The never-failing certainty with which all men, sooner or later, 
 accommodate themselves to whatever becomes their permanent situa- 
 tion, may, perhaps, induce us to think that the Stoics were, at least, 
 thus far very nearly in the right ; that, between one permanent situation 
 and another, there was, with regard to real happiness, no essential 
 difference : or that, if there were any difference, it was no more than 
 just sufficient to render some of them the objects of simple choice or 
 preference ; but not of any earnest or anxious desire : and others, of 
 simple rejection, as being fit to be set aside or avoided ; but not of any 
 earnest or anxious aversion. Happiness consists in tranquillity and 
 enjoyment. Without tranquillity there can be no enjoyment; and 
 where there is perfect tranquillity there is scarce any thing which is 
 not capable of amusing. But in every permanent situation, where 
 there is no expectation of change, the mind of every man, in a longer 
 or shorter time, returns to its natural and usual state of tranquillity. 
 In prosperity, after a certain time, it falls back to that state ; in adver- 
 sity, after a certain time, it rises up to it. In the confinement and 
 solitude of the Bastile, after a certain time, the fashionable and frivo- 
 lous Count de Lauzun recovered tranquillity enough to be capable of 
 amusing himself with feeding a spider. A mind better furnished would, 
 perhaps, have both sooner recovered its tranquillity, and sooner found, 
 in its own thoughts, a much better amusement. 
 
 The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, 
 seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent 
 situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between 
 poverty and riches : ambition, that between a private and a public 
 station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. 
 The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, 
 is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to 
 disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so 
 foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy 
 him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed 
 mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. 
 Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to 
 others : but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passion- 
 ate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of 
 justice ; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by 
 shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the 
 horror of our own injustice. Wherever prudence does not direct,
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 131 
 
 wherever justice does not permit, the attempt to change our situation, 
 the man who does attempt it, plays at the most unequal of all games of 
 hazard, and stakes every thing against scarce any thing. What the 
 favourite of the King of Epirus said to his master, may be applied to 
 men in all the ordinary situations of human life. When the king had 
 recounted to him, in their proper order, all the conquests which he pro- 
 posed to make, and had come to the last of them ; And what does your 
 Majesty propose to do then? said the favourite: I propose then, said 
 the king, to enjoy myself with my friends, and endeavour to be good 
 company over a bottle. And what hinders your Majesty from doing 
 so now? replied the favourite. In the most glittering and exalted 
 situation that our idle fancy can hold out to us, the pleasures from 
 which we propose to derive our real happiness, are almost always the 
 same with those which, in our actual, though humble station, we have 
 at all times at hand, and in our power. Except the frivolous pleasures 
 of vanity and superiority, we may find, in the most humble station, 
 where there is only personal liberty, every other which the most exalted 
 can afford ; and the pleasures of vanity and superiority are seldom con- 
 sistent with perfect tranquillity, the principle and foundation of all real 
 and satisfactory enjoyment. Neither is it always certain that, in the 
 splendid situation which we aim at, those real and satisfactory pleasures 
 can be enjoyed with the same security as in the humble one which we 
 are so very eager to abandon. Examine the records of history, recol- 
 lect what has happened within the circle of your own experience, con- 
 sider with attention what has been the conduct of almost all the greatly 
 unfortunate, either in private or public life, whom you may have either 
 read of, or heard of, or remember; and you will find that the misfor- 
 tunes of by far the greater part of them have arisen from their not 
 knowing when they were well, when it was proper for them to sit still 
 and to be contented. The inscription upon the tomb-stone of the man 
 who had endeavoured to mend a tolerable constitution by taking physic ; 
 ' / was ivellj I wished to be better ; here I am ; ' may generally be 
 applied with great justness to the distress of disappointed avarice and 
 ambition. 
 
 It may be thought a singular, but I believe it to be a just, observation, 
 that, in the misfortunes which admit of some remedy, the greater part 
 of men do not either so readily or so universally recover their natural 
 and usual tranquillity, as in those which plainly admit of none. In 
 misfortunes of the latter kind, it is chiefly in what may be called the 
 paroxysm, or in the first attack, that we can discover any sensible 
 difference between the sentiments and behaviour of the wise and those 
 of the weak man. In the end, Time, the great and universal comforter, 
 gradually composes the weak man to the same degree of tranquillity 
 which a regard to his own dignity, which manhood teaches the wise man 
 to assume in the beginning. The case of the man with the wooden
 
 132 TIME NEVER FAILS TO BRING TRANQUILLITY TO SUFFERERS. 
 
 leg is an obvious example of this. In the irreparable misfortunes 
 occasioned by the death of children, or of friends and relations, even a 
 wise man may for some time indulge himself in some degree of mode- 
 rated sorrow. An affectionate, but weak woman, is often, upon such 
 occasions, almost perfectly distracted. Time, however, in a longer or 
 shorter period, never fails to compose the weakest woman to the same 
 degree of tranquillity as the strongest man. In all the irreparable 
 calamities which affect himself immediately and directly, a wise man 
 endeavours, from the beginning, to anticipate and to enjoy before-hand, 
 that tranquillity which he foresees the course of a few months, or a few 
 years, will certainly restore to him in the end. 
 
 In the misfortunes for which the nature of things admits, or seems to 
 admit, of a remedy, but in which the means of applying that remedy 
 are not within the reach of the sufferer, his vain and fruitless attempts 
 to restore himself to his former situation, his continual anxiety for their 
 success, his repeated disappointments upon their miscarriage, are what 
 chiefly hinder him from resuming his natural tranquillity, and frequently 
 render miserable, during the whole of his life, a man to whom a greater 
 misfortune, but which plainly admitted of no remedy, would not have 
 given a fortnight's disturbance. In the fall from royal favour to dis- 
 grace, from power to insignificancy, from riches to poverty, from liberty 
 to confinement, from strong health to some, lingering, chronical, and 
 perhaps incurable disease, the man who struggles the least, who most 
 easily and readily acquiesces in the fortune which has fallen to him, 
 very soon recovers his usual and natural tranquillity, and surveys the 
 most disagreeable circumstances of his actual situation in the same 
 light, or, perhaps, in a much less unfavourable light, than that in which 
 the most indifferent spectator is disposed to survey them. Faction, 
 intrigue, and cabal, disturb the quiet of the unfortunate statesman. 
 Extravagant projects, visions of gold mines, interrupt the repose of the 
 mined bankrupt. The prisoner, who is continually plotting to escape 
 from his confinement, cannot enjoy that careless security which even a 
 prison can afford him. The medicines of the physician are often the 
 greatest torment of the incurable patient. The monk who, in order to 
 comfort Joanna of Castile, upon the death of her husband Philip, told 
 her of a king, who, fourteen years after his decease, had been restored 
 to life again, by the prayers of his afflicted queen, was not likely, by 
 his legendary tale, to restore sedateness to the distempered mind of 
 that unhappy princess. She endeavoured to repeat the same experi- 
 ment in hopes of the same success ; resisted for a long time the burial 
 of her husband, soon after raised his body from the grave, attended it 
 almost constantly herself, and watched, with all the impatient anxiety 
 of frantic expectation, the happy moment when her wishes were to be 
 gratified by the revival of her beloved Philip.* 
 
 * See Robertson's Charles V. vol. ii. pp. 14 and 15, first edit.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 133 
 
 Our sensibility to the feelings of others, so far from being incon- 
 sistent with the manhood of self-command, is the very principle upon 
 which that manhood is founded. The very same principle or instinct 
 which, in the misfortune of our neighbour, prompts us to compassionate 
 his sorrow ; in our own misfortune, prompts us to restrain the abject 
 and miserable lamentations of our own sorrow. The same principle or 
 instinct which, in his prosperity and success, prompts us to congratu- 
 late his joy ; in our own prosperity and success, prompts us to restrain 
 the levity and intemperance of our own joy. In both cases, the pro- 
 priety of our own sentiments and feelings seems to be exactly in pro- 
 portion to the vivacity and force with which we enter into and conceive 
 his sentiments and feelings. 
 
 The man of the most perfect virtue, the man whom we naturally love 
 and revere the most, is he who joins, to the most perfect command of 
 his own original and selfish feelings, the most exquisite sensibility both 
 to the original and sympathetic feelings of others. The man who, to 
 all the soft, the amiable, and the gentle virtues, joins all the great, the 
 awful, and the respectable, must surely be the natural and proper 
 object of our highest love and admiration. 
 
 The person best fitted by nature for acquiring the former of those 
 two sets of virtues, is likewise necessarily best fitted for acquiring the 
 latter. The man who feels the most for the joys and sorrows of others, 
 is best fitted for acquiring the most complete control of his own joys 
 and sorrows. The man of the most exquisite humanity, is naturally 
 the most capable of acquiring the highest degree of self-command. 
 He may not, however, always have acquired it ; and it very frequently 
 happens that he has not. He may have lived too much in ease and 
 tranquillity. He may have never been exposed to the violence of 
 faction, or to the hardships and hazards of war. He may have never 
 experienced the insolence of his superiors, the jealous and malignant 
 envy of his equals, or the pilfering injustice of his inferiors. When, in 
 an advanced age, some accidental change of fortune exposes him to all 
 these, they all make too great an impression upon him. He has the 
 disposition which fits him for ac(\"5iring the most perfect self-command ; 
 but he has never had the opportunity of acquiring it. Exercise and 
 practice have been wanting ; and without these no habit can ever be 
 tolerably established. Hardships, dangers, injuries, misfortunes, are 
 the only masters under whom we can learn the exercise of this virtue. 
 But these are all masters to whom nobody willingly puts himself to 
 school. 
 
 The situations in which the gentle virtue of humanity can be most 
 happily cultivated, are by no means the same with those which are 
 best fitted for forming the austere virtue of self-command. The man 
 who is himself at ease can best attend to the distress of others. The 
 man who is himself exposed to hardships is most immediately called
 
 134 CONSCIENCE REQUIRES OFTEN TO BE AWAKENED. 
 
 upon to attend to, and to control his own feelings. In the mild sun- 
 shine of undisturbed tranquillity, in the calm retirement of undissipated 
 and philosophical leisure, the soft virtue of humanity flourishes the 
 most, and is capable of the highest improvement. But, in such situa- 
 tions, the greatest and noblest exertions of self-command have little 
 exercise. Under the boisterous and stormy sky of war and faction, of 
 public tumult and confusion, the sturdy severity of self-command pros- 
 pers the most, and can be the most successfully cultivated. But, in 
 such situations, the strongest suggestions of humanity must frequently 
 be stifled or neglected ; and every such neglect necessarily tends to 
 weaken the principle of humanity. As it may frequently be the duty 
 of a soldier not to take, so it may sometimes be his duty not to give 
 quarter ; and the humanity of the man who has been several times 
 under the necessity of submitting to this disagreeable duty, can scarce 
 fail to suffer a considerable diminution. For his own ease, he is too 
 apt to learn to make light of the misfortunes which he is so often under 
 the necessity of occasioning ; and the situations which call forth the 
 noblest exertions of self-command, by imposing the necessity of violat- 
 ing sometimes the property, and sometimes the life of our neighbour, 
 always tend to diminish, and too often to extinguish altogether, that 
 sacred regard to both, which is the foundation of justice and humanity. 
 It is upon this account, that we so frequently find in the world men of 
 great humanity who have little self-command, but who are indolent 
 and irresolute, and easily disheartened, either by difficulty or danger, 
 from the most honourable pursuits ; and, on the contrary, men of the 
 most perfect self-command, whom no difficulty can discourage, no 
 danger appal, and who are at all times ready for the most daring and 
 desperate enterprises, but who, at the' same time, seem to be hardened 
 against all sense either of justice or humanity. 
 
 In solitude, we are apt to feel too strongly whatever relates to our- 
 selves : we are apt to over-rate the good offices we may have done, 
 and the injuries we may have suffered : we are apt to be too much 
 elated by our own good, and too much dejected by our own bad for- 
 tune. The conversation of a friend brings us to a better, that of a 
 stranger to a still better, temper. The man within the breast, the 
 abstract and ideal spectator of our sentiments and conduct, requires 
 often to be awakened and put in mind of his duty, by the presence of 
 the real spectator : and it is always from that spectator, from whom 
 we can expect the least sympathy and indulgence, that we are likely to 
 learn the most complete lesson of self-command. 
 
 Are you in adversity ? Do not mourn in the darkness of solitude, 
 do not regulate your sorrow according to the indulgent sympathy of 
 your intimate friends ; return, as soon as possible, to the daylight of 
 the world and of society. Live with strangers, with those who know 
 nothing, or care nothing about your misfortune ; do not even shun the
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 135 
 
 company of enemies ; but give yourself the pleasure of mortifying their 
 malignant joy, by making them feel how little you are affected by your 
 calamity, and how much you are above it. 
 
 Are you in prosperity ? Do not confine the enjoyment of your good 
 fortune to your own house, to the company of your own friends, per- 
 haps of your flatterers, of those who build upon your fortune the hopes 
 of mending their own ; frequent those who are independent of you, 
 who can value you only for your character and conduct, and not for 
 your fortune. Neither seek nor shun., neither intrude yourself into nor 
 run away from the society of those who were once your superiors, and 
 who may be hurt at finding you their equal, or, perhaps, even their 
 superior. The impertinence of their pride may, perhaps, render their 
 company too disagreeable : but if it should not, be assured that it is 
 the best company you can possibly keep ; and if, by the simplicity of 
 your unassuming demeanour, you can gain their favour and kindness, 
 you may rest satisfied that you are modest enough, and that your head 
 has been in no respect turned by your good fortune. 
 
 The propriety of our moral sentiments is never so apt to be cor- 
 rupted, as when the indulgent and partial spectator is at hand, while 
 the indifferent and impartial one is at a great distance. 
 
 Of the conduct of one independent nation towards another, neutral 
 nations are the only indifferent and impartial spectators. But they 
 are placed at so great a distance that they are almost quite out of 
 sight. When two nations are at variance, the citizen of each pays 
 little regard to the sentiments which foreign nations may entertain 
 concerning his conduct. His whole ambition is to obtain the appro- 
 bation of his own fellow-citizens ; and as they are all animated by the 
 same hostile passions which animate himself, he can never please them 
 so much as by enraging and offending their enemies. The partial 
 spectator is at hand : the impartial one at a great distance. In war 
 and negotiation, therefore, the laws of justice are very seldom observed. 
 Truth and fair dealing are almost totally disregarded. Treaties are 
 violated ; and the violation, if some advantage is gained by it, sheds 
 scarce any dishonour upon the violator. The ambassador who dupes 
 the minister of a foreign nation, is admired and applauded. The just 
 man who disdains either to take or to give any advantage, but who 
 would think it less dishonourable to give than to take one ; the man 
 who, in all private transactions, would be the most beloved and the 
 most esteemed,; in those public transactions is regarded as a fool and 
 an idiot, who does not understand his business ; and he incurs always 
 the contempt, and sometimes even the detestation of his fellow-citizens. 
 In war, not only what are called the laws of nations, are frequently vio- 
 lated, without bringing (among his own fellow-citizens, whose judg- 
 ments he only regards) any considerable dishonour upon the violator ; 
 but those laws themselves are, the greater part of them, laid down with
 
 136 FACTION AND FANATICISM CORRUPT MORAL SENTIMENTS. 
 
 very little regard to the plainest and most obvious rules of justice. 
 That the innocent, though they may have some connexion or depend- 
 ency upon the guilty (which, perhaps, they themselves cannot help), 
 should not, upon that account, suffer or be punished for the guilty, is 
 one of the plainest and most obvious rules of justice. In the most 
 unjust war, however, it is commonly the sovereign or the rulers only 
 who are guilty. The subjects are almost always perfectly innocent. 
 Whenever it suits the conveniency of a public enemy, however, the 
 goods of the peaceable citizens are seized both at land and at sea ; 
 their lands are laid waste, their houses are burnt, and they themselves, 
 if they presume to make any resistance, are murdered or led into cap- 
 tivity ; and all this in the most perfect conformity to what are called 
 the laws of nations. 
 
 The animosity of hostile factions, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is 
 often still more furious than that of hostile nations ; and their conduct 
 towards one another is often still more atrocious. What may be called 
 the laws of faction have often been laid down by grave authors with 
 still less regard to the rules of justice than what are called the laws of 
 nations. The most ferocious patriot never stated it as a serious ques- 
 tion, Whether faith ought to be kept with public enemies ? Whether 
 faith ought to be kept with rebels ? Whether faith ought to be kept 
 with heretics ? are questions which have been often furiously agitated 
 by celebrated doctors both civil and ecclesiastical. It is needless to 
 observe, I presume, that both rebels and heretics are those unlucky 
 persons, who, when things have come to a certain degree of violence, 
 have the misfortune to be of the weaker party. In a nation distracted 
 by faction, there are, no doubt, always a few, though commonly but a 
 very few, who preserve their judgment untainted by the gen-ral conta- 
 gion. They seldom amount to more than, here and there, a solitary 
 individual, without any influence, excluded, by his own candour, from 
 the confidence of either party, and who, though he may be <^ne of the 
 wisest, is necessarily, upon that very account, one of the most insigni- 
 ficant men in the society. All such people are held in contempt and 
 derision, frequently in detestation, by the zealots of both parties. 
 
 A true party-man hates and despises candour ; and, in reality, there 
 is no vice which could so effectually disqualify him for the trade of a 
 party-man as that single virtue. The real, revered, and impartial spec- 
 tator, therefore, is, upon no occasion, at a greater distance than amidst 
 the violence and rage of contending parties. To them, it may be said, 
 that such a spectator scarce exists any where in the universe. Even 
 to the great Judge of the universe, they impute all their own prejudices, 
 and often view that Divine Being as animated by all their own vindic- 
 tive and implacable passions. Of all the corrupters of moral senti- 
 ments, therefore, faction and fanaticism have always been by far the 
 greatest.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 137 
 
 Concerning the subject of self-command, I shall only observe further, 
 that our admiration for the man who, under the heaviest and most un- 
 expected misfortunes, continues to behave with fortitude and firmness, 
 always supposes that his sensibility to those misfortunes is very great, 
 and such as it requires a very great effort to conquer or command. The 
 man who was altogether insensible to bodily pain, could deserve no 
 applause from enduring the torture with the most perfect patience and 
 equanimity. The man who had been created without the natural fear of 
 death, could claim no merit from preserving his coolness and presence 
 of mind in the midst of the most dreadful dangers. It is one of the 
 extravagancies of Seneca, that the Stoical wise man was, in this respect, 
 superior even to a god ; that the security of the god was altogether 
 the benefit of nature, which had exempted him from suffering ; but that 
 the security of the wise man was his own benefit, and derived altogether 
 from himself and from his own exertions. 
 
 The sensibility of some men, however, to some of the objects which 
 immediately affect themselves, is sometimes so strong as to render all 
 self-command impossible. No sense of honour can control the fears of 
 the man who is weak enough to faint, or to fall into convulsions, upon 
 the approach of danger. Whether such weakness of nerves, as it has 
 been called, may not, by gradual exercise and proper discipline, admit 
 of some cure, may, perhaps, be doubtful. It seems certain that it ought 
 never to be trusted or employed. 
 
 CHAP. IV '. Of 'the Nature of Self-deceit, and of the Origin and Use of 
 general Rules. 
 
 IN order to pervert the rectitude of our own judgments concerning the 
 propriety of our own conduct, it is not always necessary that the real 
 and impartial spectator should be at a great distance. When he is at 
 hand, when he is present, the violence and injustice of our own selfish 
 passions are sometimes sufficient to induce the man within the breast 
 to make a report very different from what the real circumstances of the 
 case are capable of authorising. 
 
 There are two different occasions upon which we examine our own 
 conduct, and endeavour to view it in the light in which the impartial 
 spectator would view it : first, when we are about to act ; and secondly, 
 after we have acted. Our views are apt to be very partial in both 
 cases ; but they are apt to be most partial when it is of most import- 
 ance that they should be otherwise. 
 
 When we are about to act, the eagerness of passion will seldom allow 
 us to consider what we are doing, with the candour of an indifferent 
 person. The violent emotions which at that time agitate us, discolour 
 our views of things, even when we are endeavouring to place ourselves 
 
 10
 
 138 SELF-DELUSION HIDES OUR OWN DEFORMITIES. 
 
 in the situation of another, and to regard the objects that interest 
 us in the light in which they will naturally appear to him. The fury of 
 our own passions constantly calls us back to our own place, where 
 every thing appears magnified and misrepresented by self-love. Of the 
 manner in which those objects would appear to another, of the view 
 which he would take of them, we can obtain, if I may say so, but in- 
 stantaneous glimpses, which vanish in a moment, and which, even while 
 they last, are not altogether just. We cannot even for that moment 
 divest ourselves entirely of the heat and keenness with which our pecu- 
 liar situation inspires us, nor consider what we are about to do with the 
 complete impartiality of an equitable judge. The passions, upon this 
 account, as Father Malebranche says, all justify themselves, and seem 
 reasonable and proportioned to their objects, as long as we continue to 
 feel them. 
 
 When the action is over, indeed, and the passions which prompted 
 it have subsided, we can enter more coolly into the sentiments of the 
 indifferent spectator. What before interested us is now become almost 
 as indifferent to us as it always was to him, and we can now examine 
 our own conduct with his candour and impartiality. The man of to- 
 day is no longer agitated by the same passions which distracted the 
 man of yesterday : and when the paroxysm of emotion, in the same 
 manner as when the paroxysm of distress, is fairly over, we can 
 identify ourselves, as it were, with the ideal man within the breast, 
 and, in our own character, view, as in the one case, our own situa- 
 tion, so in the other, our own conduct, with the severe eyes of the most 
 impartial spectator. But our judgments now are often of little import- 
 ance in comparison of what they were before ; and can frequently 
 produce nothing but vain regret and unavailing repentance ; without 
 always securing us from the like errors in time to come. It is seldom, 
 however, that they are quite candid even in this case. The opinion 
 which we entertain of our own character depends entirely on our judg- 
 ment concerning our past conduct. It is so disagreeable to think ill of 
 ourselves, that we often purposely turn away our view from those cir- 
 cumstances which might render that judgment unfavourable. He is a 
 bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs 
 an operation upon his own person ; and he is often equally bold who 
 does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of self-delusion, which 
 covers from his view the deformities of his own conduct. Rather than 
 see our own behaviour under so disagreeable an aspect, we too often, 
 foolishly and weakly, endeavour to exasperate anew those unjust pas- 
 sions which had formerly misled us ; we endeavour by artifice to 
 awaken our old hatreds, and irritate afresh our almost forgotten re- 
 sentments : we even exert ourselves for this miserable purpose, and 
 thus persevere in injustice, merely because we once were unjust, and 
 because we are ashamed and afraid to see that we were so.
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 139 
 
 So partial are the views of mankind with regard to the propriety of 
 their own conduct, both at the time of action and after it ; and so 
 difficult is it for them to view it in the light in which any indifferent 
 spectator would consider it. But if it was by a peculiar faculty, such 
 as the moral sense is supposed to be, that they judged of their own con- 
 duct, if they were endued with a particular power of perception which dis- 
 tinguished the beauty or deformity of passions and affections ; as then 
 passions would be more immediately exposed to the view of this faculty, 
 it would judge more accurately concerning them, than concerning those 
 of other men, of which it had only a more distant prospect. 
 
 This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half 
 the disorders of human life. If we saw ourselves in the light in which 
 others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a reform- 
 ation would generally be unavoidable. We could not otherwise en- 
 dure the sight exposed to us. 
 
 Nature, however, has not left this weakness, which is of so much im- 
 portance, altogether without a remedy ; nor has she abandoned us 
 entirely to the delusions of self-love. Our continual observations upon 
 the conduct of others, insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain 
 general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to 
 be avoided. Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments. 
 We hear every body about us express the like detestation against them. 
 This still further confirms, and even exasperates our natural sense of 
 their deformity. It satisfies us that we view them in the proper light, 
 when we see other people view them in the same light. We resolve 
 never to be guilty of the like, nor ever, upon any account, to render our- 
 selves in this manner the objects of universal disapprobation. We 
 thus naturally lay down to ourselves a general rule, that all such actions 
 are to be avoided, as tending to render us odious, contemptible, or 
 punishable, the objects of all those sentiments for which we have the 
 greatest dread and aversion. Other actions, on the contrary, call forth 
 our approbation, and we hear every body around us express the same 
 favourable opinion concerning them. Every body is eager to honour 
 and reward them. They excite all those sentiments for which we have 
 by nature the strongest desire ; the love, the gratitude, the admiration 
 of mankind. We become ambitious of performing the like ; and thus 
 naturally lay down to ourselves a rule of another kind, that every op- 
 portunity of acting in this manner is to be sought after. 
 
 It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are 
 ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, 
 our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve, 
 or disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular 
 actions ; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or 
 inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the con- 
 trary, is formed, by finding from experience, that all actions of a cer- 
 
 10*
 
 140 THE GENERAL RULES WHICH DETERMINE OUR ACTIONS. 
 
 tain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or dis- 
 approved of. To the man who first saw an inhuman murder, committed 
 from avarice, envy, or unjust resentment, and upon one too that loved 
 and trusted the murderer, who beheld the last agonies of the dying per- 
 son, who heard him, with his expiring breath, complain more of the 
 perfidy and ingratitude of his false friend, than of the violence which 
 had been done to him, there could be no occasion, in order to conceive 
 how horrible such an action was, that he should reflect, that one of the 
 most sacred rules of conduct was what prohibited the taking away the 
 life of an innocent person, that this was a plain violation of that rule, 
 and consequently a very blamable action. His detestation of this crime, 
 it is evident, would arise instantaneously and antecedent to his having 
 formed to himself any such general rule. The general rule, on the con- 
 trary, which he might afterwards form, would be founded upon the de- 
 testation which he felt necessarily arise in his own breast, at the thought 
 of this and every other particular action of the same kind. 
 
 When we read in history or romance, the account of actions either 
 of generosity or of baseness, the admiration which we conceive for the 
 one, and the contempt which we feel for the other, neither of them 
 arise from reflecting that there are certain general rules which declare 
 all actions of the one kind admirable, and all actions of the other con- 
 temptible. Those general rules, on the contrary, are all formed from 
 the experience we have had of the effects which actions of all different 
 kinds naturally produce upon us. 
 
 An amiable action, a respectable action, an horrid action, are all of 
 them actions which naturally excite for the person who performs them, 
 the love, the respect, or the horror of the spectator. The general rules 
 which determine what actions are, and what are not, the objects of 
 each of those sentiments, can be formed no other way than by observ- 
 ing what actions actually and in fact excite them. 
 
 When these general rules, indeed, have been formed, when they are 
 universally acknowledged and established, by the concurring senti- 
 ments of mankind, we frequently appeal to them as to the standards of 
 judgment, in debating concerning the degree of praise or blame that 
 is due to certain actions of a complicated and dubious nature. They 
 are upon these occasions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations 
 of what is just and unjust in human conduct; and this circumstance 
 seems to have misled several very eminent authors, to draw up their 
 systems in such a manner, as if they had supposed that the original 
 judgments of mankind with regard to right and wrong, were formed 
 like the decisions of a court of judicatory, by considering first the 
 general rule, and then, secondly, whether the particular action under 
 consideration fell properly within its comprehension. 
 
 Those general rules of conduct, when they have been fixed in our 
 mind by habitual reflection, are of great use in correcting the misrepre-
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 14! 
 
 sentations of self-love concerning what is fit and proper to be done in 
 our particular situation. The man of furious resentment, if he was to 
 listen to the dictates of that passion, would perhaps regard the death 
 of his enemy, as but a small compensation for the wrong, he imagines, 
 he has received ; which, however, may be no more than a very slight 
 provocation. But his observations upon the conduct of others, have 
 taught him how horrible all such sanguinary revenges appear. Unless 
 his education has been very singular, he has laid it down to himself as 
 an inviolable rule, to abstain from them upon all occasions. This rule 
 preserves its authority with him, and renders him incapable of being 
 guilty of such a violence. Yet the fury of his own temper may be such, 
 that had this been the first time in which he considered such an action, 
 he would undoubtedly have determined it to be quite just and proper, 
 and what every impartial spectator would approve of. But that reve- 
 rence for the rule which past experience has impressed upon him, 
 checks the impetuosity of his passion, and helps him to correct the too 
 partial views which self-love might otherwise suggest, of what was 
 proper to be done in his situation. If he should allow himself to be 
 so far transported by passion as to violate this rule, yet, even in this 
 case, he cannot throw off altogether the awe and respect with which 
 he has been accustomed to regard it. At the very time of acting, at 
 the moment in which passion mounts the highest, he hesitates and 
 trembles at the thought of what he is about to do : he is secretly con- 
 scious to himself that he is breaking through those measures of con- 
 duct which, in all his cool hours, he had resolved never to infringe, 
 which he had never seen infringed by others without the highest dis- 
 approbation, and of which the infringement, his own mind forebodes, 
 must soon render him the object of the same disagreeable sentiments. 
 Before he can take the last fatal resolution, he is tormented with all 
 the agonies of doubt and uncertainty; he is terrified at the thought of 
 violating so sacred a rule, and at the same time is urged and goaded 
 on by the fury of his desires to violate it. He changes his purpose 
 every moment ; sometimes he resolves to adhere to his principle, and 
 not indulge a passion which may corrupt the remaining part of his 
 life with the horrors of shame and repentance ; and a momentary calm 
 takes possession of his breast, from the prospect of that security and 
 tranquillity which he will enjoy when he thus determines not to expose 
 himself to the hazard of a contrary conduct. But immediately the 
 passion rouses anew, and with fresh fury drives him on to commit what 
 he had the instant before resolved to abstain from. Wearied and dis- 
 tracted with those continual irresolutions, he at length, from a sort of 
 despair, makes the last fatal and irrecoverable step; but with that 
 terror and amazement with which one flying from an enemy, throws 
 himself over a precipice, where he is sure of meeting with more certain 
 destruction than from any thing that pursues him from behind. Such
 
 142 A SENSE OF DUTY THE RULING PRINCIPLE OF MANKIND. 
 
 are his sentiments even at the time of acting ; though he is then, no 
 doubt, less sensible of the impropriety of his own conduct than after- 
 wards, when his passion being gratified and palled, he begins to view 
 what he has done in the light in which others are apt to view it ; and 
 actually feels, what he had only foreseen very imperfectly before, the 
 stings of remorse and repentance begin to agitate and torment him. 
 
 CHAP. V. Of the Inflttence and Authority of the general Rules of 
 Morality, and that they are justly regarded as the Laws of the 
 Deity. 
 
 THE regard of those general rules of conduct, is what is properly called 
 a sense of duty, a principle of the greatest consequence in human life, 
 and the only principle by which the bulk of mankind are capable of 
 directing their actions. Many men behave very decently, and through 
 the whole of their lives avoid any considerable degree of blame, who 
 yet, perhaps, never felt the sentiment upon the propriety of which we 
 found our approbation of their conduct, but acted merely from a regard 
 to what they saw were the established rules of behaviour. The man 
 who has received great benefits from another person, may, by the 
 natural coldness of his temper, feel but a very small degree of the 
 sentiment of gratitude. If he has been virtuously educated, however, 
 he will often have been made to observe how odious those actions 
 appear which denote a want of this sentiment, and how amiable the 
 contrary. Though his heart therefore is not warmed with any grateful 
 affection, he will strive to act as if it was, and will endeavour to pay all 
 those regards and attentions to his patron which the liveliest gratitude 
 could suggest. He will visit him regularly ; he will behave to him re- 
 spectfully ; he will never talk of him but with expressions of the highest 
 esteem, and of the many obligations which he owes to him. And what 
 is more, he will carefully embrace every opportunity of making a proper 
 return for past services. He may do all this too without any hypocrisy 
 or blamable dissimulation, without any selfish intention of obtaining 
 new favours, and without any design of imposing either upon his bene- 
 factor or the public. The motive of his actions may be no other than 
 a reverence for the established rule of duty, a serious and earnest desire 
 of acting, in every .respect, according to the law of gratitude. A wife, 
 in the same manner, may sometimes not feel that tender regard for her 
 husband which is suitable to the relation that subsists between them. 
 If she has been virtuously educated, however, she will endeavour to act 
 as if she felt it, to be careful, officious, faithful, and sincere, and to be 
 deficient in none of those attentions which the sentiment of conjugal 
 affection could have prompted her to perform. Such a friend, and 
 such a wife, are neither of them, undoubtedly, the very best of their
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 143 
 
 kinds ; and though both of them may have the most serious and earnest 
 desire to fulfil every part of their duty, yet they will fail in many nice 
 and delicate regards, they will miss many opportunities of obliging, 
 which they could never have overlooked if they had possessed the 
 sentiment that is proper to their situation. Though not the very first 
 of their kinds, however, they are perhaps the second ; and if the regard 
 to the general rules of conduct has been very strongly impressed upon 
 them, neither of them will fail in any very essential part of their duty. 
 None but those of the happiest mould are capable of suiting, with exact 
 justness, their sentiments and behaviour to the smallest difference of 
 situation, and of acting upon all occasions with the most delicate and 
 accurate propriety. The coarse clay of which the bulk of mankind 
 are formed, cannot be wrought up to such perfection. There is scarce 
 any man, however, who by discipline, education, and example, may not 
 be so impressed with a regard to general rules, as to act upon almost 
 every occasion with tolerable decency, and through the whole of his 
 life to avoid any considerable degree of blame. 
 
 Without this sacred regard to general rules, there is no man whose 
 conduct can be much depended upon. It is this which constitutes the 
 most essential difference between a man of principle and honour and a 
 worthless fellow. The one adheres, on all occasions, steadily and re- 
 solutely to his maxims, and preserves through the whole of his life one 
 even tenor of conduct. The other, acts variously and accidentally, as 
 humour, inclination, or interest chance to be uppermost. Nay, such 
 are the inequalities of humour to which all men are subject, that with- 
 out this principle, the man who, in all his cool hours, had the most 
 delicate sensibility to the propriety of conduct, might often be led to 
 act absurdly upon the most frivolous occasions, and when it was scarce 
 possible to assign any serious motive for his behaving in this manner. 
 Your friend makes you a visit when you happen to be in a humour 
 which makes it disagreeable to receive him : in your present mood his 
 civility is very apt to appear an impertinent intrusion; and if you were 
 to give way to the views of things which at this time occur, though civil 
 in your temper, you would behave to him with coldness and contempt. 
 What renders you incapable of such a rudeness, is nothing but a regard 
 to the general rules of civility and hospitality, which prohibit it. That 
 habitual reverence which your former experience has taught you for 
 these, enables you to act, upon all such occasions, with nearly equal 
 propriety, and hinders those inequalities of temper, to which all men 
 are subject, from influencing your conduct in any very sensible degree. 
 But if without regard to these general rules, even the duties of polite- 
 ness, which are so easily observed, and which one can scarce have any 
 serious motive to violate, would yet be so frequently violated, what 
 would become of the duties of justice, of truth, of chastity, of fidelity, 
 which it is often so difficult to observe, and which there may be so
 
 144 RELIGION EVER GAVE A SANCTION TO MORALITY. 
 
 many strong motives to violate ? But upon the tolerable observance of 
 these duties depends the very existence of human society, which would 
 crumble into nothing if mankind were not generally impressed with a 
 reverence for those important rules of conduct. 
 
 This reverence is still further enhanced by an opinion which is first 
 impressed by nature, and afterwards confirmed by reasoning and philo- 
 sophy, that those important rules of morality are the commands and 
 laws of the Deity, who will finally reward the obedient and punish the 
 transgressors of their duty. 
 
 This opinion or apprehension, I say, seems first to be impressed by 
 nature. Men are naturally led to ascribe to those mysterious beings, 
 whatever they are, which happen, in any country to be the objects of 
 religious fear, all their own sentiments and passions. They have no 
 other, they can conceive no other to ascribe to them. Those unknown 
 intelligences which they imagine but see not, must necessarily be formed 
 with some sort of resemblance to those intelligences of which they 
 have experience. During the ignorance and darkness of pagan super- 
 stition, mankind seem to have formed the ideas of their divinities with 
 so little delicacy, that they ascribed to them, indiscriminately, all the 
 passions of human nature, those not excepted which do the least 
 honour to our species, such as lust, hunger, avarice, envy, revenge. They 
 could not fail, therefore, to ascribe to those beings, for the excellence of 
 whose nature they still conceived the highest admiration, those senti- 
 ments and qualities which are the great ornaments of humanity, and 
 which seem to raise it to a resemblance of divine perfection, the love 
 of virtue and beneficence, and the abhorrence of vice and injustice. 
 The man who was injured, called upon Jupiter to be witness of the 
 wrong that was done to him, and could not doubt, but that divine 
 being would behold it with the same indignation which would animate 
 the meanest of mankind, who looked on when injustice was committed. 
 The man who did the injury, felt himself to be the proper object of the 
 detestation and resentment of mankind ; and his natural fears led him 
 to impute the same sentiments to those awful beings, whose presence 
 he could not avoid, and whose power he could not resist. These natural 
 hopes, and fears, and suspicions, were propagated by sympathy, and 
 confirmed by education ; and the gods were universally represented 
 and believed to be the rewarders of humanity and mercy, and the 
 avengers of perfidy and injustice. And thus religion, even in its rudest 
 form, gave a sanction to the rules of morality, long before the age of 
 artificial reasoning and philosophy. That the terrors of religion should 
 thus enforce the natural sense of duty, was of too much importance to 
 the happiness of mankind, for nature to leave it dependent upon the 
 slowness and uncertainty of philosophical researches. 
 
 These researches, however, when they came to take place, confirmed 
 those original anticipations of nature. Upon whatever we suppose that
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 145 
 
 moral faculties are founded, whether upon a certain modification of 
 reason, upon an original instinct, called a moral sense, or upon some 
 other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted, that they were 
 given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They carry along 
 with them the most evident badges of this authority, which denote that 
 they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions, 
 to superintend all our senses, passions, and appetites, and to judge how 
 each of them was either to be indulged or restrained. Our moral 
 faculties are by no means, as some have pretended, upon a level in this 
 respect with the other faculties and appetites of our nature, endowed 
 with no more right to restrain these last, than these last are to restrain 
 them. No other faculty or principle of action judges of any other. 
 Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment of love. Those 
 two passions may be opposite to one another, but cannot, with any 
 propriety, be said to approve or disapprove of one another. But it is 
 the peculiar office of those faculties now under our consideration to 
 judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all the other principles of 
 our nature. They may be considered as a sort of senses of which those 
 principles are the objects. Every sense is supreme over its own objects. 
 There is no appeal from the eye with regard to the beauty of colours, 
 nor from the ear with regard to the harmony of sounds, nor from the 
 taste with regard to the agreeableness of flavours. Each of those senses 
 judges in the last resort of its own objects. Whatever gratifies the taste is 
 sweet, whatever pleases the eye is beautiful, whatever soothes the ear is 
 harmonious. The very essence of each of those qualities consists in 
 its being fitted to please the sense to which it is addressed. It belongs 
 to our moral faculties, in the same manner to determine when the ear 
 ought to be soothed, when the eye ought to be indulged, when the taste 
 ought to be gratified, when and how far every other principle of our 
 nature ought either to be indulged or restrained. What is agree- 
 able to our moral faculties, is fit, and right, and proper to be done ; the 
 contrary wrong, unfit, and improper. The sentiments which they 
 approve of, are graceful and becoming : the contrary, ungraceful and 
 unbecoming. The very words, right, wrong, fit, improper, graceful, 
 unbecoming, mean only what pleases or displeases those faculties. 
 
 Since these, therefore, were plainly intended to be the governing 
 principles of human nature, the rules which they prescribe are to be 
 regarded as the commands and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those 
 vicegerents which he has thus set up within us. All general rules are 
 commonly denominated laws : thus the general rules which bodies 
 observe in the communication of motion, are called the laws of motion. 
 But those general rules which our moral faculties observe in approving 
 or condemning whatever sentiment or action is subjected to their exami- 
 nation, may much more justly be denominated such. They have a 
 much greater resemblance to what are properly called laws, those
 
 146 HUMANITY DOES SINCERELY DESIRE TO BE BELOVED. 
 
 general rules which the sovereign lays down to direct the conduct of 
 his subjects. Like them they are rules to direct the free actions of 
 men : they are prescribed most surely by a lawful superior, and are 
 attended too with the sanction of rewards and punishments. Those 
 vicegerents of God within us, never fail to punish the violation of them, 
 by the torments of inward shame, and self-condemnation ; and on the 
 contrary, always reward obedience with tranquillity of mind, with full 
 contentment and self-satisfaction. 
 
 There are innumerable other considerations which serve to confirm 
 the same conclusion. The happiness of mankind, as well as of all 
 other rational creatures, seems to have been the original purpose in- 
 tended by the Author of nature, when he brought them into existence. 
 No other end seems worthy of that supreme v/isdom and divine benig- 
 nity which we necessarily ascribe to him ; and this opinion, which we 
 are led to by the abstract consideration of his infinite perfections, is 
 still more confirmed by the examination of the works of nature, which 
 seem all intended to promote happiness, and to guard against misery. 
 But by acting accordingly to the dictates of our moral faculties, we 
 necessarily pursue the most effectual means for promoting the happi- 
 ness of mankind, and may therefore be said, in some sense, to co-oper- 
 ate with the Deity, and to advance as far as in our power the plan 
 of Providence. By acting otherwise, on the contrary, we seem to 
 obstruct, in some measure, the scheme which the Author of nature has 
 established for the happiness and perfection of the world, and to 
 declare ourselves, if I may say so, in some measure the enemies of 
 God. Hence we are naturally encouraged to hope for his extraordinary 
 favour and reward in the one case, and to dread his sure vengeance 
 and punishment in the other. 
 
 There are besides many other reasons, and many other natural 
 principles, which all tend to confirm and inculcate the same salutary 
 doctrine. If we consider the general rules by which external pros- 
 perity and adversity are commonly distributed in this life, we shall find, 
 that notwithstanding the disorder in which all things appear to be in 
 this world, yet even here every virtue naturally meets with its proper 
 reward, with the recompense which is most fit to encourage and pro- 
 mote it ; and this too so surely, that it requires a very extraordinary 
 concurrence of circumstances entirely to disappoint it. What is the 
 reward most proper for encouraging industry, prudence, and circum- 
 spection ? Success in every sort of business. And is it possible that 
 in the whole of life these virtues should fail of attaining it ? Wealth 
 and external honours are their proper recompense, and the recompense 
 which they can seldom fail of acquiring. What reward is most proper 
 for promoting the practice of truth, justice, and humanity ? The confi- 
 dence, the esteem, the love of those we live with. Humanity does not 
 desire to be great, but to be beloved. It is not in being rich that truth
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 147 
 
 
 
 and justice would rejoice, but in being trusted and believed, recom- 
 penses which those virtues must almost always acquire. By some very 
 extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to be 
 suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and upon 
 that account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part of his 
 life to the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident of this 
 kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his integrity and 
 justice ; in the same manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his 
 utmost circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake or an inunda- 
 tion. Accidents of the first kind, however, are perhaps still more rare, 
 and still more contrary to the common course of things than those of 
 the second ; and it still remains true, that the practice of truth, 
 justice, and humanity is a certain and almost infallible method of 
 acquiring what these virtues chiefly aim at, the confidence and love of 
 those we live with. A person may be very easily misrepresented with 
 regard to a particular action ; but it is scarce possible that he should 
 be so with regard to the general tenor of his conduct. An innocent 
 man may be believed to have done wrong : this, however, will rarely 
 happen. On the contrary, the established opinion of the innocence of 
 his manners, will often lead us to absolve him where he has really been 
 in the fault, notwithstanding very strong presumptions. A knave, in 
 the same manner, may escape censure, or even meet with applause, for 
 a particular knavery, in which his conduct is not understood. But no 
 man was ever habitually such, without being almost universally known 
 to be so, and without being even frequently suspected of guilt, when he 
 was in reality perfectly innocent. And so far as vice and virtue can be 
 either punished or rewarded by the sentiments and opinions of man- 
 kind, they both, according to the common course of things meet even 
 here with something more than exact and impartial justice. 
 
 But though the general rules by which prosperity and adversity are 
 commonly distributed, when considered in this cool and philosophical 
 light, appear to be perfectly suited to the situation of mankind in this 
 life, yet they are by no means suited to some of our natural sentiments. 
 Our natural love and admiration for some virtues is such, that we 
 should wish to bestow on them all sorts of honours and rewards, even 
 those which we must acknowledge to be the proper recompenses of 
 other qualities, with which those virtues are not always accompanied. 
 Our detestation, on the contrary, for some vices is such, that we should 
 desire to heap upon them every sort of disgrace and disaster, those 
 not excepted which are the natural consequences of very different 
 qualities. Magnanimity, generosity, and justice, command so high a 
 degree of admiration, that we desire to see them crowned with wealth, 
 and power, and honours of every kind, the natural consequences of 
 prudence, industry, and application ; qualities with which those virtues 
 are not inseparably connected. Fraud, falsehood, brutality, and vio-
 
 148 HUMAN LAWS THE CONSEQUENCES OF HUMAN SENTIMENTS. 
 
 lence, on the other hand, excite in every human breast such scorn and 
 abhorrence, that our indignation rouses to see them possess those 
 advantages which they may in some sense be said to have merited, by 
 the diligence and industry with which they are sometimes attended. 
 The industrious knave cultivates the soil , the indolent man leaves it 
 uncultivated. Who ought to reap the harvest ? Who starve, and who 
 live in plenty? The natural course of things decides it in favour of 
 the knave : the natural sentiments of mankind in favour of the man of 
 virtue. Man judges, that the good qualities of the one are greatly 
 over-recompensed by those advantages which they tend to procure him, 
 and that the omissions of the other are by far too severely punished by 
 the distress which they naturally bring upon him ; and human laws, 
 the consequences of human sentiments, forfeit the life and the estate of 
 the industrious and cautious traitor, and reward, by extraordinary 
 recompenses, the fidelity and public spirit of the improvident and care- 
 less good citizen. Thus man is by Nature directed to correct, in some 
 measure, that distribution of things which she herself would otherwise 
 have made. The rules which for this purpose she prompts him to 
 follow, are different from those which she herself observes. She be- 
 stows upon every virtue, and upon every vice, that precise reward or 
 punishment which is best fitted to encourage the one, or to restrain the 
 other. She is directed by this sole consideration, and pays little regard 
 to the different degrees of merit and demerit, which they may seem to 
 possess in the sentiments and passions of man. Man, on the contrary, 
 pays regard to this only, and would endeavour to render the state of 
 every virtue precisely proportioned to that degree of love and esteem, 
 and of every vice to that degree of contempt and abhorrence, which he 
 himself conceives for it. The rules which she follows are fit for her, 
 as, those which he follows are for him : but both are calculated to pro- 
 mote the same great end, the order of the world, and the perfection 
 and happiness of human nature. 
 
 But though man is thus employed to alter that distribution of things 
 which natural events would make, if left to themselves ; though, like 
 the gods of the poets, he is perpetually interposing, by extraordinary 
 means, in favour of virtue, and in opposition to vice, and, like them, 
 endeavours to turn away the arrow that is aimed at the head of the 
 righteous, but to accelerate the sword of destruction that is lifted up 
 against the wicked ; yet he is by no means able to render the fortune 
 of either quite suitable to his own sentiments and wishes. The natural 
 course of things cannot be entirely controlled by the impotent endea- 
 vours of man : the current is too rapid and too strong for him to stop 
 it ; and though the rules which direct it appear to have been established 
 for the wisest and best purposes, they sometimes produce effects which 
 shock all his natural sentiments. That a great combination of men 
 should prevail over a small one ; that those who engage in an enter-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 149 
 
 prise with forethought and all necessary preparation, should prevail 
 over such as oppose them without any ; and that every end should be 
 acquired by those means only which nature has established for acquir- 
 ing it, seems to be a rule not only necessary and unavoidable in itself, 
 but even useful and proper for rousing the industry and attention of 
 mankind. Yet, when, in consequence of this rule, violence and artifice 
 prevail over sincerity and justice, what indignation does it not excite in 
 the breast of every human spectator ? What sorrow and compassion 
 for the sufferings of the innocent, and what furious resentment against 
 the success of the oppressor ? We are equally grieved and enraged at 
 the wrong that is done, but often find it altogether out of our power to 
 redress it. When we thus despair of finding any force upon earth 
 which can check the triumph of injustice, we naturally appeal to heaven, 
 and hope that the great Author of our nature will himself execute 
 hereafter what all the principles which he has given us for the direction 
 of our conduct prompt us to attempt even here ; that he will complete 
 the plan which he himself has thus taught us to begin ; and will, in a 
 life to come, render to every one according to the works which he has 
 performed in this world. And thus we are led to the belief of a future 
 state, not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and fears of human 
 nature, but by the noblest and best principles which belong to it, by the 
 love of virtue, and by the abhorrence of vice and injustice. 
 
 ' Does it suit the greatness of God,' says the eloquent and philosophical 
 bishop of Clermont, with that passionate and exaggerating force of 
 imagination, which seems sometimes to exceed the bounds of decorum; 
 ' does it suit the greatness of God, to leave the world which he has 
 ' created in so universal a disorder ? To see the wicked prevail almost 
 ' always over the just ; the innocent dethroned by the usurper ; the 
 ' father become the victim of the ambition of an unnatural son ; the 
 ' husband expiring under the stroke of a barbarous and faithless wife ? 
 ' From the height of his greatness ought God to behold those melan- 
 ' choly events as a fantastical amusement, without taking any share in 
 ' them ? Because he is great, should he be weak, or unjust, or barba- 
 ' rous ? Because men are little, ought they to be allowed either to be 
 ' dissolute without punishment or virtuous without reward ? O God ! 
 ' if this is the character of your Supreme Being ; if it is you whom we 
 ' adore under such dreadful ideas ; I can no longer acknowledge you for 
 ' my father, for my protector, for the comforter of my sorrow, the sup- 
 ' port of my weakness, the rewarder of my fidelity. You would then be 
 ' no more than an indolent and fantastical tyrant, who sacrifices man- 
 ' kind to his vanity, and who has brought them out of nothing only to 
 ' make them serve for the sport of his leisure and of his caprice.' 
 
 When the general rules which determine the merit and demerit of 
 actions, come thus to be regarded as the laws of an all-powerful Being, 
 who watches over our conduct and, who, in a life to come, will reward
 
 150 THE. WILL OF GOD SHOULD RULE OUR CONDUC^. 
 
 the observance, and punish the breach of them ; they necessarily ac- 
 quire a new sacredness from this consideration. That our regard to the 
 will of the Deity ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct, can be 
 doubted of by nobody who believes his existence. The very thought 
 of disobedience appears to involve in it the most shocking impropriety. 
 How vain, how absurd would it be for man, either to oppose or to neg- 
 lect the commands that were laid upon him by Infinite Wisdom, and 
 Infinite Power ! How unnatural, how impiously ungrateful, not to 
 reverence the precepts that were prescribed to him by the infinite 
 goodness of his Creator, even though no punishment was to follow 
 their violation. The sense of propriety too is here well supported by 
 the strongest motives of self-interest. The idea that, however we may 
 escape the observation of man, or be placed above the reach of human 
 punishment, yet we are always acting under the eye, and exposed to the 
 punishment of God, the great avenger of injustice, is a motive capable 
 of restraining the most headstrong passions, with those at least who, 
 by constant reflection, have rendered it familiar to them. 
 
 It is in this manner that religion enforces the natural sense of duty : 
 and hence it is, that mankind are generally disposed to place great 
 confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with 
 religious sentiments. Such persons, they imagine, act under an addi- 
 tional tie, besides those which regulate the conduct of other men. The 
 regard to the propriety of action, as well as to reputation, the regard to 
 the applause of his own breast, as well as to that of others, are motives 
 which they suppose have the influence over the religious man, as over 
 the man of the world. But the former lies under another restraint, and 
 never acts deliberately but as in the presence of that Great Superior 
 who is finally to recompense him according to his deeds. A greater 
 trust is reposed, upon this account, in the regularity and exactness of 
 his conduct. And wherever the natural principles of religion are not 
 corrupted by the factious and party zeal of some worthless cabal ; 
 wherever the first duty which it requires, is to fulfil all the obligations 
 of morality ; wherever men are not taught to regard frivolous observ- 
 ances, as more immediate duties of religion than acts of justice and 
 beneficence ; and to imagine, that by sacrifices, and ceremonies, and 
 vain supplications, they can bargain with the Deity for fraud, and per- 
 fidy, and violence, the world undoubtedly judges right in this respect, 
 and justly places a double confidence in the rectitude of the religious 
 man's behaviour. 
 
 CHAP. VI. In what Cases the Sense of Duty ought to be the sole Prin- 
 ciple of our Conduct; and in what Cases it ought to concur with other 
 
 Motives. 
 RELIGION affords such strong motives to the practice of virtue, and
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 151 
 
 guards us by such powerful restraints from the temptations of vice, 
 that many have been led to suppose, that religious principles were the 
 sole laudable motives of action. We ought neither, they said, to reward 
 from gratitude, nor punish from resentment ; we ought neither to pro- 
 tect the helplessness of our children, nor afford support to the infirmi- 
 ties of our parents, from natural affection. All affections for particular 
 objects, ought to be extinguished in our breast, and one great affection 
 take the place of all others, the love of the Deity, the desire of render- 
 ing ourselves agreeable to him, and of directing our conduct, in every 
 respect, according to his will. We ought not to be grateful from grati- 
 tude, we ought not to be charitable from humanity, we ought not to be 
 public-spirited from the love of our country, nor generous and just from 
 the love of mankind. The sole principle and motive of our conduct in 
 the performance of all those different duties, ought to be a sense that 
 God has commanded us to perform them. I shall not at present take 
 time to examine this opinion particularly ; I shall only observe, that we 
 should not have expected to have found it entertained by any sect, who 
 professed themselves of a religion in which, as it is the first precept to 
 love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all 
 our strength, so it is the second to love our neighbour as we love our- 
 selves ; and we love ourselves surely for our own sakes, and not merely 
 because we are commanded to do so. That the sense of duty should 
 be the sole principle of our conduct, is no where the precept of Christ- 
 ianity ; but that it should be the ruling and the governing one, as 
 philosophy, and as, indeed, common sense directs. It may be a ques- 
 tion, however, in what cases our actions ought to arise chiefly or entirely 
 from a sense of duty, or from a regard to general rules ; and in what 
 cases some other sentiment or affection ought to concur, and have a 
 principal influence on our conduct. 
 
 The decision of this question, which cannot, perhaps, be given with 
 any very great accuracy, will depend upon two different circumstances ; 
 first, upon the natural agreeableness or deformity of the sentiment or 
 affection which would prompt us to any action independent of all re- 
 gard to general rules ; and, secondly, upon the precision and exact- 
 ness, or the looseness and inaccuracy, of the rules themselves. 
 
 I. First, I say, it will depend upon the natural agreeableness or 
 deformity of the affection itself, how far our actions ought to arise 
 from it, or entirely proceed from a regard to the general rule. 
 
 All those graceful and admired actions, to which the benevolent 
 affections would prompt us, ought to proceed as much from the passions 
 themselves, as from any regard to the general rules of conduct. A 
 benefactor thinks himself but ill requited, if the person upon whom he 
 has bestowed his good offices, repays them merely from a cold sense of 
 duty, and without any affection to his person. A husband is dissatisfied 
 with the most obedient wife, when he imagines her conduct is animated
 
 152 WE OUGHT ALWAYS TO PUNISH WITH RELUCTANCE. 
 
 by no other principle besides her regard to what the relation she stands 
 in requires. Though a son should fail in none of the offices of filial 
 duty, yet if he wants that affectionate reverence which it so well 
 becomes him to feel, the parent may justly complain of his indifference. 
 Nor could a son be quite satisfied with a parent who, though he per- 
 formed all the duties of his situation, had nothing of that fatherly fond- 
 ness which might have been expected from him. With regard to all 
 such benevolent and social affections, it is agreeable to see the sense of 
 duty employed rather to restrain than to enliven them, rather to hinder 
 us from doing too much, than to prompt us to do what we ought. It 
 gives us pleasure to see a father obliged to check his own fondness for 
 his children, a friend obliged to set bounds to his natural generosity, a 
 person who has received a benefit, obliged to restrain the too sanguine 
 gratitude of his own temper. 
 
 The contrary maxim takes place with regard to the malevolent and 
 unsocial passions. We ought to reward from the gratitude and gene- 
 rosity of our own hearts, without any reluctance, and without being 
 obliged to reflect how great the propriety of rewarding : but we ought 
 always to punish with reluctance, and more from a sense of the pro- 
 priety of punishing, than from any savage disposition to revenge. 
 Nothing is more graceful than the behaviour of the man who appears 
 to resent the greatest injuries, more from a sense that they deserve, and 
 are the proper objects of resentment, than from feeling himself the 
 furies of that disagreeable passion ; who, like a judge, considers only 
 the general rule, which determines what vengeance is due for each par- 
 ticular offence ; who, in executing that rule, feels less for what himself 
 has suffered, than for what the offender is about to suffer ; who, though 
 in wrath, does ever remember mercy, and is disposed to interpret the 
 rule in the most gentle and favourable manner, and to allow all the 
 alleviations which the most candid humanity could, consistently with 
 good sense, admit of. 
 
 As the selfish passions, according to what has formerly been observed, 
 hold, in other respects, a sort of middle place, between the social and 
 unsocial affections, so do they likewise in this. The pursuit of the 
 objects of private interest, in all common, little, and ordinary cases, 
 ought to flow rather from a regard to the general rules which prescribe 
 such conduct, than from any passion for the objects themselves ; but 
 upon more important and extraordinary occasions, we should be awk- 
 ward, insipid, and ungraceful, if the objects themselves did not appear 
 to animate us with a considerable degree of passion. To be anxious, 
 or to be laying a plot either to gain or to save a single shilling, would 
 degrade the most vulgar tradesman in the opinion of all his neighbours. 
 Let his circumstances be ever so mean, no attention to any such small 
 matters, for the sake of the things themselves, must appear in his con- 
 duct. His situation may require the most severe ceconomy and the
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 153 
 
 most exact assiduity : but each particular exertion of that ceconomy 
 and assiduity must proceed, not so much from a regard for that par- 
 ticular saving or gain, as for the general rule which to him prescribes, 
 with the utmost rigour, such a tenor of conduct. His parsimony to-day 
 must not arise from a desire of the particular three-pence which he will 
 save by it, nor his attendance in his shop from a passion for the par- 
 ticular ten-pence which he will acquire by it : both the one and the 
 other ought to proceed solely from a regard to the general rule, which 
 prescribes, with the most unrelenting severity, this plan of conduct to 
 all persons in his way of life. In this consists the difference between 
 the character of a miser and that of a person of exact ceconomy and 
 assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake ; 
 the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life 
 which he has laid down to himself. 
 
 It is quite otherwise with regard to the more extraordinary and 
 important objects of self-interest. A person appears mean-spirited, 
 who does not pursue these with some degree of earnestness for their 
 own sake. We should despise a prince who was not anxious about 
 conquering or defending a province. We should have little respect for 
 a private gentleman who did not exert himself to gain an estate, or even 
 a considerable office, when he could acquire them without either mean- 
 ness or injustice. A member of parliament who shews no keenness 
 about his own election, is abandoned by his friends, as altogether 
 unworthy of their attachment. Even a tradesman is thought a poor- 
 spirited fellow among his neighbours, who does not bestir himself to 
 get what they call an extraordinary job, or some uncommon advantage. 
 This spirit and keenness constitutes the difference between the man of 
 enterprise and the man of dull regularity. Those great objects of self- 
 interest, of which the loss or acquisition quite changes the rank of the 
 person, are the objects of the passion properly called ambition; a 
 passion, which when it keeps within the bounds of prudence and 
 justice, is always admired in the world, and has even sometimes a 
 certain irregular greatness, which dazzles the imagination, when it 
 passes the limits of both these virtues, and is not only unjust but 
 extravagant. Hence the general admiration for heroes and conquerors, 
 and even for statesmen, whose projects have been very daring and 
 extensive though altogether devoid of justice, such as those of the 
 Cardinals of Richlieu and of Retz. The objects of avarice and ambi- 
 tion differ only in their greatness. A miser is as furious about a half- 
 penny, as a man of ambition about the conquest of a kingdom. 
 
 II. Secondly, I say, it will depend partly upon the precision and 
 upon the exactness, or the looseness and the inaccuracy of the general 
 rules themselves, how far our conduct ought to proceed entirely from 
 a regard to them. 
 
 The general rules of almost all the virtues, the general rules which 
 
 II
 
 154 THE DUTIES OF GRATITUDE ARE SACRED VIRTUES. 
 
 determine what are the offices of prudence, of charity, of generosity, of 
 gratitude, of friendship, are in many respects loose and inaccurate, 
 admit of many exceptions, and require so many modifications, that it 
 is scarce possible to regulate our conduct entirely by a regard to them. 
 The common proverbial maxims of prudence, being founded in uni- 
 versal experience, are perhaps the best general rules which can be given 
 about it. To affect, however, a very strict and literal adherence to them 
 would evidently be the most absurd and ridiculous pedantry. Of all 
 the virtues I have just now mentioned, gratitude is that, perhaps, of 
 which the rules are the most precise, and admit of the fewest excep- 
 tions. That as soon as we can we should make a return of equal, and 
 if possible of superior, value to the services we have received, would 
 seem to be a pretty plain rule, and one which admitted of scarce any 
 exceptions. Upon the most superficial examination, however, this rule 
 will appear to be in the highest degree loose and inaccurate, and to 
 admit of ten thousand exceptions. If your benefactor attended you in 
 your sickness, ought you to attend him in his? or can you fulfil the 
 obligation of gratitude, by making a return of a different kind ? If you 
 ought to attend him, how long ought you to attend him ? The same 
 time which he attended you, or longer, and how much longer ? If your 
 friend lent you money in your distress, ought you to lend him money 
 in his ? How much ought you to lend him ? When ought you to lend 
 him ? Now, or to-morrow, or next month ? And for how long a time? 
 It is evident, that no general rule can be laid down, by which a precise 
 answer can, in all cases, be given to any of these questions. The 
 difference between his character and yours, between his circumstances 
 and yours, may be such, that you may be perfectly grateful, and justly 
 refuse to lend him a half-penny : and, on the contrary, you may be wil- 
 ling to lend, or even to give him ten times the sum which he lent you, 
 and yet justly be accused of the blackest ingratitude, and of not having 
 fulfilled the hundredth part of the obligation you lie under. As the 
 duties of gratitude, however, are perhaps the most sacred of all those 
 which the beneficent virtues prescribe to us, so the general rules which 
 determine them are, as I said before, the most accurate. Those which 
 ascertain the actions required by friendship, humanity, hospitality, gene- 
 rosity, are still more vague and indeterminate. 
 
 There is, however, one virtue of which the general rules determine 
 with the greatest exactness every external action which it requires. 
 This virtue is justice. The rules of justice are accurate in the highest 
 degree, and admit of no exceptions or modifications, but such as may 
 be ascertained as accurately as the rules themselves, and which gene- 
 rally, indeed, flow from the very same principles with them. If I owe 
 a man ten pounds, justice requires that I should precisely pay him ten 
 pounds, either at the time agreed upon, or when he demands it. What 
 I ought to perform, how much I ought to perform, when and where I
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 155 
 
 ought to perform it, the whole nature and circumstances of the action 
 prescribed, are all of them precisely fixed and determined. Though it 
 may be awkward and pedantic, therefore, to affect too strict an adher- 
 ence to the common rules of prudence or generosity, there is no 
 pedantry in sticking fast by the rules of justice. On the contrary, the 
 most sacred regard is due to them ; and the actions which this virtue 
 requires are never so properly performed, as when the chief motive for 
 performing them is a reverential and religious regard to those general 
 rules which require them. In the practice of the other virtues, our 
 conduct should rather be directed by a certain idea of propriety, by a 
 certain taste for a particular tenor of conduct, than by any regard to a 
 precise maxim or rule ; and we should consider the end and foundation 
 of the rule, more than the rule itself. But it is otherwise with regard 
 to justice: the man who in that refines the. least, and adheres with the 
 most obstinate steadfastness to the general rules themselves, is the most 
 commendable, and the most to be depended upon. Though the end of 
 the rules of justice be, to hinder us from hurting our neighbour, it may 
 frequently be a crime to violate them, though we could pretend with 
 some pretext of reason, that this particular violation could do no hurt. 
 A man often becomes a villain the moment he begins, even in his own 
 heart, to chicane in this manner. The moment he thinks of departing 
 from the most staunch and positive adherence to what those inviolable 
 precepts prescribe to him, he is no longer to be trusted, and no man 
 can say what degree of guilt he may not arrive at. The thief imagines 
 he does no evil, when he steals from the rich, what he supposes they 
 may easily want, and what possibly they may never even know has 
 been stolen from them. The adulterer imagines he does no evil, when 
 he corrupts the wife of his friend, provided he covers his intrigue from 
 the suspicion of the husband, and does not disturb the peace of the 
 family. When once we begin to give way to such refinements, there is 
 no enormity so gross of which we may not be capable. 
 
 The rules of justice may be compared to the rules of grammar ; the 
 rules of the other virtues, to the rules which critics lay down for the 
 attainment of what is sublime and elegant in composition. The one, 
 are.precise, accurate, and indispensable. The other, are loose, vague, 
 and indeterminate, and present us rather with a general idea of the 
 perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and infallible 
 directions for acquiring it. A man may learn to write grammatically 
 by rule, with the most absolute infallibility ; and so, perhaps, he may 
 be taught to act justly. But there are no rules whose observance will 
 infallibly lead us to the attainment of elegance or sublimity in writing ; 
 though there are some which may help us, in some measure, to correct, 
 and ascertain the vague ideas which we might otherwise have enter 1 - 
 tained of those perfections. And there are no rules by the knowledge 
 of which we can infallibly be taught to act upon all occasions with pru-
 
 156 ERRORS PROCEEDING FROM FALSE NOTIONS OF RELIGION. 
 
 dence, with just magnanimity, or proper beneficence : though there are 
 some which may enable us to correct and ascertain, in several respects, 
 the imperfect ideas which we might otherwise have entertained of 
 those virtues the rules of justice. 
 
 It may sometimes happen, that with the most serious and earnest 
 desire of acting so as to deserve approbation, we may mistake the pro- 
 per rules of conduct, and thus be misled by that very principle which 
 ought to direct us. It is in vain to expect, that in this case mankind 
 should entirely approve of our behaviour. They cannot enter into that 
 absurd idea of duty which influenced us, nor go along with any of the 
 actions which follow from it. There is still, however, something re- 
 spectable in the character and behaviour of one who is thus betrayed 
 into vice, by a wrong sense of duty, or by what is called an erroneous 
 conscience. How fatally soever he maybe misled by it, he is still, with 
 the generous and humane, more the object of commiseration than of 
 hatred or resentment. They lament the weakness of human nature, 
 which exposes us to such unhappy delusions, even while we are most 
 sincerely labouring after perfection, and endeavouring to act according 
 to the best principle which can possibly direct us. False notions of 
 religion are almost the only causes which can occasion any very gross 
 perversion of our natural sentiments in this way ; and that principle 
 which gives the greatest authority to the rules of duty, is alone capable 
 of distorting our ideas of them in any considerable degree. In all other 
 cases, common sense is sufficient to direct us, if not to the most exqui- 
 site propriety of conduct, yet to something which is not very far from it ; 
 and provided we are in earnest desirous to do well, our behaviour will 
 always, upon the whole, be praiseworthy. That to obey the will of the 
 Deity, is the first rule of duty, all men are agreed. But concerning the 
 particular commandments which that will may impose upon us, they 
 differ widely from one another. In this, therefore, the greatest mutual 
 forbearance and toleration is due ; and though the defence of society 
 requires that crimes should be punished, from whatever motives they 
 proceed, yet a good man will always punish them with reluctance, when 
 they evidently proceed from false notions of religious duty. He will 
 never feel against those who commit them that indignation which he 
 feels against other criminals, but will rather regret, and sometimes even 
 admire their unfortunate firmness and magnanimity, at the very time 
 that he punishes their crime. In the tragedy of Mahomet, one of the 
 finest of Mr. Voltaire's, it is well represented, what ought to be our 
 sentiments for crimes which proceed from such motives. In that 
 tragedy, two young people of different sexes, of the most innocent and 
 virtuous dispositions, and without any other weakness except what 
 endears them the more to us, a mutual fondness for one another, are 
 instigated by the strongest motives of a false religion, to commit a 
 horrid murder, that shocks all the principles of human nature. A
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 157 
 
 venerable old man, who had expressed the most tender affection for 
 them both, for whom, notwithstanding he was the avowed enemy of 
 their religion, they had both conceived the highest reverence and esteem, 
 and who was in reality their father, though they did not know him to 
 be such, is pointed out to them as a sacrifice which God had expressly 
 required at their hands, and they are commanded to kill him. While 
 about executing this crime, they are tortured with all the agonies which 
 can arise from the struggle between the idea of the indispensable- 
 ness of religious duty on the one side, and compassion, gratitude, 
 reverence for the age, and love for the humanity and virtue of the per- 
 son whom they are going to destroy, on the other. The representation 
 of this exhibits one of the most interesting, and perhaps the most in- 
 structive spectacle that was ever introduced upon any theatre. The 
 sense of duty, however, at last prevails over all the amiable weaknesses 
 of human nature. They execute the crime imposed upon them ; but 
 immediately discover their error, and the fraud which had deceived 
 them, and are distracted with horror, remorse, and resentment. Such 
 as are our sentiments for the unhappy Seid and Palmira, such ought 
 we to feel for every person who is in this manner misled by religion, 
 when we are sure that it is really religion which misleads him, and not 
 the pretence of it, which is made too often a cover to some of the worst 
 of human passions. 
 
 As a person may act wrong by following a wrong sense of duty, so 
 nature may sometimes prevail, and lead him to act right in opposition 
 to it. We cannot in this case be displeased to see that motive prevail, 
 which we think ought to prevail though the person himself is so weak as 
 to think otherwise. As his conduct, however, is the effect of weakness, not 
 principle, we are far from bestowing upon it any thing that approaches to 
 complete approbation. A bigoted Roman Catholic, who, during the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew, had been so overcome by compassion, as 
 to save some unhappy Protestants, whom he thought it his duty to de- 
 stroy, would not seem to be entitled to that high applause which we should 
 have bestowed upon him, had he exerted the same generosity with com- 
 plete self-approbation. We might be pleased with the humanity of his 
 temper, but we should still regard him with a sort of pity which is 
 altogether inconsistent with the admiration that is due to perfect virtue. 
 It is the same case with all the other passions. We do not dislike to 
 see them exert themselves properly, even when a false notion of duty 
 would direct the person to restrain them. A very devout Quaker, who 
 upon being struck upon one cheek, instead of turning up the other, 
 should so far forget his literal interpretation of our Saviour's precept, as 
 to bestow some good discipline upon the brute that insulted him, would 
 not be disagreeable to us. We should laugh and be diverted with his 
 spirit, and rather like him the better for it. But we should by no means 
 regard him with that respect and esteem which would seem due to one
 
 158 THE REASONS WHY UTILITY DOES SO PLEASE. 
 
 who, upon a like occasion, had acted properly from a just sense of what 
 was proper to be done. No action can properly be called virtuous, 
 which is not accompanied with the sentiment of self-approbation. 
 
 Part IV. Of the Effect of Utility iipon the Sentiment of 
 Approbation. 
 
 CHAP. I. Oftfie Beauty which the Appearance of Utility bestows upon 
 all the Productions of Art, and of the extensive Influence of this 
 Species of Beauty. 
 
 THAT utility is one of the principal sources of beauty has been observed 
 by every body, who has considered with any attention what constitutes 
 the nature of beauty. The conveniency of a house gives pleasure to 
 the spectator as well as its regularity, and he is as much hurt when he 
 observes the contrary defect, as when he sees the correspondent win- 
 dows of different forms, or the door not placed exactly in the middle of 
 the building. That the fitness of any system or machine to produce 
 the end for which it was intended, bestows a certain propriety and 
 beauty upon the whole, and renders the very thought and contemplation 
 of it agreeable, is so obvious that nobody has over-looked it. 
 
 The cause too, why utility pleases, has of late been assigned by an 
 ingenious and agreeable philosopher, who joins the greatest depth of 
 thought to the greatest elegance of expression, and possesses the sin- 
 gular and happy talent of treating the abstrusest subjects not only with 
 the most perfect perspicuity, but with the most lively eloquence. The 
 utility of any object, according to him, pleases the master by perpetu- 
 ally suggesting to him the pleasure or conveniency which it is fitted to 
 promote. Every time he looks at it, he is put in mind of this pleasure ; 
 and'the object in this manner becomes a source of perpetual satisfaction 
 and enjoyment. The spectator enters by sympathy into the sentiments 
 of the master, and necessarily views the object under the same agree- 
 able aspect. When we visit the palaces of the great, we cannot help 
 conceiving the satisfaction we should enjoy if we ourselves were the 
 masters, and were possessed of so much artful and ingeniously con- 
 trived accommodation. A similar account is given why the appearance 
 of inconveniency should render any object disagreeable both to the 
 owner and to the spectator. 
 
 But that this fitness, this happy contrivance of any production of art, 
 should often be more valued, than the very end for which it was in- 
 tended ; and that the exact adjustment of the means for attaining any 
 conveniency or pleasure, should frequently be more regarded, than that 
 very conveniency or pleasure, in the attainment of which their whole 
 merit would seem to consist, has not, so far as I know, been yet taken
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 159 
 
 notice of by any body. That this, however, is very frequently the case, 
 may be observed in a thousand instances, both in the most frivolous 
 and in the most important concerns of human life. 
 
 When a person comes into his chamber, and finds the chairs all 
 standing in the middle of the room, he is angry with his servant, and 
 rather than see them continue in that disorder, perhaps takes the trouble 
 himself to set them all in their places with their backs to the wall. 
 The whole propriety of this new situation arises from its superior con- 
 veniency in leaving the floor free and disengaged. To attain \ this con- 
 veniency he voluntarily puts himself to more trouble than all he could 
 have suffered from the want of it ; since nothing was more easy, than 
 to have set himself down upon one of them, which is probably what he 
 does when his labour is over. What he wanted, therefore, it seems, 
 was not so much this conveniency, as that arrangement of things which 
 promotes it. Yet it is this conveniency alone which may ultimately 
 recommend that arrangement, and bestows upon it the whole of its 
 propriety and beauty. 
 
 A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind above two minutes 
 in a day, is despised by one curious in watches. He sells it perhaps 
 for a couple of guineas, and purchases another at fifty, which will not 
 lose above a minute in a fortnight. The sole use of watches, however, is 
 to tell us what o'clock it is, and to hinder us from breaking any engage- 
 ment, or suffering any other inconveniency by our ignorance in that par- 
 ticular point. But the person so nice with regard to this machine, will not 
 always be found either more scrupulously punctual than other men, or 
 more anxiously concerned upon any other account, to know precisely 
 what time of day it is. What interests him is not so much the attain- 
 ment of this piece of knowledge, as the perfection of the machine which 
 enables him to attain it. 
 
 How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets 
 of frivolous utility ? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much 
 the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote 
 it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences. They con- 
 trive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to 
 carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of 
 baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary 
 Jew's-box, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all 
 of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole 
 utility is not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden. 
 
 Nor is it only with regard to such frivolous objects that our conduct 
 is influenced by this principle ; it is often the secret motive of the most 
 serious and important pursuits of both private and public life. 
 
 The poor man's son, whom Heaven in its anger has visited with 
 ambition, when he begins to look around him, admires the condition of 
 the rich. He finds the cottage of his father too small for his accom-
 
 l6o THE SACRIFICES MEN MAKE TO BECOME RICH. 
 
 modation, and fancies he should be lodged more at his ease in a palace. 
 He is displeased with being obliged to walk a-foot, or to endure the 
 fatigue of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in 
 machines, and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less 
 inconveniency. He feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to 
 serve himself with his own hands as little as possible; and judges, 
 
 that a numerous retinue of servants would save him from a great deal 
 of trouble. He thinks if he had attained all these, he would sit still 
 contentedly, and be quiet, enjoying himself in the thought of the happi- 
 ness and tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant 
 idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy like the life of some supe- 
 rior rank of beings, and, in order to arrive at it, he devotes himself for 
 ever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To obtain the conve- 
 niences which these afford, he submits in the first year, nay, in the 
 first month of his application, to more fatigue of body and more 
 uneasiness of mind than he could have suffered through the whole of 
 his life from the want of them. He studies to distinguish himself in 
 some laborious profession. With the most unrelenting industry he 
 labours night and day to acquire talents superior to all his competitors. 
 He endeavours next to bring those talents into public view, and with 
 equal assiduity solicits every opportunity of employment. For this 
 purpose he makes his court to all mankind ; he serves those whom he 
 hates, and is obsequious to those whom he despises. Through the 
 whole of his life he pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant 
 repose which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real 
 tranquillity that is at all times in his power, and which, if in the ex- 
 tremity of old age he should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no 
 respect preferable to that humble security and contentment which he 
 had abandoned for it. It is then, in the last dregs of life, his body 
 
 - wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and ruffled by the 
 memory of a thousand injuries and disappointments which he imagines 
 he has met with from the injustice of his enemies, or from the perfidy 
 and ingratitude of his friends, that he begins at last to find that wealth 
 and greatness are mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted 
 for procuring ease of body or tranquillity of mind than the tweezer- 
 cases of the lover of toys ; and, like them too, more troublesome to the 
 person who carries them about with him than all the advantages they 
 can afford him are commodious. There is no other real difference 
 between them, except that the conveniences of the one are somewhat 
 more observable than those of the other. The palaces, the gardens, 
 the equipage, the retinue of the great, are objects of which the obvious 
 conveniency strikes every body. They do not require that their mas- 
 ters should point out to us wherein consists their utility. Of our own 
 accord we readily enter into it, and by sympathy enjoy and thereby 
 applaud the satisfaction which they are fitted to afford him. But the
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 161 
 
 curiosity of a tooth-pick, of an ear-picker, of a machine for cutting the 
 nails, or of any other trinket of the same kind, is not so obvious. 
 Their conveniency may perhaps be equally great, but it is not so 
 striking, and we do not so readily enter into the satisfaction of the 
 man who possesses them. They are therefore less reasonable subjects 
 of vanity than the magnificence of wealth and greatness ; and in this 
 consists the sole advantage of these last. They more effectually gratify 
 that love of distinction so natural to man. To one who was to live 
 alone in a desolate island it might be a matter of doubt, perhaps, 
 whether a palace, or a collection of such small conveniencies as are 
 commonly contained in a tweezer-case, would contribute most to his 
 happiness and enjoyment. If he is to live in society, indeed, there can 
 be no comparison, because in this, as in all other cases, we constantly 
 pay more regard to the sentiments of the spectator, than to those of 
 the person principally concerned, and consider rather how his situation 
 will appear to other people, than how it will appear to himself. If we 
 examine, however, why the spectator distinguishes with such admira- 
 tion the condition of the rich and the great, we shall find that is is not 
 so much upon account of the superior ease or pleasure which they are 
 supposed to enjoy, as of the numberless artificial and elegant con- 
 trivances for promoting this ease or pleasure. He does not even ima- 
 gine that they are really happier than other people : but he imagines 
 that they possess more means of happiness. And it is the ingenious 
 and artful adjustment of those means to the end for which they were 
 intended, that is the principal source of his admiration. But in the 
 languor of disease and the weariness of old age, the pleasures of the 
 vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this 
 situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome 
 pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he 
 curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth, 
 pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed 
 for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction. In 
 this miserable aspect does greatness appear to every man when re- 
 duced either by spleen or disease to observe with attention his own 
 situation, and to consider what it is that is really wanting to his happi- 
 ness. Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous 
 and operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies 
 to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which 
 must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which in 
 spite of all our care are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and 
 to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. They are immense 
 fabrics, which it requires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten 
 every moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them, and 
 which while they stand, though they may save him from some smaller 
 inconveniencies, can protect him from none of the severer inclemen-
 
 1 62 WHAT KEEPS IN MOTION THE INDUSTRY OF MAN. 
 
 cies of the season. They keep off the summer shower, not the winter 
 storm, but leave him always as much, and sometimes more, exposed 
 than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow ; to diseases, to danger, 
 and to death. 
 
 But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or 
 low spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those 
 great objects of human desire, when in better health and in better 
 humour, we never fail to regard them under a more agreeable aspect. 
 Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined 
 and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity 
 expands itself to every thing around us. We are then charmed with 
 the beauty of that accommodation which reigns in the palaces and 
 ceconomy of the great : and admire how every thing is adapted to pro- 
 mote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to 
 amuse and entertain their most frivolous desires. If we consider the 
 real satisfaction which all these things are capable of affording, by 
 itself and separated from the beauty of that arrangement which is fitted 
 to promote it, it will always appear in the highest degree contemptible 
 and trifling. But we rarely view it in this abstract and philosophical 
 light. We naturally confound it in our imagination with the order, the 
 regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or 
 ceconomy by means of which it is produced. The pleasures of wealth 
 and greatness, when considered in this complex view, strike the imagi- 
 nation as something grand and beautiful and noble, of which the 
 attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to 
 bestow upon it. 
 
 And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is 
 this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry 
 of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the 
 ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to 
 invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and em- 
 bellish human life ; which have entirely changed the whole face of the 
 globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile 
 plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of sub- 
 sistence, and the great high road of communication to the different 
 nations of the earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been 
 obliged to redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater mul- 
 titude of inhabitants. It is to no purpose, that the proud and unfeeling 
 landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants 
 of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest 
 that grows upon them. The homely and vulgar proverb, that the eye 
 is larger than the belly, never was more fully verified than with regard 
 to him. The capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the 
 immensity of his desires, and will receive no more than that of the 
 meanest peasant. The rest he is obliged to distribute among those,
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 163 
 
 who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes 
 use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be 
 consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the different 
 baubles and trinkets which are employed in the ceconomy of great- 
 ness ; all of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share 
 of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have expected from 
 his humanity or his justice. The produce of the soil maintains at all 
 times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of main- 
 taining. The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and 
 agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of 
 their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own 
 conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours 
 of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their 
 own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce 
 of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make 
 nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would 
 have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among 
 all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, 
 advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplica- 
 tion of the species. When Providence divided the earth among a few 
 lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to 
 have been left out in the partition. These last, too, enjoy their share of 
 all that it produces. In what constitutes the real happiness of human 
 life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much 
 above them. In ease of the body and peace of the mind, all the 
 different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who 
 suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security 
 which kings are fighting for. 
 
 The same principle, the same love of system, the same regard to the 
 beauty of order, of art and contrivance, frequently serves to recommend 
 those institutions which tend to promote the public welfare. When a 
 patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any part of the public 
 police, his conduct does not always arise from pure sympathy with the 
 happiness of those who are to reap the benefit of it. It is not com- 
 monly from a fellow-feeling with carriers and waggoners that a public- 
 spirited man encourages the mending of high roads. When the legis- 
 lature establishes premiums and other encouragements to advance the 
 linen or woollen manufactures, its conduct seldom proceeds from pure 
 sympathy with the wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much less from 
 that with the manufacturer or merchant. The perfection of police, 
 the extension of trade and manufactures, are noble and magnificent 
 objects. The contemplation of them pleases us, and we are interested 
 in whatever can tend to advance them. They make part of the great 
 system of government, and the wheels of the political machine 
 seem to move with more harmony and ease by means of them. We
 
 164 THE MOTIVES THAT EXCITE TO PUBLIC VIRTUE. 
 
 take pleasure in beholding the perfection of so beautiful and grand a 
 system, and we are uneasy till we remove any obstruction that can in 
 the least disturb or encumber the regularity of its motions. All consti- 
 tutions of government, however, are valued only in proportion as they 
 tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them. This is 
 their sole use and end. From a certain spirit of system, however, 
 from a certain love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value 
 the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happi- 
 ness of our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improv 
 a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any immediate sense 
 or feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy. There have been men 
 of the greatest public spirit, who have shown themselves in other 
 respects not very sensible to the feelings of humanity. And on the 
 contrary, there have been men of the greatest humanity, who seem to 
 have been entirely devoid of public spirit. Every man may find in the 
 circle of his acquaintance instances both of the one kind and the 
 other. Who had ever less humanity, or more public spirit, than the 
 celebrated legislator of Muscovy ? The social and well-natured James 
 the First of Great Britain seems, on the contrary, to have had scarce any 
 passion, either for the glory or the interest of his country. Would you 
 awaken the industry of the man who seems almost dead to ambition, 
 it will often be to no purpose to describe to him the happiness of the 
 rich and the great ; to tell him that they are generally sheltered from 
 the sun and the rain, that they are seldom hungry, that they are seldom 
 cold, and that they are rarely exposed to weariness, or to want of any 
 kind. The most eloquent exhortation of this kind will have little effect 
 upon him. If you would hope to succeed, you must describe to him 
 the conveniency and arrangement of the different apartments in their 
 palaces ; you must explain to him the propriety of their equipages, and 
 point out to him the number, the order, and the different offices of 
 all their attendants. If any thing is capable of making impression 
 upon him, this will. Yet all these things tend only to keep off the sun 
 and the rain, and save them from hunger and cold, from want and 
 weariness. In the same manner, if you would implant public virtue in 
 the breast of him who seems heedless of the interest of his country, it 
 will often be to no purpose to tell him, what superior advantages the 
 subjects of a well-governed state enjoy ; that they are better lodged, 
 that they are better clothed, that they are better fed. These considera- 
 tions will commonly make no great impression. You will be more 
 likely to persuade, if you describe the great system of public police 
 which procures these advantages, if you explain the connexions and 
 dependencies of its several parts, their mutual subordination to one 
 another, and their general subserviency to the happiness .of the society ; 
 if you show how this system might be introduced into his own country, 
 what it is that hinders it from taking place there at present, how those
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 165 
 
 obstructions might be removed, and all the several wheels of the 
 machine of government be made to move with more harmony and 
 smoothness, without grating upon one another, or mutually retarding 
 one another's motions. It is scarce possible that a man should listen 
 to a discourse of this kind, and not feel himself animated to some 
 degree of public spirit. He will, at least for a moment, feel some 
 desire to remove those obstructions, and to put into motion so beautiful 
 and so orderly a machine. Nothing tends so much to promote public 
 spirit as the study of politics, of the several systems of civil govern- 
 ment, their advantages and disadvantages, of the constitution of our 
 own country, its situation, and interest with regard to foreign nations, 
 its commerce, its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the 
 dangers to which it may be exposed, how to remove the one, and how 
 to guard against the other. Upon this account political disquisition,, if 
 just and reasonable and practicable, are of all the works of specula- 
 tion the most useful. Even the weakest and the worst of them are not 
 altogether without their utility. They serve at least to animate the 
 public passions of men, and rouse them to seek out the means of pro- 
 moting the happiness of the society. 
 
 CHAP. II. Of the Beauty which the Appearance of Utility bestows 
 upon the Characters and the Actions of Men; and how far the 
 Perception of this Beauty may be regarded as one of the original 
 
 Principles of Approbation, 
 
 THE characters of men, as well as the contrivances of art, or the 
 institutions of civil government, may be fatted either to promote or to 
 disturb the happiness both of the individual and of the society. The 
 prudent, the equitable, the active, resolute, and sober character pro- 
 mises prosperity and satisfaction, both to the person himself and to 
 every one connected with him. The rash, the insolent, the slothful, 
 effeminate, and voluptuous, on the contrary, forebodes ruin to the 
 individual, and misfortune to all who have any thing to do with him. 
 The first turn of mind has at least all the beauty which can belong to 
 the most perfect machine that was ever invented for promoting the 
 most agreeable purpose : and the second, all the deformity of the most 
 awkward and clumsy contrivance. What institution of government 
 could tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the 
 general prevalence of wisdom and virtue ? All government is but an 
 imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these. Whatever beauty, there- 
 fore, can belong to civil government upon account of its utility, must 
 in a far superior degree belong to these. On the contrary, what civil 
 policy can be so ruinous and destructive as the vices of men ? The 
 fatal effects of bad government arise from nothing, but that it does not
 
 1 66 HOW WE LOOK UPON THE CONDUCT OF MANKIND. 
 
 sufficiently guard against the mischiefs which human wickedness so 
 often gives occasion to. 
 
 This beauty and deformity which characters appear to derive from 
 their usefulness or inconveniency, are apt to strike, in a peculiar 
 manner, those who consider, in an abstract and philosophical light, 
 the actions and conduct of mankind. When a philosopher goes to 
 examine why humanity is approved of, or cruelty condemned, he does 
 not always form to himself, in a very clear and distinct manner, the 
 conception of any one particular action either of cruelty or of humanity, 
 but is commonly contented with the vague and indeterminate idea 
 which the general names of those qualities suggest to him. But it is 
 in particular instances only that the propriety or impropriety, the merit 
 or demerit of actions is very obvious and discernible. It is only when 
 particular examples are given that we perceive distinctly either the 
 concord or disagreement between our two affections and those of the 
 agent, or feel a social gratitude arise towards him in the one case, or a 
 sympathetic resentment in the other. When we consider virtue and 
 vice in an abstract and general manner, the qualities by which they 
 excite these several sentiments seem in a great measure to disappear, 
 and the sentiments themselves become less obvious and discernible. 
 On the contrary, the happy effects of the one and the fatal consequences 
 of the other seem then to rise up to the view, and as it were to stand 
 out and distinguish themselves from all the other qualities of either. 
 
 The same ingenious and agreeable author who first explained why 
 utility pleases, has been so struck with this view of things, as to resolve 
 our whole approbation of virtue into a perception of this species of 
 beauty which results from the appearance of utility. No qualities of 
 the mind, he observes, are approved of as virtuous, but such as are 
 useful or agreeable either to the person himself or to others ; and no 
 qualities are disapproved of as vicious but such as have a contrary 
 tendency. And Nature, indeed, seems to have so happily adjusted our 
 sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, to the conveniency 
 both of the individual and of the society, that after the strictest exami- 
 nation it will be found, I believe, that this is universally the case. But 
 still I affirm, that it is not the view of this utility or hurtfulness which 
 is either the first or principal source of our approbation and disapproba- 
 tion. These sentiments are no doubt enhanced and enlivened by the 
 perception of the beauty or deformity which results from this utility or 
 hurtfulness. But still, I say, that they were originally and essentially 
 different from this perception. 
 
 For first of all, it seems impossible that the approbation of virtue 
 should be a sentiment of the same kind with that by which we approve 
 of a convenient and well-contrived building ; or that we should have 
 no other reason for praising a man than that for which we commend a 
 chest of drawers.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 167 
 
 And secondly, it will be found, upon examination, that the usefulness 
 of any disposition of mind is seldom the first ground of our approba- 
 tion ; and that the sentiment of approbation always involves in it a 
 sense of propriety quite distinct from the perception of utility. We 
 may observe this with regard to all the qualities which are approved of 
 as virtuous, both those which, according to this system, are originally 
 valued as useful to ourselves, as well as those which are esteemed on 
 account of their usefulness to others. 
 
 The qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of all, superior reason 
 and understanding, by which we are capable of discerning the remote 
 consequences of all our actions, and of fore-seeing the advantage or 
 detriment which is likely to result from them : and secondly, self- 
 command, by which we are enabled to abstain from present pleasure or 
 to endure present pain, in order to obtain a greater pleasure, or to avoid 
 a greater pain in some future time. In the union of those two qualities 
 consists the virtue of prudence, of all the virtues that which is the 
 most useful to the individual. 
 
 With regard to the first of those qualities, it has been observed on a 
 former occasion, that superior reason and understanding are originally 
 approved of as just and right and accurate, and not merely as useful or 
 advantageous. It is in the abstruser sciences, particularly in the 
 higher parts of mathematics, that the greatest and most admired 
 exertions of human reason have been displayed. But the utility of 
 those sciences, either to the individual or to the public, is not very 
 obvious, and to prove it, requires a discussion which is not always very 
 easily comprehended. It was not, therefore, their utility which first 
 recommended them to the public admiration. This quality was but 
 little insisted upon, till it became necessary to make some reply to the 
 reproaches of those, who, having themselves no taste for such sublime 
 discoveries, endeavoured to depreciate them as useless. 
 
 That self-command, in the same manner, by which we restrain our 
 present appetites, in order to gratify them more fully upon another 
 occasion, is approved of, as much under the aspect of propriety, as 
 under that of utility. When we act in this manner, the sentiments 
 which influence our conduct seem exactly to coincide with those of the 
 spectator. The spectator, however, does not feel the solicitations of 
 our present appetites. 
 
 To him the pleasure which we are to enjoy a week hence, or a year 
 hence, is just as interesting as that which we are to enjoy this moment. 
 When for the sake of the present, therefore, we sacrifice the future, our 
 conduct appears to him absurd and extravagant in the highest degree, 
 and he cannot enter into the principles which influence it. On the 
 contrary, when we abstain from present pleasure, in order to secure 
 greater pleasure to come, when we act as if the remote object interested 
 us as much as that which immediately presses upon the senses, as our
 
 1 68 HUMANITY THE VIRTUE OF WOMAN; GENEROSITY OF MAN. 
 
 affections exactly correspond with his own, he cannot fail to approve of 
 our behaviour : and as he knows from experience, how few are capable 
 of this self-command, he looks upon our conduct with a considerable 
 degree of wonder and admiration. Hence arises that eminent esteem 
 with which all men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the prac- 
 tice of frugality, industry, and application, though directed to no other 
 purpose than the acquisition of fortune. The resolute firmness of the 
 person who acts in this manner, and in order to obtain a great though 
 remote advantage, not only gives up all present pleasures, but endures 
 the greatest labour both of mind and body, necessarily commands our 
 approbation. That view of his interest and happiness which appears 
 to regulate his conduct, exactly tallies with the idea which we naturally 
 form of it. There is the most perfect correspondence between his senti- 
 ments and our own, and at the same time, from our experience of the com- 
 mon weakness of human nature, it is a correspondence which we could 
 not reasonably have expected. We not only approve, therefore, but in 
 some measure admire his conduct, and think it worthy of a considerable 
 degree of applause. It is the consciousness of this merited approbation 
 and esteem which is alone capable of supporting the agent in this te- 
 nor of conduct. The pleasure which we are to enjoy ten years hence 
 interests us so little in comparison with that which we may enjoy to- 
 day, the passion which the first excites, is naturally so weak in com- 
 parison with that violent emotion which the second is apt to give occa- 
 sion to, that the one could never be any balance to the other, unless it 
 was supported by the sense of propriety, by the consciousness that we 
 merited the esteem and approbation of every body, by acting in the 
 one way, and that we became the proper objects of their contempt and 
 derision by behaving in the other. 
 
 Humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities most 
 useful to others. Wherein consists the propriety of humanity and jus- 
 tice has been explained upon a former occasion, where it was shown 
 how much our esteem and approbation of those qualities depended 
 upon the concord between the affections of the agent and those of the 
 spectators. 
 
 The propriety of generosity and public spirit is founded upon the 
 same principle with that of justice. Generosity is different from human- 
 ity. Those two qualities, which at first sight seem so nearly allied, do 
 not always belong to the same person. Humanity is the virtue of a 
 woman, generosity of a man. The fair sex, who have commonly much 
 more tenderness than ours, have seldom so much generosity. That 
 women rarely make considerable donations, is an observation of the 
 civil law. (Raro mulieres donare solent.) Humanity consists merely 
 in the exquisite fellow-feeling which the spectator entertains with the 
 sentiments of the persons principally concerned, so as to grieve for 
 their sufferings, to resent their injuries, and to rejoice at their good for-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 169 
 
 tune. The most humane actions require no self-denial, no self-com- 
 mand, no great exertion of the sense of propriety. They consist only 
 in doing what this exquisite sympathy would of its own accord prompt 
 us to do. But it is otherwise with generosity. We never are generous 
 except when in some respect we prefer some other person to ourselves, 
 and sacrifice some great and important interest of our 'Own to an equal 
 interest of a friend or of a superior. The man who gives up his pre- 
 tensions to an office that was the great object of his ambition, because 
 he imagines that the services of another are better entitled to it ; the 
 man who exposes his life to defend that of his friend, which he judges 
 to be of more importance, neither of them act from humanity, or be- 
 cause they feel more exquisitely what concerns that other person that 
 what concerns themselves. They both consider those opposite inte- 
 rests, not in the light in which they naturally appear to themselves, but 
 in that in which they appear to others. To every bystander, the suc- 
 cess or preservation of this other person may justly be more interesting 
 than their own ; but it cannot be so to themselves. When to the 
 interest of this other person, therefore, they sacrifice their own, they 
 accommodate themselves to the sentiments of the spectator, and by an 
 effort of magnanimity act according to those views of things which 
 they feel must naturally occur to any third person. The soldier who 
 throws away his life in order to defend that of his officer, would perhaps 
 be but little affected by the death of that officer, if it should happen 
 without any fault of his own ; and a very small disaster which had be- 
 fallen himself might excite a much more lively sorrow. But when he 
 endeavours to act so as to deserve applause, and to make the impartial 
 spectator enter into the principles of his conduct, he feels, that to every 
 body but himself, his own life is a trifle compared with that of his 
 officer, and that when he sacrifices the one to the other, he acts quite 
 properly and agreeably to what would be the natural apprehensions of 
 every impartial bystander. 
 
 It is the same case with the greater exertions of public spirit. When 
 a young officer exposes his life to acquire some inconsiderable addition 
 to the dominions of his sovereign, it is not because the acquisition of 
 the new territory is, to himself, an object more desirable than the pre- 
 servation of his own life. To him his own life is of infinitely more 
 value than the conquest of a whole kingdom for the state which he 
 serves. But when he compares those two objects with one another, he 
 does not view them in the light in which they naturally appear to him- 
 self, but in that in which they appear to the nation he fights for. To 
 them the success of the war is of the highest importance ; the life of 
 a private person of scarce any consequence. When he puts himself in 
 their situation, he immediately feels that he cannot be too prodigal of 
 his blood, if, by shedding it, he can promote so valuable a purpose. 
 In thus thwarting, from a sense of duty and propriety, the strongest of 
 
 12
 
 170 BRUTUS AND HIS COUNTRY THE BEAUTY OF UTILITY. 
 
 all natural propensities, consists the heroism of his conduct. There is 
 many an honest Englishman, who, in his private station, would be more 
 seriously disturbed by the loss of a guinea, than by the national loss of 
 Minorca, who yet, had it been in his power to defend that fortress, 
 would have sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than, through his 
 fault, have let it fall into the hands of the enemy. When the first Bru- 
 tus led forth his own sons to a capital punishment, because they had 
 conspired against the rising liberty of Rome, he sacrificed what, if he 
 had consulted his own breast only, would appear to be the stronger to 
 the weaker affection. Brutus ought naturally to have felt much more 
 for the death of his own sons, than for all that probably Rome could 
 have suffered from the want of so great an example. Bat he viewed 
 them, not with the eyes of a father, but with those of a Roman citizen. 
 He entered so thoroughly into the sentiments of this last character, 
 that he paid no regard to that tie, by which he himself was connected 
 with them ; and to a Roman citizen, the sons even of Brutus seemed 
 contemptible, when put into the balance with the smallest interest of 
 Rome. In these and in all other cases of this kind, our admiration is 
 not so much founded upon the utility, as upon the unexpected, and on 
 that account the great, the noble, and exalted propriety of such actions. 
 This utility, when we come to view it, bestows upon them, undoubtedly 
 a new beauty, and upon that account still further recommends them to 
 our approbation. This new beauty, however, is chiefly perceived by 
 men of reflection and speculation, and it is by no means the quality 
 which first recommends such actions to the natural sentiments of 
 the bulk of mankind. 
 
 It is to be observed, that so far as the sentiment of approbation 
 arises from the perception of this beauty of utility, it has no reference 
 of any kind to the sentiments of others. If it was possible, therefore, 
 that a person should grow up to manhood without any communication 
 with society, his own actions might, notwithstanding, be agreeable or 
 disagreeable to him on account of their tendency to his happiness or 
 disadvantage. He might perceive a beauty of this kind in prudence, 
 temperance, and good conduct, and a deformity in the opposite beha- 
 viour : he might view his own temper and character with that sort of 
 satisfaction with which we consider a well-contrived machine, in the 
 one case : or with that sort of distaste and dissatisfaction with which 
 we regard a very awkward and clumsy contrivance, in the other. As 
 these perceptions, however, are merely a matter of taste, and have all 
 the feebleness and delicacy of that species of perceptions, upon the 
 justness of which what is properly called taste is founded, they proba- 
 bly would not be much attended to by one in his solitary and miserable 
 condition. Even though they should occur to him, they would by no 
 means have the same effect upon him, antecedent to his connexion with 
 society, which they would have in consequence of that connexion. He
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 171 
 
 would not be cast down with inward shame at the thought of this de- 
 formity ; nor would he be elevated with secret triumph of mind from 
 the consciousness of the contrary beauty. He would not exult from 
 the notion of deserving reward in the one case, nor tremble from the 
 suspicion of meriting punishment in the other. All such sentiments 
 suppose the idea of some other being, who is the natural judge of the 
 person that feels them ; and it is only by sympathy with the decisions 
 of this arbiter of his conduct, that he can conceive, either the triumph 
 of self-applause, or the shame of self-condemnation. 
 
 p ar t V. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the 
 Sentiments of Moral Approbation and Disapprobation. 
 
 CHAP. I. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our notions 
 of Beauty and Deformity. 
 
 THERE are other principles besides those already enumerated, which 
 have a considerable influence upon the moral sentiments of mankind, 
 and are the chief causes of the many irregular and discordant opin- 
 ions which prevail in different ages and nations concerning what is 
 blamable or praise-worthy. These principles are custom and fashion, 
 principles which extend their dominion over our judgments concerning 
 beauty of every kind. 
 
 When two objects have frequently been seen together, the imagina- 
 tion acquires a habit of passing easily from the one to the other. If 
 the first appear, we lay our account that the second is to follow. Of 
 their own accord they put us in mind of one another, and the attention 
 glides easily along them. Though, independent of custom, there should 
 be no real beauty in their union, yet when custom has thus connected 
 them together, we feel an impropriety in their separation. The one we 
 think is awkward when it appears without its usual companion. We 
 miss something which we expected to find, and the habitual arrange- 
 ment of our ideas is disturbed by the disappointment. A suit of clothes, 
 for example, seems to want something if they are without the most in- 
 significant ornament which usually accompanies them, and we find a 
 meanness or awkwardness in the absence even of a haunch button. 
 When there is any natural propriety in the union, custom increases our 
 sense of it, and makes a different arrangement appear still more dis- 
 agreeable than it would otherwise seem to be. Those who have been 
 accustomed to see things in a good taste, are more disgusted by what- 
 ever is clumsy or awkward. Where the conjunction is improper, cus- 
 tom either diminishes, or takes away altogether, our sense of the impro- 
 priety. Those who have been accustomed to slovenly disorder lose all 
 sense of neatness or elegance. The modes of furniture or dress which
 
 172 THE INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM, OR FASHION, ON SOCIETY. 
 
 seem ridiculous to strangers, give no offence to the people who have 
 been used to them. 
 
 Fashion is different from custom, or rather is a particular species of 
 it. That is not the fashion which every body wears, but which those 
 wear who are of a high rank, or character. The graceful, the easy, and 
 commanding manners of the great, joined to the usual richness and 
 magnificence of their dress, give a grace to the very form which they 
 happen to bestow upon it. As long as they continue to use this form, 
 it is connected in our imaginations with the idea of something that is 
 genteel and magnificent, and though in itself it should be indifferent, 
 it seems, on account of this relation, to have something about it that is 
 genteel and magnificent too. As soon as they drop it, it loses all the 
 grace, which it had appeared to possess before, and being now used 
 only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to have something of their 
 meanness and their awkwardness. 
 
 Dress and furniture are allowed by all the world to be entirely under 
 the dominion of custom and fashion. The influence of those principles, 
 however, is by no means confined to so narrow a sphere, but extends 
 itself to whatever is in any respect the object of taste, to music, to poetry, 
 to architecture. The modes of dress and furniture are continually 
 changing, and that fashion appearing ridiculous to-day which was 
 admired five years ago, we are experimentally convinced that it owed 
 its vogue chiefly or entirely to custom and fashion. Clothes and furni- 
 ture are not made of very durable materials. A well-fancied coat is 
 done in a twelve-month, and cannot continue longer to propagate, as 
 the fashion, that form according to which it was made. The modes of 
 furniture change less rapidly than those of dress ; because furniture is 
 commonly more durable. In five or six years, however, it generally 
 undergoes an entire revolution, and every man in his own time sees the 
 fashion in this respect change many different ways. The productions 
 of the other arts are much more lasting, and, when happily imagined, 
 may continue to propagate the fashion of their make for a much longer 
 time. A well-contrived building may endure many centuries : a beauti- 
 ful air may be delivered down by a sort of tradition, through many 
 successive generations : a well-written poem may last as long as the 
 world ; and all of them continue for ages together, to give the vogue to 
 that particular style, to that particular taste or manner, according to 
 which each of them was composed. Few men have an opportunity of 
 seeing in their own times the fashion in any of these arts change very 
 considerably. Few men have so much experience and acquaintance 
 with the different modes which have obtained in remote ages and 
 nations, as to be thoroughly reconciled to them, or to judge with 
 impartiality between them and what takes place in their own age and 
 country. Few men therefore are willing to allow, that custom or fashion 
 have much influence upon their judgments concerning what is beautiful
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 173 
 
 or otherwise, in the productions of any of those arts ; but imagine that 
 all the rules, which they think ought to be observed in each of them, 
 are founded upon reason and nature, not upon habit or prejudice. A 
 very little attention may convince them of the contrary, and satisfy 
 them, that the influence of custom and fashion over dress and furni- 
 ture, is not more absolute than over architecture, poetry, and music. 
 
 Can any reason, for example, be assigned why the Doric capital 
 should be appropriated to a pillar, whose height is equal to eight 
 diameters ; the Ionic volute to one of nine; and the Corinthian foliage 
 to one of ten? The propriety of each of those appropriations can be 
 founded upon nothing but habit and custom. The eye having been 
 used to see a particular proportion connected with a particular orna- 
 ment, would be offended if they were not joined together. Each of the 
 five orders has its peculiar ornaments, which cannot be changed for 
 any other, without giving offence to all those who know any thing of 
 the rules of architecture. According to some architects, indeed, such 
 is the exquisite judgment with which the ancients have assigned to 
 each order its proper ornaments, that no others can be found which are 
 equally suitable. It seems, however, a little difficult to be conceived 
 that these forms, though, no doubt, extremely agreeable, should be the 
 only forms which can suit those proportions, or that there should not 
 be five hundred others which, antecedent to established custom, would 
 have fitted them equally well. When custom, however, has established 
 particular rules of building, provided they are not absolutely unreason- 
 able, it is absurd to think of altering them for others which are only 
 equally good, or even for others which, in point of elegance and beauty, 
 have naturally some little advantage over them. A man would be 
 ridiculous who should appear in public with a suit of clothes quite 
 different from those which are commonly worn, though the new dress 
 should in itself be ever so graceful or convenient. And there seems to 
 be an absurdity of the same kind in ornamenting a house after a quite 
 different manner from that which custom and fashion have prescribed ; 
 though the new ornaments should in themselves be somewhat superior 
 to the common ones in use. 
 
 According to the ancient rhetoricians, a certain measure or verse was 
 by nature appropriated to each particular species of writing, as being 
 naturally expressive of that character, sentiment, or passion, which 
 ought to predominate in it. One verse, they said, was fit for grave and 
 another for gay works, which could not, they thought, be interchanged 
 without the greatest impropriety. The experience of modern times, 
 however, seems to contradict this principle, though in itself it would 
 appear to be extremely probable. What is the burlesque verse in 
 English, is the heroic verse in French. The tragedies of Racine and 
 the Henriad of Voltaire, are nearly in the same verse with, 
 
 Let me have your advice in a weighty affair.
 
 174 STYLE OF ROMAN AND ENGLISH CLASSIC WRITERS. 
 
 The burlesque verse in French, on the contrary, is pretty much the 
 same with the heroic verse of ten syllables in English. Custom has 
 made the one nation associate the ideas of gravity, sublimity, and 
 seriousness, to that measure which the other has connected with what- 
 ever is gay, flippant, and ludicrous. Nothing would appear more 
 absurd in English, than a tragedy written in the Alexandrine verses of 
 the French ; or in French, than a work of the same kind in; hexame- 
 tery, or verses of ten syllables. 
 
 An eminent artist will bring about a considerable change in the 
 established modes of each of those arts, and introduce a new fashion 
 of writing, music, or architecture. As the dress of an agreeable man 
 of high rank recommends itself, and how peculiar and fantastical 
 soever, comes soon to be admired and imitated; so the excellencies 
 of an eminent master recommend his peculiarities, and his manner 
 becomes the fashionable style in the art which he practises. The taste 
 of the Italians in music and architecture has, within these fifty years, 
 undergone a considerable change, from imitating the peculiarities of 
 some eminent masters in each of those arts. Seneca is accused by 
 Quintilian of having corrupted the taste of the Romans, and of having 
 introduced a frivolous prettiness in the room of majestic reason and 
 masculine eloquence. Sallust and Tacitus have by others been charged 
 with the same accusation, though in a different manner. They gave 
 reputation, it is pretended, to a style, which though in the highest 
 degree concise, elegant, expressive, and even poetical, wanted, however, 
 ease, simplicity, and nature, and was evidently the production of the 
 most laboured and studied affectation. How many great qualities 
 must that writer possess, who can thus render his very faults agreeable? 
 After the praise of refining the taste of a nation, the highest eulogy, 
 perhaps, which can be bestowed upon any author, is to say, that he 
 corrupted it. In our own language, Mr. Pope and Dr. Swift have each 
 of them introduced a manner different from what was practised before, 
 into all works that are written in rhyme, the one in long verses, the 
 other in short. The quaintness of Butler has given place to the plain- 
 ness of Swift. The rambling freedom of Dryden, and the correct but 
 often tedious and prosaic languor of Addison, are no longer the objects 
 of imitation, but all long verses are now written after the manner of the 
 nervous precision of Mr. Pope. 
 
 Neither is it only over the productions of the arts, that custom and 
 fashion exert their dominion. They influence our judgments, in the 
 same manner, with regard to the beauty of natural objects. What 
 various and opposite forms are deemed beautiful in different species of 
 things ? The proportions which are admired in one animal, are alto- 
 gether different from those which are esteemed in another. Every 
 class of things has its own peculiar conformation, which is approved 
 of, and has a beauty of its own, distinct from that of every other species.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 175 
 
 It is upon this account that a learned Jesuit, Father Buffier, has deter- 
 mined that the beauty of every object consists in that form and colour, 
 which is most usual among things of that particular sort to which it 
 belongs. Thus, in the human form, the beauty of each feature lies in 
 a certain middle, equally removed from a variety of other forms that 
 are ugly. A beautiful nose, for example, is one that is neither very long, 
 nor very short, neither very straight, nor very crooked, but a sort of 
 middle among all these extremes, and less different from any one of 
 them, than all of them are from one another. It is the form which 
 nature seems to have aimed at in them all, which, however, she deviates 
 from in a great variety of ways, and very seldom hits exactly ; but to 
 which all those deviations still bear a very strong resemblance. When 
 a number of drawings are made after one pattern, though they may all 
 miss it in some respects, yet they will all resemble it more than they 
 resemble one another ; the general character of the pattern will run 
 through them all ; the most singular and odd will be those which are 
 most wide of it ; and though very few will copy it exactly, yet the most 
 accurate delineations will bear a greater resemblance to the most care- 
 less, than the careless ones will bear to one another. In the same 
 manner, in each species of creatures, what is most beautiful bears the 
 strongest characters of the general fabric of the species, and has the 
 strongest resemblance to the greater part of the individuals with which 
 it is classed. Monsters, on the contrary, or what is perfectly deformed, 
 are always most singular and odd, and have the least resemblance to 
 the generality of that species to which they belong. And thus the 
 beauty of each species, though in one sense the rarest of all things, 
 because few individuals hit this middle form exactly, yet in another, is 
 the most common, because all the deviations from it resemble it more 
 than they resemble one another. The most customary form, therefore, 
 is in each species of things, according to him, the most beautiful. And 
 hence it is that a certain practice and experience in contemplating each 
 species of objects is requisite before we can judge of its beauty, or 
 know wherein the middle and most usual form consists. The nicest 
 judgment concerning the beauty of the human species will not help us 
 to judge of that of flowers, or horses, or any other species of things. 
 It is for the same reason that in different climates, and where different 
 customs and ways of living take place, as the generality of any species 
 receives a different conformation from those circumstances, so different 
 ideas of its beauty prevail. The beauty of a Moorish is not exactly 
 the same with that of an English horse. What different ideas are 
 formed in different nations concerning the beauty of the human 
 shape and countenance? A fair complexion is a shocking deformity 
 upon the coast of Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty. 
 In some nations long ears that hang down upon the shoulders are 
 the objects of universal admiration. In China if a lady's foot is so
 
 176 THE ABSURDITY OF MANY NATIONAL CUSTOMS. 
 
 large as to be fit to walk upon, she is regarded as a monster of ugliness. 
 Some of the savage nations in North America tie four boards round 
 the heads of their children, and thus squeeze them, while the bones are 
 tender and gristly, into a form that is almost perfectly square. Euro- 
 peans are astonished at the absurd barbarity of this practice, to which 
 some missionaries have imputed the singular stupidity of those nations 
 among whom it prevails. But when they condemn those savages, they 
 do not reflect that the ladies in Europe had, till within these very few 
 years, been endeavouring, for near a century past, to squeeze the beauti- 
 ful roundness of their natural shape into a square form of the same 
 kind. And that, notwithstanding the many distortions and diseases 
 which this practice was known to occasion, custom had rendered it 
 agreeable among some of the most civilized nations which, perhaps, the 
 world has ever beheld. 
 
 Such is the system of this learned and ingenious father, concerning 
 the nature of beauty ; of which the whole charm, according to him, 
 would thus seem to arise from its falling in with the habits which 
 custom had impressed upon the imagination, with regard to things of 
 each particular kind. I cannot, however, be induced to believe that 
 our sense even of external beauty is founded altogether on custom. 
 The utility of any form, its fitness for the useful purposes for which it 
 was intended evidently recommends it, and renders it agreeable to us, 
 independent of custom. Certain colours are . more agreeable than 
 others, and give more delight to the eye the first time it ever beholds 
 them. A smooth surface is more agreeable than a rough one. Variety 
 is more pleasing than a tedious undiversified uniformity. Connected 
 variety, in which each ne\v appearance seems to be introduced by what 
 went, before it, and in which all the adjoining parts seem to have some 
 natural relation to one another, is more agreeable than a disjointed 
 and disorderly assemblage of unconnected objects. But though I 
 cannot admit that custom is the sole principle of beauty, yet I can so 
 far allow the truth of this ingenious system as to grant, that there is 
 scarce any one external form so beautiful as to please, if quite contrary 
 to custom and unlike whatever we have ever been used to in that 
 particular species of things : or so deformed as not to be agreeable, if 
 custom unifonnly supports it, and habituates us to see it in every single 
 individual of the kind. 
 
 CHAP. II. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral 
 
 Sentiments. 
 
 SINCE our sentiments concerning beauty of every kind, are so much 
 influenced by custom and fashion, it cannot be expected, that those, 
 concerning the beauty of conduct, should be entirely exempted from
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 177 
 
 the dominion of those principles. Their influence here, however, 
 seems to be much less than it is every where else. There is, perhaps, 
 no form of external objects, how absurd and fantastical soever, to which 
 custom will not reconcile us, or which fashion will not render even 
 agreeable. But the characters and conduct of a Nero, or a Claudius, 
 are what no custom will ever reconcile us to, what no fashion will ever 
 render agreeable ; but the one will always be the object of dread and 
 hatred ; the other of scorn and derision. The principles of the imagi- 
 nation, upon which our sense of beauty depends, are of a very nice 
 and delicate nature, and may easily be altered by habit and education : 
 but the sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation, are 
 founded on the strongest and most vigorous passions of human nature; 
 and though they may be warped, cannot be entirely perverted. 
 
 But though the influence of custom and fashion upon moral senti- 
 ments, is not altogether so great, it is however perfectly similar to what 
 it is every where else. When custom and fashion coincide with the 
 natural principles of right and wrong, they heighten the delicacy of 
 our sentiments, and increase our abhorrence for every thing which 
 approaches to evil. Those who have been educated in what is really 
 good company, not in what is commonly called such, who have been 
 accustomed to see nothing in the persons whom they esteemed and 
 lived with, but justice, modesty, humanity, and good order ; are more 
 shocked with whatever seems to be inconsistent with the rules which 
 those virtues prescribe. Those, on the contrary, who have had the 
 misfortune to be brought up amidst violence, licentiousness, falsehood, 
 and injustice, lose, though not all sense of the impropriety of such 
 conduct, yet all sense of its dreadful enormity, or of the vengeance and 
 punishment due to it. They have been familiarized with it from their 
 infancy, custom has rendered it habitual to them, and they are very apt 
 to regard it as, what is called, the way of the world, something which 
 either may, or must be practised, to hinder us from being made the 
 dupes of our own integrity. 
 
 Fashion, too, will sometimes give reputation to a certain degree of 
 disorder, and, on the contrary, discountenance qualities which deserve 
 esteem. In the reign of Charles II. a degree of licentiousness was 
 deemed the characteristic of a liberal education. It was connected, 
 according to the notions of those times, with generosity, sincerity, 
 magnanimity, loyalty, and proved that the person who acted in this 
 manner, was a gentleman, and not a puritan. Severity of manners, 
 and regularity of conduct, on the other hand, were altogether unfashion- 
 able, and were connected, in the imagination of that age, with cant, 
 cunning, hypocrisy, and low manners. To superficial minds, the vices 
 of the great seem at all times agreeable. They connect them, not 
 only with the splendour of fortune, but with many superior virtues, 
 which they ascribe to their superiors ; with the spirit of freedom and
 
 178 THE PEDANTRY OF EVERY PROFESSION IS DISAGREEABLE. 
 
 independency, with frankness, generosity, humanity, and politeness. 
 The virtues of the inferior ranks of people, on the contrary, their parsi- 
 monious frugality, their painful industry, and rigid adherence to 
 rules, seems to them mean and disagreeable. They connect them, 
 both with the meanness of the station to which those qualities do 
 commonly belong, and with many great vices which, they suppose, 
 very usually accompany them; such as an abject, cowardly, ill-natured, 
 lying, and pilfering disposition. 
 
 The objects with which men in the different professions and states of 
 life are conversant, being very different, and habituating them to very 
 different passions, naturally form in them very different characters and 
 manners. We expect in each rank and profession, a degree of those 
 manners, which, experience has taught us, belong to it. But as in each 
 species of things, we are particularly pleased with the middle confor- 
 mation, which, in every part and feature, agrees most exactly with the 
 general standard which nature seems to have established for things of 
 that kind ; so in each rank, or, if I may say so, in each species of men, 
 we are particularly pleased, if they have neither too much, nor too 
 little of the character which usually accompanies their particular con- 
 dition and situation. A man, we say, should look like his trade and 
 profession ; yet the pedantry of every profession is disagreeable. The 
 different periods of life have, for the same reason, different manners 
 assigned to them. We expect in old age, that gravity and sedateness 
 which its infirmities, its long experience, and its worn-out sensibility 
 seem to render both natural and respectable ; and we lay our account 
 to find in youth that sensibility, that gaiety and sprightly vivacity which 
 experience teaches us to expect from the lively impressions that all 
 interesting objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpractised 
 senses of that early period of life. Each of those two ages, however, 
 may easily have too much of these peculiarities which belong to it. The 
 flirting levity of youth, and the immovable insensibility of old age, are 
 equally disagreeable. The young, according to the common saying, 
 are most agreeable when in their behaviour there is something of the 
 manners of the old, and the old, when they retain something of the 
 gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have too 
 much of the manners of the other. The extreme coldness, and the 
 dull formality, which are pardoned in old age, make youth ridiculous. 
 The levity, the carelessness, and the vanity, which are indulged in 
 youth, will render old age contemptible. 
 
 The peculia- character and manners which we are led by custom to 
 appropriate to each rank and profession, have sometimes perhaps a 
 propriety independent of custom ; and are what AVC should approve of 
 for their own sakes, if we took into consideration all the different 
 circumstances which naturally affect those in each different state of 
 life. The propriety of a person's behaviour, depends not upon its
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 179 
 
 suitableness to any one circumstance of his situation, but to all the 
 circumstances, which, when we bring his case home to ourselves, we 
 feel, should naturally call upon his attention. If he appears to be so 
 much occupied by any one of them, as entirely to neglect the rest, we 
 disapprove of his conduct, as something which we cannot entirely go 
 along with, because not properly adjusted to all the circumstances of 
 his situation : yet, perhaps, the emotion he expresses for the object 
 which principally interests him, does not exceed what we should 
 entirely sympathize with, and approve of, in one whose attention was 
 not required by any other thing. A parent in private life might, upon 
 the loss of an only son, express without blame a degree of grief and 
 tenderness, which would be unpardonable in a general at the head of 
 an army, when glory, and the public safety, demanded so great a part 
 of his attention. As different objects ought, upon common occasions, 
 to occupy the attention of men of different professions, so different 
 passions ought naturally to become habitual to them ; and when we 
 bring home to ourselves their situation in this particular respect, we 
 must be sensible, that every occurrence should naturally affect them 
 more or less, according as the emotion which it excites, coincides or 
 disagrees with the fixed habit and temper of their minds. We cannot 
 expect the same sensibility to the gay pleasures and amusements of 
 life in a clergyman, which we lay our account with in an officer. The 
 man whose peculiar occupation it is to keep the world in mind of that 
 awful futurity which awaits him, who is to announce what may be the 
 fatal consequences of every deviation from the rules of duty, and who 
 is himself to set the example of the most exact conformity, seems to be 
 the messenger of tidings, which cannot, in propriety, be delivered 
 either with levity or indifference. His mind is supposed to be continu- 
 ally occupied with what is too grand and solemn, to leave any room 
 for the impressions of those frivolous objects, which fill up the atten- 
 tion of the dissipated and the gay. We readily feel therefore, that, 
 independent of custom, there is a propriety in the manners which 
 custom has allotted to this profession ; and that nothing can be more 
 suitable to the character of a clergyman, than that grave, that austere 
 and abstracted severity, which we are habituated to expect in his 
 behaviour. These reflections are so very obvious, that there is scarce 
 any man so inconsiderate, as not, at some time, to have made them, 
 and to have accounted to himself in this manner for his approbation of 
 the useful character of the clerical order. 
 
 The foundation of the customary character of some other profes- 
 sions is not so obvious, and our approbation of it is founded entirely 
 in the habit, without being either confirmed or enlivened by any re- 
 flections of this kind. We are led by custom, for example, to annex 
 the character of gaiety, levity, and sprightly freedom, as well as of 
 some degree of dissipation, to the military profession. Yet, if we were
 
 l8o GAIETY OF LIFE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE SOLDIER. 
 
 to consider what mood or tone of temper would be most suitable to 
 this situation, we should be apt to determine, perhaps, that the most 
 serious and thoughtful turn of mind would best become those whose 
 lives are continually exposed to uncommon danger, and who should 
 therefore be more constantly occupied with the thoughts of death and 
 its consequences than other men. It is this very circumstance, how- 
 ever, which is not improbably the occasion why the contrary turn of 
 mind prevails so much among men of this profession. It requires so 
 great an effort to conquer the fear of death, when we survey it with 
 steadiness and attention, that those who are constantly exposed to it, 
 find it easier to turn away their thoughts from it altogether, to wrap 
 themselves up in careless security and indifference, and to plunge them- 
 selves, for this purpose, into every sort of amusement and dissipation. 
 A camp is not the element of a thoughtful or a melancholy man : per- 
 sons of that cast, indeed, are often abundantly determined, and are 
 capable, by a great effort, of going on with inflexible resolution to the 
 most unavoidable death. But to be exposed to continual, though less 
 imminent danger, to be obliged to exert, for a long time, a degree of 
 this effort, exhausts and depresses the mind, and renders it incapable 
 of all happiness and enjoyment. The gay and careless, who have 
 occasion to make no effort at all, who fairly resolve never to look before 
 them, but to lose in continual pleasures and amusements all anxiety 
 about their situation, more easily support such circumstances. When- 
 ever, by any peculiar circumstances, an officer has no reason to lay his 
 account with being exposed to any uncommon danger, he is very apt to 
 lose the gaiety and dissipated thoughtlessness of his character. The 
 captain of a city guard is commonly as sober, careful, and penurious 
 an animal as the rest of his fellow-citizens. A long peace is, for the 
 same reason, very apt to diminish the difference between the civil and 
 the military character. The ordinary situation, however, of men of this 
 profession, renders gaiety, and a degree of dissipation, so much their 
 usual character ; and custom has, in our imagination, so strongly con- 
 nected this character with this state of life, that we are very apt to 
 despise any man, whose peculiar humour or situation renders him in- 
 capable of acquiring it. We laugh at the grave and careful faces of a 
 city guard, which so little resemble those of their profession. They 
 themselves seem often to be ashamed of the regularity of their own 
 manners, and, not to be out of the fashion of their trade, are fond of 
 affecting that levity, which is by no means natural to them. Whatever 
 is the deportment which we have been accustomed to see in a respect- 
 able order of men, it comes to be so associated in our imagination with 
 that order, that whenever we see the one, we lay our account that we 
 are to meet with the other, and when disappointed, miss something 
 which we expected to find. We are embarrassed, and put to a stand, 
 and know not how to address ourselves to a character, which plainly
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 181 
 
 affects to be of a different species from those with which we should have 
 been disposed to class it. 
 
 The different situations of different ages and countries are apt, in the 
 same manner, to give different characters to the generality of those who 
 live in them, and their sentiments concerning the particular degree of 
 each quality, that is either blamable or praise-worthy, vary according 
 to that degree which is usual in their own country, and in their own 
 times. That degree of politeness which would be highly esteemed, 
 perhaps would be thought effeminate adulation, in Russia, would be 
 regarded as rudeness and barbarism at the court of France. That 
 degree of order and frugality, which, in a Polish nobleman, would be 
 considered as excessive parsimony, would be regarded as extravagance 
 in a citizen of Amsterdam. Every age and country look upon that 
 degree of each quality, which is commonly to be met with in those who 
 are esteemed among themselves, as the golden mean of that particular 
 talent or virtue. And as this varies, according as their different cir- 
 cumstances render different qualities more or less habitual to them, 
 their sentiments concerning the exact propriety of character and be- 
 haviour vary accordingly. 
 
 Among civilized nations, the virtues which are founded upon 
 humanity, are more cultivated than those which are founded upon self- 
 denial and the command of the passions. Among rude and barbarous 
 nations, it is quite otherwise, the virtues of self-denial are more culti- 
 vated than those of humanity. The general security and happiness 
 which prevail in ages of civility and politeness, afford little exercise to 
 the contempt of danger, to patience in enduring labour, hunger, and 
 pain. Poverty may easily be avoided, and the contempt of it therefore 
 almost ceases to be a. virtue. The abstinence from pleasure becomes 
 less necessary, and the mind is more at liberty to unbend and to in- 
 dulge its natural inclinations in all those particular respects. 
 
 Among savages and barbarians it is quite otherwise. Every savage 
 undergoes a sort of Spartan discipline, and by the necessity of his situ- 
 ation is inured to every sort of hardship. He is in continual danger : 
 he is often exposed to the greatest extremities of hunger, and frequently 
 dies of pure want. His circumstances not only habituate him to every 
 sort of distress, but teach him to give way to none of the passions which 
 that distress is apt to excite. He can expect from his countrymen no 
 sympathy or indulgence for such weakness. Before we can feel much 
 for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If our own 
 misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend to that of 
 our neighbour : and all savages are too much occupied with their own 
 wants and necessities, to give much attention to those of another per- 
 son. A savage, therefore, whatever be the nature of his distress, 
 expects no sympathy from those about him, and disdains, upon that 
 account, to expose himself, by allowing the least weakness to escape
 
 1 82 INSENSIBILITY TO SENSE AND SENTIMENT OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 him. His passions, how furious and violent soever, are never per- 
 mitted to disturb the serenity of his countenance or the composure of 
 his conduct and behaviour. The savages in North America, we are 
 told, assume upon all occasions the greatest indifference, and would 
 think themselves degraded if they should ever appear in any respect to 
 be overcome, either by love, or grief, or resentment. Their magnani- 
 mity and self-command, in this respect, are almost beyond the concep- 
 tion of Europeans. In a country in which all men are upon a level, 
 with regard to rank and fortune, it might be expected that the mutual 
 inclinations of the two parties should be the only thing considered in 
 marriages, and should be indulged without any sort of control. This, 
 however, is the country in which all marriages, without exception, are 
 made up by the parents, and in which a young man would think him- 
 self disgraced for ever, if he showed the least preference of one woman 
 above another, or did not express the most complete indifference, both 
 about the time when, and the person to whom, he was to be married. 
 The weakness of love, which is so indulged in ages of humanity and 
 politeness, is regarded among savages as the most unpardonable effe- 
 minacy. Even after the marriage, the two parties seem to be ashamed 
 of a connexion which is founded upon so sordid a necessity. They do 
 not live together. They see one another by stealth only. They both 
 continue to dwell in the houses of their respective fathers, and the open 
 cohabitation of the two sexes, which is permitted without blame in all 
 other countries, is here considered as the most indecent and unmanly 
 sensuality. Nor is it only over this agreeable passion that they exert 
 this absolute self-command. They often bear, in the sight of all their 
 countrymen, with injuries, reproach, and the grossest insults, with the 
 appearance of the greatest insensibility, and without expressing the 
 smallest resentment. When a savage is made prisoner of war, and 
 receives, as is usual, the sentence of death from his conquerors, he hears 
 it without expressing any emotion, and afterwards submits to the most 
 dreadful torments, without ever bemoaning himself, or discovering any 
 other passion but contempt of his enemies. While he is hung by the 
 shoulders over a slow fire, he derides his tormentors, and tells them 
 with how much more ingenuity he himself had tormented such of their 
 countrymen as had fallen into his hands. After he has been scorched 
 and burnt, and lacerated in all the most tender and sensible parts of 
 his body for several hours together, he is often allowed, in order to pro- 
 long his misery, a short respite, and is taken down from the stake : he 
 employs this interval in talking upon all indifferent subjects, inquires 
 after the news of the country, and seems indifferent about nothing but 
 his own situation. The spectators express the same insensibility ; the 
 sight of so horrible an object seems to make no impression upon them ; 
 they scarce look at the prisoner, except when they lend a hand to tor- 
 ment him. At other times they smoke tobacco, and amuse themselves
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 183 
 
 with any common object, as if no such matter was going on. Every 
 savage is said to prepare himself from his earliest youth for this dread- 
 ful end. He composes, for this purpose, what they call the song of 
 death, a song which he is to sing when he has fallen into the hands of 
 his enemies, and is expiring under the tortures which they inflict upon 
 him. It consists of insults upon his tormentors, and expresses the 
 highest contempt of death and pain. He sings this song upon all ex- 
 traordinary occasions, when he goes out to war, when he meets his 
 enemies in the field, or whenever he has a mind to show that he has 
 familiarised his imagination to the most dreadful misfortunes, and that 
 no human event can daunt his resolution or alter his purpose. The 
 same contempt of death and torture prevails among all other savage 
 nations. There is not a negro from the coast of Africa, who does not 
 in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which the soul of his 
 sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving. Fortune never 
 exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind, than when she sub- 
 jected those nations of heroes to the refuse of the jails of Europe, to 
 wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries which they 
 come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity, brutality, 
 and baseness, expose them to the contempt of the vanquished. 
 
 This heroic and unconquerable firmness, which the custom and edu- 
 cation of his country demand of every savage, is not required of those 
 who are brought up to live in civilized societies. If these last complain 
 when they are in pain, if they grieve when they are in distress, if they 
 allow themselves either to be overcome by love, or to be discomposed 
 by anger, they are easily pardoned. Such weaknesses are not appre- 
 hended to affect the essential parts of their character. As long as they 
 do not allow themselves to be transported to do anything contrary to 
 justice or humanity, they lose but little reputation, though the serenity 
 of their countenance, or the composure of their discourse and behaviour 
 should be somewhat ruffled and disturbed. A humane and polished 
 people, who have more sensibility to the passions of others, can more 
 readily enter into an animated and passionate behaviour, and can 
 more easily pardon some little excess. The person principally con- 
 cerned is sensible of this ; and being assured of the equity of his judges, 
 indulges himself in stronger expressions of passion, and is less afraid 
 of exposing himself to their contempt by the violence of his emo- 
 tions. We can venture to express more emotion in the presence of a 
 friend than in that of a stranger, because we expect more indulgence 
 from the one than from the other. And in the same manner the rules 
 of decorum amongst civilized nations, admit of a more animated be- 
 haviour, than is approved of among barbarians. The first converse 
 together with the openness of friends ; the second with the reserve of 
 strangers. The emotion and vivacity with which the French and the 
 Italians, the two most polished nations upon the continent, express
 
 184 PASSIONATE ELOQUENCE OF THE ORATORS OF ROME. 
 
 themselves on occasions that are at all interesting, surprise at first 
 those strangers who happen to be travelling among them, and who, 
 having been educated among a people of duller sensibility, cannot enter 
 into this passionate behaviour, of which they have never seen any ex- 
 ample in their own country. A young French nobleman will weep in 
 the presence of the whole court upon being refused a regiment. An 
 Italian, says the Abbot Du Bos, expresses more emotion on being con- 
 demned in a fine of twenty shillings, than an Englishman on receiving 
 the sentence of death. Cicero, in the times of the highest Roman 
 politeness, could, without degrading himself, weep with all the bitter- 
 ness of sorrow in the sight of the whole senate and the whole people ; as 
 it is evident he must have done in the end of almost every oration. The 
 orators of the earlier and ruder ages of Rome could not probably, con- 
 sistent with the manners of the times, have expressed themselves with 
 so much emotion. It would have been regarded, I suppose, as a viola- 
 tion of nature and propriety in the Scipios, in the Leliuses, and in the 
 elder Cato, to have exposed so much tenderness to the view of the pub- 
 lic. Those ancient warriors could express themselves with order, 
 gravity, and good judgment : but are said to have been strangers to 
 that sublime and passionate eloquence which was first introduced into 
 Rome, not many years before the birth of Cicero, by the two Gracchi, 
 by Crassus, and by Sulpitius. This animated eloquence, which has 
 been long practised, with or without success, both in France and Italy, 
 is but just beginning to be introduced into England. So wide is the 
 difference between the degrees of self-command which are required in 
 civilized and in barbarous nations, and by such different standards do 
 they judge of the propriety of behaviour. 
 
 This difference gives occasion to many others that are not less essen- 
 tial. A polished people being accustomed to give way, in some 
 measure, to the movements of nature, become frank, open, and sincere. 
 Barbarians, on the contrary, being obliged to smother and conceal the 
 appearance of every passion, necessarily acquire the habits of false- 
 hood and dissimulation. It is observed by all those who have been 
 conversant with savage nations, whether in Asia, Africa, or America, 
 that they are equally impenetrable, and that, when they have a mind to 
 conceal the truth, no examination is capable of drawing it from them. 
 They cannot be trepanned by the most artful questions. The torture 
 itself is incapable of making them confess any thing which they have 
 no mind to tell. The passions of a savage too, though they never ex- 
 press themselves by an outward emotion, but lie concealed in the breast 
 of the sufferer, are, notwithstanding, all mounted to the highest pitch 
 of fury. Though he seldom shows any symptoms of anger, yet his 
 vengeance, when he comes to give way to it, is always sanguinary and 
 dreadful. The least affront drives him to despair. His countenance 
 and discourse indeed, are still sober and composed, and express nothing
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 185 
 
 but the most perfect tranquillity of mind : but his actions are often the 
 most furious and violent. Among the North Americans it is not un- 
 common for persons of the tenderest age and more fearful sex to drown 
 themselves upon receiving only a slight reprimand from their mothers, 
 and this too without expressing any passion, or saying any thing, ex- 
 cept,_y0# shall no longer have a daughter. In civilized nations the 
 passions of men are not commonly so furious or so desperate. They 
 are often clamorous and noisy, but are seldom very hurtful ; and seem 
 frequently to aim at no other satisfaction, but that of convincing the 
 spectator, that thev are in the right to be so much moved, and of pro- 
 curing his sympathy and approbation. 
 
 All these effects of custom and fashion, however, upon the moral 
 sentiments of mankind, are inconsiderable, in comparison of those 
 which they give occasion to in some other cases ; and it is not concern- 
 ing the general style of character and behaviour, that those principles 
 produce the greatest perversion of judgment, but concerning the pro- 
 priety or impropriety of particular usages. 
 
 The different manners which custom teaches us to approve of in the 
 different professions and states of life, do not concern things of the 
 greatest importance. We expect truth and justice from an old man as 
 well as from a young, from a clergyman as well as from an officer ; and 
 it is in matters of small moment only that we look for the distinguishing 
 marks of their respective characters. With regard to these, too, there 
 is often some unobserved circumstance which, if it was attended to, 
 would show us, that, independent of custom, there was a propriety in 
 the character which custom had taught us to allot to each profession. 
 We cannot complain, therefore, in this case, that the perversion of na- 
 tural sentiment is very great. Though the manners of different nations 
 require different degrees of the same quality, in the character which 
 they think worthy of esteem, yet the worst that can be said to happen 
 even here, is that the duties of one virtue are sometimes extended so as 
 to encroach a little upon the precincts of some other. The rustic hos- 
 pitality that is in fashion among the Poles encroaches, perhaps, a little 
 upon ceconomy and good order ; and the frugality that is esteemed in 
 Holland,upon generosity and good-fellowship. The hardiness demanded 
 of savages diminishes their humanity ; and, perhaps, the delicate sen- 
 sibility required in civilized nations, sometimes destroys the masculine 
 firmness of the character. In general, the style of manners which 
 takes place in any nation, may commonly upon the whole be said to be 
 that which is most suitable to its situation. Hardiness is the character 
 most suitable to the circumstances of a savage; sensibility to those of 
 one who lives in a very civilized country. Even here, therefore, we 
 cannot complain that the moral sentiments of men, as displayed by 
 them, are very grossly perverted. 
 
 It is not therefore in the general style of conduct or behaviour that
 
 1 86 THE EXPOSURE OF INFANTS PERMITTED IN GREECE. 
 
 custom authorises the widest departure from what is the natural pro- 
 priety of action. With regard to particular usages, its influence is often 
 much more destructive of good morals, and it is capable of establishing, 
 as lawful and blameless, particular actions, which shock the very 
 plainest principles of right and wrong. 
 
 Can there be greater barbarity, for example, than to hurt an infant ? 
 Its helplessness, its innocence, its amiableness, call forth the compas- 
 sion, even of an enemy, and not to spare that tender age is regarded as 
 the most furious effort of an enraged and cruel conqueror. What then 
 should we imagine must be the heart of a parent who could injure that 
 weakness which even a furious enemy is afraid to violate ? Yet the ex- 
 position, that is, the murder of new-born infants, was a practice allowed 
 of in almost all the states of Greece, even among the polite and civil- 
 izedAthenians ; and whenever the circumstances of the parent rendered 
 it inconvenient to bring up the child, to abandon it to hunger or to wild 
 beasts was regarded without blame or censure. This practice had 
 probably begun in times of the most savage barbarity. The imagina- 
 tions of men had been first made familiar with it in that earliest period 
 of society, and the uniform continuance of the custom had hindered 
 them afterwards from perceiving its enormity. We find, at this day, 
 that this practice prevails among all savage nations ; and in that rudest 
 and lowest state of society it is undoubtedly more pardonable than in 
 any other. The extreme indigence of a savage is often such that he 
 himself is frequently exposed to the greatest extremity of hunger, he 
 often dies of pure want, and it is frequently impossible for him to sup- 
 port both himself and his child. We cannot wonder, therefore, that in 
 this case he should abandon it. One who, in flying from an enemy, 
 whom it was impossible to resist, should throw down his infant, because 
 it retarded his flight, would surely be excusable ; since, by attempting 
 to save it, he could only hope for the consolation of dying with it. That 
 in this state of society, therefore, a parent should be allowed to judge 
 whether he can bring up his child, ought not to surprise us so greatly. 
 In the latter ages of Greece, however, the same thing was permitted 
 from views of remote interest or conveniency, which could by no means 
 excuse it. Uninterrupted custom had by this time so thoroughly author- 
 ised the practice, that not only the loose maxims of the world tolerated 
 this barbarous prerogative, but even the doctrine of philosophers, which 
 ought to have been more just and accurate, was led away by the esta- 
 blished custom, and upon this, as upon many other occasions, instead 
 of censuring, supported the horrible abuse, by far-fetched considerations 
 of public utility. Aristotle talks of it as of what the magistrate ought 
 upon many occasions to encourage. The humane Plato is of the same 
 opinion, and, with all that love of mankind which seems to animate all 
 his writings, no where marks this practice with disapprobation. When 
 custom can give sanction to so dreadful a violation of humanity ; we
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 187 
 
 may well imagine that there is scarce any particular practice so gross 
 which it cannot authorise. Such a thing, we hear men every day say- 
 ing, is commonly done, and they seem to think this a sufficient apology 
 for what, in itself, is the most unjust and unreasonable conduct. 
 
 There is an obvious reason why custom should never pervert our 
 sentiments with regard to the general style and character of conduct 
 and behaviour, in the same degree as with regard to the propriety or 
 unlawfulness of particular usages. There never can be any such 
 custom. No society could subsist a moment, in which the usual strain 
 of men's conduct and behaviour was of a piece with the horrible 
 practice I have just now mentioned. 
 
 Part VI. Of the Character of Virtue. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. When we consider the character of any individual, 
 we naturally view it under two different aspects ; first, as it may affect 
 his own happiness ; and secondly, as it may affect that of other people. 
 
 SEC. I. OF THE CHARACTER OF THE INDIVIDUAL, so FAR AS IT 
 
 AFFECTS HIS OWN HAPPINESS ; OR OF PRUDENCE. 
 
 THE preservation and healthful state of the body seem to be the objects 
 which Nature first recommends to the care of every individual. The 
 appetites of hunger and thirst, the agreeable or disagreeable sensations 
 of pleasure and pain, of heat and cold, &c., may be considered as les- 
 sons delivered by the voice of Nature herself, directing him what he 
 ought to choose, and what he ought to avoid, for this purpose. The 
 first lessons which he is taught by those to whom his childhood is 
 entrusted, tend, the greater part of them, to the same purpose. Their 
 principal object is to teach him how to keep out of harm's way. 
 
 As he grows up, he soon learns that some care and foresight are 
 necessary for providing the means of gratifying those natural appetites, 
 of procuring pleasure and avoiding pain, of procuring the agreeable 
 and avoiding the disagreeable temperature of heat and cold. In the 
 proper direction of this care and foresight consists the art of preserving 
 and increasing what is called his external fortune. 
 
 Though it is in order to supply the necessities and conveniencies of 
 the body, that the advantages of external fortune are originally recom- 
 mended to us, yet we cannot live long in the world without perceiving 
 that the respect of our equals, our credit and rank in the society we 
 live in, depend very much upon the degree in which we possess, or are 
 supposed to possess, those advantages. The desire of becoming the 
 
 * 13
 
 l88 CHARACTER OF THE PRUDENT MAN. AIM OF CABALS. 
 
 proper objects of this respect, of deserving and obtaining this credit 
 and rank among our equals, is, perhaps, the strongest of all our desires, 
 and our anxiety to obtain the advantages of fortune is accordingly 
 much more excited and irritated by this desire, than by that of supply- 
 ing all the necessities and conveniencies of the body, which are always 
 very easily supplied to us. 
 
 Our rank and credit among our equals, too, depend very much upon, 
 what, perhaps, a virtuous man would wish them to depend entirely, our 
 character and conduct, or upon the confidence, esteem, and good-will, 
 which these naturally excite in the people we live with. 
 
 The care of the health, of the fortune, of the rank and reputation of 
 the individual, the objects upon which his comfort and happiness in 
 this life are supposed principally to depend, is considered as the proper 
 business of that virtue which is commonly called Prudence. 
 
 We suffer more, it has already been observed, when we fall from a 
 better to a worse situation, than we ever enjoy when we rise from a 
 worse to a better. Security, therefore, is the first and the principal 
 object of prudence. It is averse to expose our health, our fortune, our 
 rank, or reputation, to any sort of hazard. It is rather cautious than 
 enterprising, and more anxious to preserve the advantages which we 
 already possess, than forward to prompt us to the acquisition of still 
 greater advantages. The methods of improving our fortune, which it 
 principally recommends to us, are those which expose to no loss or 
 hazard ; real knowledge and skill in our trade or profession, assiduity 
 and industry in the exercise of it, frugality, and even some degree of 
 parsimony, in all our expenses. 
 
 The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to under- 
 stand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade 
 other people that he understands it ; and though his talents may not 
 always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither 
 endeavours to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful 
 impostor, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant, nor by the 
 confident assertions of a superficial and impudent pretender. He is 
 not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His 
 conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the quackish 
 arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves into public 
 notice and reputation. For reputation in his profession he is naturally 
 disposed to rely a good deal upon the solidity of his knowledge and 
 abilities ; and he does not always think of cultivating the favour of 
 those little clubs and cabals, who, in the superior arts and sciences, so 
 often erect themselves into the supreme judges of merit ; and who 
 make it their business to celebrate the talents and virtues of one 
 another, and to decry whatever can come into competition with them. 
 If he ever connects himself with any society of this kind, it is merely 
 in self-defence, not with a view to impose upon the public, but to hin-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 189 
 
 der the public from being imposed upon, to his disadvantage, by the 
 clamours, the whispers, or the intrigues, either of that particular 
 society, or of some other of the same kind. 
 
 The prudent man is always sincere, and feels horror at the very 
 thought of exposing himself to the disgrace which attends upon the 
 detection of falsehood. But though always sincere, he is not always 
 frank and open ; and though he never tells any thing but the truth, he 
 does not always think himself bound, when not properly called upon, 
 to tell the whole truth. As he is cautious in his actions, so he is 
 reserved in his speech ; and never rashly or unnecessarily obtrudes 
 his opinion concerning either things or persons. 
 
 The prudent man, though not always distinguished by the most 
 exquisite sensibility, is always very capable of friendship. But his 
 friendship is not that ardent and passionate, but too often transitory 
 affection, which appears so delicious to the generosity of youth and 
 inexperience. It is a sedate, but steady and faithful attachment to a 
 few well-tried and well-chosen companions ; in the choice of whom he 
 is not guided by the giddy admiration of shining accomplishments, but 
 by the sober esteem of modesty, discretion, and good conduct. But 
 though capable of friendship, he is not always much disposed to 
 general sociality. He rarely frequents, and more rarely figures in 
 those convivial societies which are distinguished for the jollity and 
 gaiety of their conversation. Their way of life might too often interfere 
 with the regularity of his temperance, might interrupt the steadiness of 
 his industry, or break in upon the strictness of his frugality. 
 
 But though his conversation may not always be very sprightly or 
 diverting, it is always perfectly inoffensive. He hates the thought of 
 being guilty of any petulance or rudeness. He never assumes imper- 
 tinently over any body, and, upon all common occasions, is willing to 
 place himself rather below than above his equals. Both in his conduct 
 and conversation, he is an exact observer of decency, and respects with 
 an almost religious scrupulosity, all the established decorums and 
 ceremonials of society. And, in this respect, he sets a much better 
 example than has frequently been done by men of much more splendid 
 talents and virtues, who, in all ages, from that of Socrates and Aris- 
 tippus, down to that of Dr. Swift and Voltaire, and from that of Philip 
 and Alexander the Great, down to that of the great Czar Peter of 
 Muscovy, have too often distinguished themselves by the most im- 
 proper and even insolent contempt of all the ordinary decorums of life 
 and conversation, and who have thereby set the most pernicious exam- 
 ple to those who wish to resemble them, and who too often content 
 themselves with imitating their follies, without even attempting to 
 attain their perfections. 
 
 In the steadiness of his industry and frugality, in his steadily sacri- 
 ficing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the probable
 
 igo 
 
 THE PRUDENT MAN 15 SELDOM AMBITIOUS. 
 
 expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of a more distant 
 but more lasting period of time, the prudent man is always both sup- 
 ported and rewarded by the entire approbation of the impartial spec- 
 tator, and of the representative of the impartial spectator, the man 
 within the breast. The impartial spectator does not feel himself worn 
 out by the present labour of those whose conduct he surveys ; nor does 
 he feel himself solicited by the importunate calls of their present appe- 
 tites. To him their present, and what is likely to be their future, 
 situation, are very nearly the same : he sees them nearly at the same 
 distance, and is affected by them very nearly in the same manner. He 
 knows, however, that to the persons principally concerned, they are 
 very far from being the same, and that they naturally affect them in a 
 very different manner. He cannot therefore but approve, and even 
 applaud, that proper exertion of self-command, which enables them 
 to act as if their present and their future situation affected them nearly 
 in the same manner in which they affect him. 
 
 The man who lives within his income, is naturally contented with his 
 situation, which, by continual, though small accumulations, is growing 
 better and better every day. He is enabled gradually to relax, both in 
 the rigour of his parsimony and in the severity of his application ; and 
 he feels with double satisfaction this gradual increase of ease and 
 enjoyment, from having felt before the hardship which attended the 
 want of them. He has no anxiety to change so comfortable a situation 
 and does not go in quest of new enterprises and adventures, which 
 might endanger, but could not well increase the secure tranquillity 
 which he actually enjoys. If he enters into any new projects or enter- 
 prises, they are likely to be well concerted and well prepared. He can 
 never be hurried or driven into them by any necessity, but has always 
 time and leisure to deliberate soberly and coolly concerning what are 
 likely to be their consequences. 
 
 The prudent man is not willing to subject himself to any responsi- 
 bility which his duty does not impose upon him. He is not a bustler 
 in business where he has no concern ; is not a meddler in other people's 
 affairs ; is not a professed counsellor or adviser, who obtrudes his 
 advice where nobody is asking it. He confines himself, as much as 
 his duty will permit, to his own affairs, and has no taste for that foolish 
 importance which many people wish to derive from appearing to have 
 some influence in the management of those of other people. He is 
 averse to enter into any party disputes, hates faction, and is not always 
 very forward to listen to the voice even of noble and great ambition. 
 When distinctly called upon, he will not decline the service of his coun- 
 try, but he will not cabal in order to force himself into it, and would 
 be much better pleased that the public business were well managed by 
 some other person, than that he himself should have the trouble, and 
 incur the resposibility, of managing it. In the bottom of his heart he
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 191 
 
 would prefer the undisturbed enjoyment of secure tranquillity, not only 
 to all the vain splendour of successful ambition, but to the real and solid 
 glory of performing the greatest and most magnanimous actions. 
 
 Prudence, in short, when directed merely to the care of the health, 
 of the fortune, and the rank and reputation of the individual, though 
 it is regarded as a most respectable, and even in some degree, as an 
 amiable and agreeable quality, yet it never is consi dered as one, either 
 of the most endearing, or of the most ennobling of the virtues. It 
 commands a certain cold esteem, but does not seem entitled to any 
 very ardent love or admiration. 
 
 Wise and judicious conduct, when directed to greater and nobler 
 purposes than the care of the health, the fortune, the rank and reputa- 
 tion of the individual, is frequently and very properly called prudence. 
 We talk of the prudence of the great general, of the great statesman, 
 of the great legislator. Prudence is, in all these cases, combined with 
 many greater and more splendid virtues, with valour, with extensive 
 and strong benevolence, with a sacred regard to the rules of justice, 
 and all these supported by a proper degree of self-command. This 
 superior prudence, when carried to the highest degree of perfection, 
 necessarily supposes the art, the talent, and the habit or disposition of 
 acting with the most perfect propriety in every possible circumstance 
 and situation. It necessarily supposes the utmost perfection of all 
 the intellectual and of all the moral virtues. It is the best head joined 
 to the best heart. It is the most perfect wisdom combined with the 
 most perfect virtue. It constitutes very nearly the character of the 
 Academical or Peripatetic sage, as the superior prudence does that of 
 the Epicurean. 
 
 Mere imprudence, or the mere want of the capacity to take care of 
 one's-self, is, with the generous and humane, the object of compassion ; 
 with those of less delicate sentiments, of neglect, or, at worst, of con- 
 tempt, but never of hatred or indignation. When combined with other 
 vices, however, it aggravates in the highest degree the infamy and dis- 
 grace which would otherwise attend them. The artful knave, whose 
 dexterity and address exempt him, though not from strong suspicions, 
 yet from punishment or distinct detection, is too often received in the 
 world with an indulgence which he by no means deserves. The awk- 
 ward and foolish one, who, for want of this dexterity and address, is 
 convicted and brought to punishment, is the object of universal hatred, 
 contempt, and derision. In countries where great crimes frequently 
 pass unpunished, the most atrocious actions become almost familiar, 
 and cease to impress the people with that horror which is univer- 
 sally felt in countries where an exact administration of justice takes 
 place. The injustice is the same in both countries ; but the im- 
 prudence is often very different. In the latter, great crimes are evi- 
 dently great follies. In the former, they are not always considered as
 
 1 92 IMPRUDENCE AND VICE FORM THE VILEST OF CHARACTERS. 
 
 such. In Italy, during the greater part of the sixteenth century, assassi- 
 nations, murders, and even murders under trust, seem to have been 
 almost familiar among the superior ranks of people. Caesar Borgia 
 invited four of the little princes in his neighbourhood, who all possessed 
 little sovereignties, and commanded little armies of their own, to a 
 friendly conference at Senigaglia, where, as soon as they arrived, he put 
 them all to death. This infamous action, though certainly not ap- 
 proved of even in that age of crimes, seems to have contributed very 
 little to the discredit, and not in the least to the ruin of the perpetrator. 
 That ruin happened a few years after from causes altogether discon- 
 nected with this crime. Machiavel, not indeed a man of the nicest 
 morality even for his own times, was resident, as minister from the 
 republic of Florence, at the court of Csesar Borgia when this crime was 
 committed. He gives a very particular account of it, and in that pure, 
 elegant, and simple language which distinguishes all his writings. He 
 talks of it very coolly; is pleased with the address with which Csesar 
 Borgia conducted it ; has much contempt for the dupery and weakness 
 of the sufferers ; but no compassion for their miserable and untimely 
 death, and no sort of indignation at the cruelty and falsehood of their 
 murderer. The violence and injustice of great conquerors are often 
 regarded with foolish wonder and admiration ; those of petty thieves, 
 robbers, and murderers, with contempt, hatred, and even horror upon 
 all occasions. The former, though they are a hundred times more 
 mischievous and destructive, yet when successful, they often pass for 
 deeds of the most heroic magnanimity. The latter are always viewed 
 with hatred and aversion, as the follies, as well as the crimes, of the 
 lowest and most worthless of mankind. The injustice of the former is 
 certainly, at least, as great as that of the latter ; but the folly and 
 imprudence are not near so great. A wicked and worthless man of 
 parts often goes through the world with much more credit than he 
 deserves. A wicked and worthless fool appears always, of all mortals, 
 the most hateful, as well as the most contemptible. As prudence com- 
 bined with other virtues, constitutes the noblest ; so imprudence com- 
 bined with other vices, constitutes the vilest of all characters. 
 
 SECT. II. OF. THE CHARACTER OF THE INDIVIDUAL, so FAR AS IT 
 
 CAN AFFECT THE HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. The character of every individual, so far as it can 
 affect the happiness of other people, must do so by its disposition 
 either to hurt or to benefit them. 
 
 Proper resentment for injustice attempted, or actually committed, is 
 the only motive which, in the eyes of the impartial spectator, can justify 
 our hurting or disturbing in any respect the happiness of our neighbour.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 193 
 
 To do so from any other motive is itself a violation of the laws of 
 justice, which force ought to be employed either to restrain or to punish. 
 The wisdom of every state or commonwealth endeavours, as well as it 
 can, to employ the force of the society to restrain those who are subject 
 to its authority from hurting or disturbing the happiness of one another. 
 The rules which it establishes for this purpose, constitute the civil and 
 criminal law of each particular state or country. The principles upon 
 which those rules either are, or ought to be founded, are the subject of 
 a particular science, of all sciences by far the most important, but 
 hitherto, perhaps, the least cultivated, that of natural jurisprudence ; 
 concerning which it belongs not to our present subject to enter into any 
 detail. A sacred and religious regard not to hurt or disturb in any 
 respect the happiness of our neighbour, even in those cases where no 
 law can properly protect him, constitutes the character of the perfectly 
 innocent and just man ; a character which, when carried to a certain 
 delicacy of attention, is always highly respectable and even venerable 
 for its own sake, and can scarce ever fail to be accompanied with many 
 other virtues, with great feeling for other people, with great humanity 
 and great benevolence. It is a character sufficiently understood, and 
 requires no further explanation. ' In the present section I shall only 
 endeavour to explain the foundation of that order which nature seems 
 to have traced out for the distribution of our good offices, or for the 
 direction and employment of our very limited powers of beneficence : 
 first, towards individuals ; and secondly, towards societies. 
 
 The same unerring wisdom, it will be found, which regulates every 
 other part of her conduct, directs, in this respect too, the order of her 
 recommendations ; which are always stronger or weaker in proportion 
 as our beneficence is more or less necessary, or can be more or less 
 useful. 
 
 CHAP. I. Of the Order in 'which Individuals are recommended by 
 
 Nature to our Care and Attention. 
 
 EVERY man, as the Stoics used to say, is first and principally recom- 
 mended to his own care ; and every man is certainly, in every respect, 
 fitter and abler to take care of himself than of any other person. Every 
 man feels his own pleasures and his own pains more sensibly than those 
 of other people. The former are the original sensations ; the latter the 
 reflected or sympathetic images of those sensations. The former may 
 be said to be the substance ; the latter the shadow. 
 
 After himself, the members of his own family, those who usually live 
 in the same house with him, his parents, his children, his brothers and 
 sisters, are naturally the objects of his warmest affections. They are 
 naturally and usually the persons upon whose happiness or misery his 
 conduct must have the greatest influence. He is more habituated to
 
 IQ4 AFFECTION IS IN REALITY BUT HABITUAL SYMPATHY. 
 
 sympathize with them. He knows better how every thing is likely to 
 affect them, and his sympathy with them is more precise and determi- 
 nate, than it can be with the greater part of other people. It approaches 
 nearer, in short, to what he feels for himself. 
 
 This sympathy too, and the affections which are founded on it, are 
 by nature more strongly directed towards his children than towards his 
 parents, and his tenderness for the former seems generally a more active 
 principle, than his reverence and gratitude towards the latter. In the 
 natural state of things, it has already been observed, the existence of 
 the child, for some time after it comes into the world, depends alto- 
 gether upon the care of the parent ; that of the parent does not natu- 
 rally depend upon the care of the child. In the eye of nature, it would 
 seem, a child is a more important object than an old man ; and excites 
 a much more lively, as well as a much more universal sympathy. It 
 ought to do so. Every thing may be expected, or at least hoped, from 
 the child. In ordinary cases, very little can be either expected or hoped 
 from the old man. The weakness of childhood interests the affections 
 of the most brutal and hard-hearted. It is only to the virtuous and 
 humane, that the infirmities of old age are not the objects of contempt 
 and aversion. In ordinary cases, an old man dies without being much 
 regretted by any body. Scarce a child can die without rending asunder 
 the heart of somebody. 
 
 The earliest friendships, the friendships which are naturally con- 
 tracted when the heart is most susceptible of that feeling, are those 
 among brothers and sisters. Their good agreement, while they remain 
 in the same family, is necessary for its tranquillity and happiness. They 
 are capable of giving more pleasure or pain to one another than to the 
 greater part of other people. Their situation renders their mutual 
 sympathy of the utmost importance to their common happiness ; and, 
 by the wisdom of nature, the same situation, by obliging them to accom- 
 modate to one another, renders that sympathy more habitual, and 
 thereby more lively, more distinct, and more determinate. 
 
 The children of brothers and sisters are naturally connected by the 
 friendship which, after separating into different families, continues to 
 take place between their parents. Their good agreement improves the 
 enjoyment of that friendship; their discord would disturb it. As they 
 seldom live in the same family, however, though of more importance to 
 one another than to the greater part of other people, they are of much 
 less than brothers and sisters. As their mutual sympathy is less neces- 
 sary, so it is less habitual, and therefore proportionally weaker. 
 
 The children of cousins, being still less connected, are of still less 
 importance to one another ; and the affection gradually diminishes as 
 the relation grows more and more remote. 
 
 What is called affection, is in reality nothing but habitual sympathy. 
 Our concern in the happiness or misery of those who are the objects of
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS, 195 
 
 what we call our affections ; our desire to promote the one, and to pre- 
 vent the other ; are either the actual feeling of that habitual sympathy, 
 or the necessary consequences of that feeling. Relations being usually 
 placed in situations which naturally create this habitual sympathy, it is 
 expected that a suitable degree of affection should take place among 
 them. We generally find that it actually does take place ; we therefore 
 naturally expect that it should ; and we are, upon that account, more 
 shocked when, upon any occasion, we find that it does not. The 
 general rule is established, that persons related to one another in a 
 certain degree, ought always to be affected towards one another in a 
 certain manner, and that there is always the highest impropriety, and 
 sometimes even a sort of impiety, in their being affected in a different 
 manner. A parent without parental tenderness, a child devoid of all 
 filial reverence, appear monsters, the objects, not of hatred only, but of 
 horror to their neighbours. 
 
 Though in a particular instance, the circumstances which usually 
 produce those natural affections, as they are called, may, by some 
 accident, not have taken place, yet respect for the general rule will 
 frequently, in some measure, supply their place, and produce something 
 which, though not altogether the same, may bear, however, a very con- 
 siderable resemblance to those affections. A father is apt to be less 
 attached to a child, who, by some accident, has been separated from 
 him in its infancy, and who does not return to him till it is grown up to 
 manhood. The father is apt to feel less paternal tenderness for the 
 child; the child, less filial reverence for the father. Brothers and 
 sisters, when they have been educated in distant countries, are apt to 
 feel a similar diminution of affection. With the dutiful and the virtu- 
 ous, however, respect for the general rule will frequently produce some- 
 thing which, though by no means the same, yet may very much 
 resemble those natural affections. Even during the separation, the 
 father and the child, the brothers or the sisters, are by no means 
 indifferent to one another. They all consider one another as persons 
 to and from whom certain affections are due, and they live in the hopes 
 of being some time or another in a situation to enjoy that friendship 
 which ought naturally to have taken place among persons so nearly 
 connected. Till they meet, the absent son, the absent brother, are 
 frequently the favourite son, the favourite brother. They have never 
 offended, or, if they have, it is so long ago, that the offence is forgotten, 
 as some childish trick not worth the remembering. Every account they 
 have heard of one another, if conveyed by people of any tolerable good 
 nature, has been, in the highest degree, nattering and favourable. The 
 absent son, the absent brother, is not like other ordinary sons and 
 brothers ; but an all-perfect son, an all-perfect brother ; and the most 
 romantic hopes are entertained of the happiness to be enjoyed in the 
 friendship and conversation of such persons. When they meet, it is
 
 196 THE SUPERIOR ADVANTAGES OF HOME EDUCATION. 
 
 often with so strong a disposition to conceive that habitual sympathy 
 which constitutes the family affection, that they are very apt to fancy 
 they have actually conceived it, and to behave to one another as if they 
 had. Time and experience, however, I am afraid, too frequently unde- 
 ceive them. Upon a more familiar acquaintance, they frequently dis- 
 cover in one another habits, humours, and inclinations, different from 
 what they expected, to which, from want of habitual sympathy, from 
 want of the real principle and foundation of what is properly called 
 family-affection, they cannot now easily accommodate themselves. 
 They have never lived in the situation which almost necessarily forces 
 that easy accommodation, and though they may now be sincerely 
 desirous to assume it, they have really become incapable of doing so. 
 Their familiar conversation and intercourse soon become less pleasing 
 to them, and, upon that account, less frequent. They may continue to 
 live with one another in the mutual exchange of all essential good 
 offices, and with every other external appearance of decent regard. 
 But that cordial satisfaction, that delicious sympathy, that confidential 
 openness and ease, which naturally take place in the conversation of 
 those who have lived long and familiarly with one another, it seldom 
 happens that they can completely enjoy. 
 
 It is only, however, with the dutiful and the virtuous, that the gene- 
 ral rule has even this slender authority. With the dissipated, the 
 profligate, and the vain, it is entirely disregarded. They are so far 
 from respecting it, that they seldom talk of it but with the most inde- 
 cent derision ; and an early and long separation of this kind never 
 fails to estrange them most completely from one another. With such 
 persons, respect for the general rule can at best produce only a cold 
 and affected civility (a very slender semblance of real regard) ; and 
 even this, the slightest offence, the smallest opposition of interest, 
 commonly puts an end to altogether. 
 
 The education of boys at distant great schools, of young men at dis- 
 tant colleges, of young ladies in distant nunneries and boarding- 
 schools, seems, in the higher ranks of life, to have hurt most essen- 
 tially the domestic morals, and consequently the domestic happiness, 
 both of France and England. Do you wish to educate your children 
 to be dutiful to their parents, to be kind and affectionate to their 
 brothers and sisters? put them under the necessity of being dutiful 
 children, of being kind and affectionate brothers and sisters : educate 
 them in your own house. From their parent's house, they may, with 
 propriety and advantage, go out every day to attend public schools : 
 but let their dwelling be always at home. Respect for you must always 
 impose a very useful restraint upon their conduct; and respect for 
 them may frequently impose no useless restraint upon your own. 
 Surely no acquirement, which can possibly be derived from what is 
 called a public education, can make any sort of compensation for what
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 197 
 
 is almost certainly and necessarily lost by it. Domestic education is 
 the institution of nature ; public education, the contrivance of man. 
 It is surely unnecessary to say, which is likely to be the wisest. 
 
 In some tragedies and romances, we meet with many beautiful and 
 interesting scenes, founded upon what is called, the force of blood, or 
 upon the wonderful affection which near relations are supposed to con- 
 ceive for one another, even before they know that they have any such 
 connection. This force of blood, however, I am afraid, exists no where 
 but in tragedies and romances. Even in tragedies and romances, it is 
 never supposed to take place between any relations, but those who are 
 naturally bred up in the same house ; between parents and children, 
 between brothers and sisters. To imagine any such mysterious affec- 
 tion between cousins, or even between aunts or uncles, and nephews or 
 nieces, would be too ridiculous. 
 
 In pastoral countries, and in all countries where the authority of law 
 is not alone sufficient to give perfect security to every member of the 
 state, all the different branches of the same family commonly choose 
 to live in the neighbourhood of one another. Their association is fre- 
 quently necessary for their common defence. They are all, from the 
 highest to the lowest, of more or less importance to one another. 
 Their concord strengthens their necessary association: their discord 
 always weakens, and might destroy it. They have more intercourse 
 with one another, than with the members of any other tribe. The 
 remotest members of the same tribe claim some connection with one 
 another ; and, where all other circumstances are equal, expect to be 
 treated with more distinguished attention than is due to those who 
 have no such pretensions. It is not many years ago that, in the High- 
 lands of Scotland, the chieftain used to consider the poorest man of his 
 clan, as his cousin and relation. The same extensive regard to kindred 
 is said to take place among the Tartars, the Arabs, the Turkomans, 
 and, I believe, among all other nations who are nearly in the same 
 state of society in which the Scots Highlanders were about the begin- 
 ning of the present century. 
 
 In commercial countries, where the authority of law is always per- 
 fectly sufficient to protect the meanest man in the state, the descend- 
 ants of the same family, having no such motive for keeping together, 
 naturally separate and disperse, as interest or inclination may direct. 
 They soon cease to be of importance to one another ; and, in a few 
 generations, not only lose all care about one another, but all remembrance 
 of their common origin, and of the connection which took place among 
 their ancestors. Regard for remote relations becomes, in every coun- 
 try, less and less, according as this state of civilization has been longer 
 and more completely established. It has been longer and more com- 
 pletely established in England than in Scotland ; and remote relations 
 are, accordingly, more considered in the latter country than in the
 
 198 THE SMALL GOOD OFFICES OF NEIGHBOURHOOD. 
 
 former, though, in this respect, the difference between the two 
 countries is growing less and less every day. Great lords, indeed, 
 are, in every country, proud of remembering and acknowledging their 
 connection with one another, however remote. The remembrance of 
 such illustrious relations flatters not a little the family pride of them 
 all ; and it is neither from affection, nor from any thing which resembles 
 affection, but from the most frivolous and childish of all vanities, that 
 this remembrance is so carefully kept up. Should some more humble, 
 though, perhaps, much nearer kinsman, presume to put such great men 
 in mind of his relation to their family, they seldom fail to tell him that 
 they are bad genealogists, and- miserably ill-informed concerning their 
 own family history. It is not in that order that we are to expect any 
 extraordinary extension of, what is called, natural affection. 
 
 I consider what is called natural affection as more the effect of the 
 moral than of the supposed physical connection between the parent 
 and the child. A jealous husband, indeed, notwithstanding the moral 
 connection, notwithstanding the child's having been educated in his 
 own house, often regards, with hatred and aversion, that unhappy child 
 which he supposes to be the offspring of his wife's infidelity. It is the 
 lasting monument of a most disagreeable adventure ; of his own dis- 
 honour, and of the disgrace of his family. 
 
 Among well-disposed people, the necessity or conveniency of mutual 
 accommodation, very frequently produces a friendship not unlike that 
 which takes place among those who are born to live in the same 
 family. Colleagues in office, partners in trade, call one another bro- 
 thers ; and frequently feel towards one another as if they really were 
 so. Their good agreement is an advantage to all ; and, if they are 
 tolerably reasonable people, they are naturally disposed to agree. We 
 expect that they should do so ; and their disagreement is a sort of a 
 small scandal. The Romans expressed this sort of attachment by the 
 word necessitudo, which, from the etymology, seems to denote that it 
 was imposed by the necessity of the situation. 
 
 Even the trifling circumstance of living in the same neighbourhood, 
 has some effect of the same kind. We respect the face of a man whom 
 we see every day, provided he has never offended us. Neighbours can 
 be very convenient, and they can be very troublesome, to one another. 
 If they are good sort of people, they are naturally disposed to agree. 
 We expect their good agreement ; and to be a bad neighbour is a very 
 bad character. There are certain small good offices, accordingly, which 
 are universally allowed to be due to a neighbour in preference to any 
 other person who has no such connection. 
 
 This natural disposition to accommodate and to assimilate, as much 
 as we can, our own sentiments, principles, and feelings,, to those which 
 we see fixed and rooted in the persons whom we are obliged to live and 
 converse a great deal with, is the cause of the contagious effects of both
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 199 
 
 good and bad company. The man who associates chiefly with the 
 wise and the virtuous, though he may not himself become either wise 
 or virtuous, cannot help conceiving a certain respect at least for wisdom 
 and virtue ; and the man who associates chiefly with the profligate and 
 the dissolute, though he may not himself become profligate and disso- 
 lute, must soon lose, at least, all his original abhorrence of profligacy 
 and dissolution of manners. The similarity of family characters, which 
 we so frequently see transmitted through several successive generations, 
 may, perhaps, be partly owing to this disposition to assimilate ourselves 
 to those whom we are obliged to live and converse a great deal with. 
 The family character, however, like the family countenance, seems to 
 be owing, not altogether to the moral, but partly too to the physical 
 connection. The family countenance is certainly altogether owing to 
 the latter. 
 
 But of all attachments to an individual, that which is founded alto- 
 gether upon esteem and approbation of his good conduct and behaviour, 
 confirmed by much experience and long acquaintance, is, by far, the 
 most respectable. Such friendships, arising not from a constrained 
 sympathy, not from a sympathy which has been assumed and rendered 
 habitual for the sake of convenience and accommodation ; but from a 
 natural sympathy, from an involuntary feeling that the persons to whom 
 we attach ourselves are the natural and proper objects of esteem and 
 approbation ; can exist only among men of virtue. Men of virtue only 
 can feel that entire confidence in the conduct and behaviour of one 
 another, which can, at all times, assure them that they can never either 
 offend or be offended by one another. Vice is always capricious : 
 virtue only is regular and orderly. The attachment which is founded 
 upon the love of virtue, as it is certainly, of all attachments, the most 
 virtuous ; so it is likewise the happiest, as well as the most permanent 
 and secure. Such friendships need not be confined to a single person, 
 but may safely embrace all the wise and virtuous, with whom we have 
 been long and intimately acquainted, and upon whose wisdom and 
 virtue we can, upon that account, entirely depend. They who would 
 confine friendship to two persons, seem to confound the wise security of 
 friendship with the jealousy and folly of love. The hasty, fond, and 
 foolish intimacies of young people, founded, commonly, upon some 
 slight similarity of character, altogether unconnected with good conduct, 
 upon a taste, perhaps, for the same studies, the same amusements, the 
 same diversions, or upon their agreement in some singular principle or 
 opinion, not commonly adopted ; those intimacies which a freak be- 
 gins, and which a freak puts an end to, how agreeable soever they may 
 appear while they last, can by no means deserve the sacred and the 
 venerable name of friendship. 
 
 Of all the persons, however, whom nature points out for our peculiar 
 beneficence, there are none to whom it seems more properly directed
 
 200 MORALISTS EXHORT US TO CHARITY AND COMPASSION. 
 
 than to those whose beneficence we have ourselves already experienced. 
 Nature, which formed men for that mutual kindness so necessary for 
 their happiness, renders every man the peculiar object of kindness to 
 the persons to whom he himself has been kind. Though their gratitude 
 should not always correspond to his beneficence, yet the sense of his 
 merit, the sympathetic gratitude of the impartial spectator, will always 
 correspond to it. The general indignation of other people against the 
 baseness of their ingratitude will even, sometimes, increase the general 
 sense of his merit. No benevolent man ever lost altogether the fruits of 
 his benevolence. If he does not always gather them from the persons 
 from whom he ought to have gathered them, he seldom fails to gather 
 them, and with a tenfold increase, from other people. Kindness is the 
 parent of kindness ; and if to be beloved by our brethren be the great 
 object of our ambition, the surest way of obtaining it is, by our con- 
 duct to show that we really love them. 
 
 After the persons who are recommended to our beneficence, either 
 their connection with ourselves, by their personal qualities, or by their 
 past services, come those who are pointed out, not indeed to, what is 
 called, our friendship, but to our benevolent attention and good offices ; 
 those who are distinguished by their extraordinary situation ; the 
 greatly fortunate and the greatly unfortunate, the rich and the powerful, 
 the poor and the wretched. The distinction of ranks, the peace and 
 order of society, are, in a great measure, founded upon the respect 
 which we naturally conceive for the former. The relief and consola- 
 tion of human misery depend altogether upon our compassion for the 
 latter. The peace and order of society, is of more importance than 
 even the relief of the miserable. Our respect for the great, accordingly, 
 is most apt to offend by its excess ; our fellow-feeling for the miserable, 
 by its defect. Moralists exhort us to charity and compassion. They 
 warn us against the fascination of greatness. This fascination, indeed, 
 is so powerful, that the rich and the great are too often preferred to the 
 wise and the virtuous. Nature has wisely judged that the distinction of 
 ranks, the peace and order of society, would rest more securely upon 
 the plain and palpable difference of birth and fortune, than upon the 
 invisible and often uncertain difference of wisdom and virtue. The 
 undistinguishing eyes of the great mob of mankind can well enough 
 perceive the former : it is with difficulty that the nice discernment of 
 the wise and the virtuous can sometimes distinguish the latter. In the 
 order of all those recommendations to virtue, the benevolent wisdom 
 of nature is equally evident. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be unnecessary to observe, that the combination of 
 two or more of those exciting causes of kindness, increases the kind- 
 ness. The favour and partiality which, when there is no envy in the 
 case, we naturally bear to greatness, are much increased when it is 
 joined with wisdom and virtue. If, notwithstanding that wisdom and
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 201 
 
 virtue, the great man should fall into those misfortunes, those dangers 
 and distresses, to which the most exalted stations are often the most 
 exposed, we are much more deeply interested in his fortune than we 
 should be in that of a person equally virtuous, but in a more humble 
 situation. The most interesting subjects of tragedies and romances 
 are the misfortunes of virtuous and magnanimous kings and princes. 
 If, by the wisdom and manhood of their exertions, they should extri- 
 cate themselves from those misfortunes, and recover completely their 
 former superiority and security, we cannot help viewing them with the 
 most enthusiastic and even extravagant admiration. The grief which 
 we felt for their distress, the joy which we feel for their prosperity, seem 
 to combine together in enhancing that partial admiration which we 
 naturally conceive both for the station and the character. 
 
 When those different beneficent affections happen to draw different 
 ways, to determine by any precise rules in what cases we ought to com- 
 ply with the one, and in what with the other, is, perhaps, altogether im- 
 possible. In what cases friendship ought to yield to gratitude, or 
 gratitude to friendship ; in what cases the strongest of all natural affec- 
 tions ought to yield to a regard for the safety of those superiors upon 
 whose safety often depends that of the whole society ; and in what 
 cases natural affection may, without impropriety, prevail over that 
 regard ; must be left altogether to the decision of the man within the 
 breast, the supposed impartial spectator, the great judge and arbiter of 
 our conduct. If we place ourselves completely in his situation, if we 
 really view ourselves with his eyes, and as he views us, and listen with 
 diligent and reverential attention to what he suggests to us, his voice 
 will never deceive us. We shall stand in need of no casuistic rules to 
 direct our conduct. These it is often impossible to accommodate to 
 all the different shades and gradations of circumstance, character, and 
 situation, to differences and distinctions which, though not impercepti- 
 ble, are, by their nicety and delicacy, often altogether undefinable. In 
 that beautiful tragedy of Voltaire, the Orphan of China, while we ad- 
 mire the magnanimity of Zamti, who is willing to sacrifice the life of 
 his own child, in order to preserve that of the only feeble remnant of 
 his ancient sovereigns and masters ; we not only pardon, but love the 
 maternal tenderness of Idame, who, at the risk of discovering the im- 
 portant secret of her husband, reclaims her infant from the cruel hands 
 , of the Tartars, into which it had been delivered. 
 
 CHAP. II. Of the Order in ivhich Societies are by Nature recommended 
 to our Beneficence. 
 
 THE same principles that direct the order in which individuals are 
 recommended to our beneficence, direct that likewise in which societies
 
 202 THE VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. INFAMY OF TREASON. 
 
 are recommended to it. Those to which it is, or may be of most 
 importance, are first and principally recommended to it. 
 
 The state or sovereignty in which we have been born and educated, 
 and under the protection of which we continue to live, is, in ordinary 
 cases, the greatest society upon whose happiness or misery our good 
 or bad conduct can have much influence. It is accordingly, by nature, 
 most strongly recommended to us. Not only we ourselves, but all the 
 objects of our kindest affections, our children, our parents, our rela- 
 tions, our friends, our benefactors, all those whom we naturally love 
 and revere the most, are commonly comprehended within it ; and their 
 prosperity and safety depend in some measure upon its prosperity and 
 safety. It is by nature, therefore, endeared to us, not only by all our 
 selfish, but by all our private benevolent affections. Upon account of 
 our own connexion with it, its prosperity and glory seem to reflect some 
 sort of honour upon ourselves. When we compare it with other socie- 
 ties of the same kind, we are proud of its superiority, and mortified in 
 some degree if it appears in any respect below them. All the illustri- 
 ous characters which it has produced in former times (for against those 
 of our own times envy may sometimes prejudice us a little), its warriors 
 its statesmen, its poets, its philosophers, and men of letters of all kinds ; 
 we are disposed to view with the most partial admiration, and to rank 
 them (sometimes most unjustly) above those of all other nations. The 
 patriot who lays down his life for the safety, or even for the vain-glory 
 of this society, appears to act with the most exact propriety. He 
 appears to view himself in the light in which the impartial spectator 
 naturally and necessarily views him, as but one of the multitude, in the 
 eye of that equitable judge, of no more consequence than any other in 
 it, but bound at all times to sacrifice and devote himself to the safety, 
 to the service, and even to the- glory of the greater number. But 
 though this sacrifice appears to be perfectly just and proper, we know 
 how difficult it is to make it, and how few people are capable of making it. 
 His conduct, therefore, excites not only our entire approbation, but our 
 highest wonder and admiration, and seems to merit all the applause 
 which can be due to the most heroic virtue. The traitor, on the con- 
 trary, who, in some peculiar situation, fancies he can promote his own 
 little interest by betraying to the public enemy that of his native 
 country ; who, regardless of the judgment of the man within the 
 breast, prefers himself, in this respect so shamefully and so basely, to 
 all those with whom he has any connexion ; appears to be of all villains 
 the most detestable. 
 
 The love of our own nation often disposes us to view, with the most 
 malignant jealousy and envy, the prosperity and aggrandisement of 
 any other neighbouring nation. Independent and neighbouring nations, 
 having no common superior to decide their disputes, all live in con- 
 tinual dread and suspicion of one another. Each sovereign, expecting
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 203 
 
 little justice from his neighbours, is disposed to treat them with as little 
 as he expects from them. The regard for the laws of nations, or for 
 those rules which independent states profess or pretend to think them- 
 selves bound to observe in their dealings with one another, is often very 
 little more than mere pretence and profession. From the smallest 
 interest, upon the slightest provocation, we see those rules every day, 
 either evaded or directly violated without shame or remorse. Each 
 nation foresees, or imagines it foresees, its own subjugation in the 
 increasing power and aggrandisement of any of its neighbours ; and 
 the mean principle of national prejudice is often founded upon the 
 noble one of the love of our own country. The sentence with which 
 the elder Cato is said to have concluded every speech which he made 
 in the senate, whatever might be the subject, ' // is my opinion like- 
 ' wise that 'Carthage ought to be destroyed] was the natural expres- 
 sion of the savage patriotism of a strong but coarse mind, enraged 
 almost to madness against a foreign nation from which his own had 
 suffered so much. The more humane sentence with which Scipio 
 Nasica is said to have concluded all his speeches, '// is my opinion like- 
 ' wise that Carthage ought not to be destroyed,' was the liberal expres- 
 sion of a more enlarged and enlightened mind, who felt no aversion to 
 the prosperity even of an old enemy, when reduced to a state which 
 could no longer be formidable to Rome. France and England may 
 each of them have some reason to dread the increase of the naval and 
 military power of the other ; but for either of them to envy the internal 
 happiness and prosperity of the other, the cultivation of its lands, the 
 advancement of its manufactures, the increase of its commerce, the 
 security and number of its ports and harbours, its proficiency in all the 
 liberal arts and sciences, is surely beneath the dignity of two such 
 great nations. These are all real improvements of the world we live 
 in. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In 
 such improvements each nation ought, not only to endeavour itself to 
 excel, but from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of obstructing 
 the excellence of its neighbours. These are all proper objects of 
 national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy. 
 
 The love of our own country seems not to be derived from the love 
 of mankind. The former sentiment is altogether independent of the 
 latter, and seems sometimes even to dispose us to act inconsistently 
 with it. France may contain, perhaps, near three times the number of 
 inhabitants which Great Britain contains. In the great society of man- 
 kind, therefore, the prosperity of France should appear to i>e an object 
 of much greater importance than that of Great Britain. The British 
 subject, however, who, upon that account, should prefer upon all 
 occasions the prosperity of the former to that of the latter country, 
 would not be thought a good citizen of Great Britain. We do not love 
 our country merely as a part of the great society of mankind : we love 
 
 14 *
 
 2O4 THE BALANCE OF POWER IN EUROPE. 
 
 it for its own sake, and independently of any such consideration. 
 That wisdom which contrived the system of human affections, as well 
 as that of every other part of nature, seems to have judged that the 
 interest of the great society of mankind would be best promoted by 
 directing the principal attention of each individual to that particular 
 portion of it, which was most within the sphere both of his abilities and 
 of his understanding. 
 
 National prejudices and hatreds seldom extend beyond neighbouring 
 nations. We very weakly and foolishly, perhaps, call the French our 
 natural enemies ; and they perhaps, as weakly and foolishly, consider 
 us in the same manner. Neither they nor we bear any sort of envy to 
 the prosperity of China or Japan. It very rarely happens, however, 
 that our good-will towards such distant countries can be. exerted with 
 much effect. 
 
 The most extensive public benevolence which can commonly be ex- 
 erted with any considerable effect, is that of the statesmen, who project 
 and form alliances among neighbouring or not very distant nations, for 
 the preservation either of, what is called, the balance of power, or of 
 the general peace and tranquillity of the states within the circle of 
 their negotiations. The statesmen, however, who plan and execute 
 such treaties, have seldom anything in view, but the interest of their 
 respective countries. Sometimes, indeed, their views are more exten- 
 sive. The Count d'Avaux, the plenipotentiary of France, at the treaty 
 of Munster, would have been willing to sacrifice his life (according to 
 the Cardinal de Retz, a man not over-credulous in the virtue of other 
 people) in order to have restored, by that treaty, the general tranquillity 
 of Europe. King William seems to have had a zeal for the liberty and 
 independency of the greater part of the sovereign states of Europe ; 
 which, perhaps, might be a good deal stimulated by his particular aver- 
 sion to France, the state from which, during his time, that liberty and 
 independency were principally in danger. Some share of the same spirit 
 seems to have descended to the first ministry of Queen Anne. 
 
 Every independent state is divided into many different orders and 
 societies, each of which has its own particular powers, privileges, and 
 immunities. Every individual is naturally more attached to his own 
 particular order or society, than to any other. His own interest, his 
 own vanity, the interest and vanity of many of his friends and com- 
 panions, are commonly a good deal connected with it.' He is ambitious 
 to extend its privileges and immunities. He is zealous to defend them 
 against the encroachments of every other order of society. 
 
 Upon the manner in which any state is divided into the different 
 orders and societies which compose it, and upon the particular distri- 
 bution which has been made of their respective powers, privileges, and 
 immunities, depends, what is called, the constitution of that particular 
 state.
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 205 
 
 Upon the ability of each particular order or society to maintain its 
 own powers, privileges, and immunities, against the encroachments of 
 every other, depends the stability of that particular constitution. That 
 particular constitution is necessarily more or less altered, whenever 
 any of its subordinate parts is either raised above or depressed below 
 whatever had been its former rank and condition. 
 
 All those different orders and societies are dependent upon the state 
 to which they owe their security and protection. That they are all 
 subordinate to that state, and established only in subserviency to its 
 prosperity and preservation, is a truth acknowledged by the most par- 
 tial member of every one of them. It may often, however, be hard to 
 convince him that the prosperity and preservation of the state requires 
 any diminution of the powers, privileges, and immunities of his own 
 particular order of society. This partiality, though it may sometimes 
 be unjust, may not, upon that account, be useless. It checks the spirit 
 of innovation. It tends to preserve whatever is the established balance 
 among the different orders and societies into which the state is divided ; 
 and while it sometimes appears to obstruct some alterations of govern- 
 ment which may be fashionable and popular at the time, it contributes 
 in reality to the stability and permanency of the whole system. 
 
 The love of our country seems, in ordinary cases, to involve in it two 
 different principles ; first, a certain respect and reverence for that con- 
 stitution or form of government which is actually established ; and 
 secondly, an earnest desire to render the condition of our fellow- 
 citizens as safe, respectable, and happy as we can. He is not a citizen 
 who is not disposed to respect the laws and to obey the civil magis- 
 trate ; and he is certainly not a good citizen who does not wish to pro- 
 mote, by every means in his power, the welfare of the whole society of 
 his fellow citizens. 
 
 In peaceable and quiet times, those two principles generally coin- 
 cide and lead to the same conduct. The support of the established 
 government seems evidently the best expedient for maintaining the 
 safe, respectable, and happy situation of our fellow-citizens ; when we 
 see that this government actually maintains them in that situation. 
 But in times of public discontent, faction, and disorder, those two dif- 
 ferent principles may draw different ways, and even a wise man may 
 be disposed to think some alteration necessary in that constitution or 
 form of government, which, in its actual condition, appears plainly 
 unable to maintain the public tranquillity. In such cases, however, it 
 often requires, perhaps, the highest effort of political wisdom to deter- 
 mine when a real patriot ought to support and endeavour to re-establish 
 the authority of the old system, and when we ought to give way to the 
 more daring, but often dangerous, spirit of innovation. 
 
 Foreign war and civil faction are the two situations which afford the 
 most splendid opportunities for the display of public spirit. The hero
 
 206 THE PERILS PARTY LEADERS ARE EXPOSED TO. 
 
 who serves his country successfully in foreign war gratifies the wishes 
 of the whole nation, and is, upon that account, the object of universal 
 gratitude and admiration. In times of civil discord, the leaders of the 
 contending parties, though they may be admired by one half of their 
 fellow-citizens, are commonly execrated by the other. Their characters 
 and the merit of their respective services appear commonly more 
 doubtful. The glory which is acquired by foreign war is, upon this 
 account, almost always more pure and more splendid than that which 
 can be acquired in civil faction. 
 
 The leader of the successful party, however, if he has authority 
 enough to prevail upon his own friends to act with proper temper and 
 moderation (which he frequently has not), may sometimes render to his 
 country a service much more essential and important than the greatest 
 victories and the most extensive conquests. He may re-establish and 
 improve the constitution, and from the very doubtful and ambi- 
 guous character of the leader of a party, he may assume the greatest 
 and noblest of all characters, that of the reformer and legislator of a 
 great state ; and, by the wisdom of his institutions, secure the internal 
 tranquillity and happiness of his fellow-citizens for many succeeding 
 generations. 
 
 Amidst the turbulence and disorder of faction, a certain spirit of sys- 
 tem is apt to mix itself with that public spirit which is founded upon 
 the love of humanity, upon a real fellow-feeling with the inconveniencies 
 and distresses to which some of our fellow-citizens may be exposed. 
 This spirit of system commonly takes the direction of that more gentle 
 public spirit, always animates it, and often inflames it even to the 
 madness of fanaticism. The leaders of the discontented party seldom 
 fail to hold out some plausible plan of reformation which, they pretend, 
 will not only remove the inconveniencies and relieve the distresses im- 
 mediately complained of, but will prevent, in all time coming, any 
 return of the like inconveniencies and distresses. They often propose, 
 upon this account, to new model the constitution, and to alter, in some 
 of its most essential parts, that system of government under which the 
 subjects of a great empire have enjoyed, perhaps, peace, security, and 
 even glory, during the course of several centuries together. The great 
 body of the party are commonly intoxicated with the imaginary beauty 
 of this ideal system, of which they have no experience, but which has 
 been represented to them in all the most dazzling colours in which the 
 eloquence of their leaders could paint it. Those leaders themselves, 
 though they originally may have meant nothing but their own aggran- 
 disement, become many of them in time the dupes of their own sophis- 
 try, and are as eager for this great reformation as the weakest and 
 most foolish of their followers. Even though the leaders should have 
 preserved their own heads, as indeed they commonly do, free from this 
 fanaticism, yet they dare not always disappoint the expectation of their
 
 SMITH S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 207 
 
 followers ; bnt are often obliged, though contrary to their principle and 
 their conscience, to act as if they were under the common delusion. 
 The violence of the party, refusing all palliatives, all temperaments, all 
 reasonable accommodations, by requiring too much frequently obtains 
 nothing ; and those inconvenienci^s and distresses which, with a little 
 moderation, might in a great measure have been removed and relieved, 
 are left altogether without the hope of a remedy. 
 
 The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity 
 and benevolence, will respect the established powers and privileges 
 even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and 
 societies, into which the state is divided. Though he should consider 
 some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with 
 moderating what he often cannot annihilate without great violence. 
 When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason 
 and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force ; but will 
 religiously observe what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim 
 of Plato, never to use violence to his country no more than to his 
 parents. He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrange- 
 ments to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people ; and will 
 remedy, as well as he can, the inconveniencies which may flow from 
 the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. 
 When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate 
 the wrong ; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system 
 of laws, he will try to establish the best that the people can bear. 
 
 The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own 
 conceit : and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his 
 own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest devia- 
 tion from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in 
 all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the 
 strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he 
 can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease 
 as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does 
 not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other prin- 
 ciple of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them ; but 
 that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has 
 a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which 
 the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two principles 
 coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will 
 go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and 
 successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on 
 miserably, and human society must be at all times in the highest 
 degree of disorder. 
 
 Some general, and even systematical, idea of the perfection of policy 
 and law, may no doubt be necessary for directing the views of the 
 statesman. But to insist upon establishing, and upon establishing all
 
 208 PRINCES THE MOST DANGEROUS OF POLITICAL SPECULATORS. 
 
 at once, and in spite of all opposition, every thing which that idea may 
 seem to require, must often be the highest degree of arrogance. It is 
 to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and 
 wrong. It is to fancy himself the only wise and worthy man in the 
 commonwealth, and that his fellow-citizens should accommodate them- 
 selves to him and not he to them. 'It is upon this account, that of all 
 political speculators, sovereign princes are by far the most dangerous. 
 This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them. They entertain no doubt 
 of the immense superiority of their own judgment. When such im- 
 perial and royal reformers, therefore, condescend to contemplate the 
 constitution of the country which is committed to their government, 
 they seldom see any thing so wrong in it as the obstructions which it 
 may sometimes oppose to the execution of their own will. They hold 
 in contempt the divine maxim of Plato, and consider the state as made 
 for themselves, not themselves for the state. The great object of their 
 reformation, therefore, is to remove those obstructions ; to reduce the 
 authority of the nobility ; to take away the privileges of cities and pro- 
 vinces, and to render both the greatest individuals and the greatest 
 orders of the state, as incapable of opposing their commands, as the 
 weakest and most insignificant. 
 
 CHAP. III. Of Universal Benevolence. 
 
 THOUGH our effectual good offices can very seldom be extended to any 
 wider society than that of our country ; our good-will is circumscribed 
 by no boundary, but may embrace the immensity of the universe. We 
 cannot form the idea of any innocent and sensible being, whose happi- 
 ness we should not desire, or to whose misery, when distinctly brought 
 home to the imagination, we should not have some degree of aversion. 
 The idea of a mischievous, though sensible, being, indeed, naturally 
 provokes our hatred : but the ill-will which, in this case, we bear to it, 
 is really the effect of our universal benevolence. It is the effect of the 
 sympathy which we feel with the misery and resentment of those other 
 innocent and sensible beings, whose happiness is disturbed by its 
 malice. 
 
 This universal benevolence, how noble and generous soever, can be 
 the source of no solid happiness to any man who is not thoroughly con- 
 vinced that all the inhabitants of the universe, the meanest as well as 
 the greatest, are under the immediate care and protection of that great, 
 benevolent, and all-wise Being, who directs all the movements of nature ; 
 and who is determined, by his own unalterable perfections, to maintain 
 in it, at all times, the greatest possible quantity of happiness. To this 
 universal benevolence, on the contrary, the very suspicion of a father- 
 less world, must be the most melancholy of all reflections ; from the
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 209 
 
 thought that all the unknown regions of infinite and incomprehensible 
 space may be filled with nothing but endless misery and wretchedness. 
 All the splendour of the highest prosperity can never enlighten the 
 gloom with which so dreadful an idea must necessarily overshadow the 
 imagination ; nor, in a wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the 
 most afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs 
 from the habitual and thorough conviction of the truth of the contrary 
 system. 
 
 The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private 
 interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular 
 order or society. He is at all times willing, too, that the interest of this 
 order or society should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the state 
 or sovereignty, of which it is only a subordinate part. He should, 
 therefore, be equally willing that all those inferior interests should be 
 sacrificed to the greater interest of the universe, to the interest of that 
 great society of all sensible and intelligent beings, of which God him- 
 self is the immediate administrator and director. If he is deeply 
 impressed with the habitual and thorough conviction that this bene- 
 volent and all-wise Being can admit into the system of his government, 
 no partial evil which is not necessary for the universal good, he must 
 consider all the misfortunes which may befal himself, his friends, his 
 society, or his country, as necessary for the prosperity of the universe, 
 and therefore as what he ought, not only to submit to with resignation, 
 but as what he himself, if he had known all the connexions and depend- 
 encies of things, ought sincerely and devoutly to have wished for. 
 
 Nor does this magnanimous resignation to the will of the great 
 Director of the universe, seem in any respect beyond the reach of 
 human nature. Good soldiers, who both love and trust their general, 
 frequently march with more gaiety and alacrity to the forlorn station, 
 from which they never expect to return, than they would to one where 
 there was neither difficulty nor danger. In marching to the latter, they 
 could feel no other sentiment than that of the dulness of ordinary duty ; 
 in marching to the former, they feel that they are making the noblest 
 exertion which it is possible for man to make. They know that their 
 general would not have ordered them upon this station, had it not been 
 necessary for the safety of the army, for the success of the war. They 
 cheerfully sacrifice their own little systems to the prosperity of a greater 
 system. They take an affectionate leave of their comrades, to whom 
 they wish all happiness and success ; and march out, not only with 
 submissive obedience, but often with shouts of the most joyful exulta- 
 tion, to that fatal, but splendid and honourable station to which they 
 are appointed. No conductor of an army can deserve more unlimited 
 trust, more ardent and zealous affection, than the great Conductor of 
 the universe. In the greatest public as well as private disasters, a wise 
 man ought to consider that he himself, his friends and countrymen,
 
 210 THE PHILOSOPHER MAY NOT NEGLECT SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 have only been ordered upon the forlorn station of the universe ; that 
 had it not been necessary for the good of the whole, they would not 
 have been so ordered ; and that it is their duty, not only with humble 
 resignation to submit to this allotment, but to endeavour to embrace it 
 with alacrity and joy. A wise man should surely be capable of doing 
 what a good soldier holds himself at all times in readiness to do. 
 
 The idea of that divine Being, whose benevolence and wisdom have, 
 from all eternity, contrived and conducted the immense machine of the 
 universe, so as at all times to produce the greatest possible quantity of 
 happiness, is certainly of all the objects of human contemplation by far 
 the most sublime. Every other thought necessarily appears mean in 
 the comparison. The man whom we believe to be principally occupied 
 in this sublime contemplation, seldom fails to be the object of our 
 highest veneration ; and though his life should be altogether contempla- 
 tive, we often regard him with a sort of religious respect much superior 
 to that with which we look upon the most active and useful servant of 
 the commonwealth. The Meditations of Marcus Antoninus, which 
 turn principally upon this subject, have contributed more, perhaps, to 
 the general admiration of his character, than all the different trans- 
 actions of his just, merciful, and beneficent reign. 
 
 The administration of the great system of the universe, however, the 
 care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is 
 the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much 
 humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of 
 his powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension ; the care of 
 his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country : that 
 he is occupied in contemplating the more sublime, can never be an 
 excuse for his neglecting the more humble department ; and he must 
 not expose himself to the charge which Avidius Cassius is said to have 
 brought, perhaps unjustly, against Marcus Antoninus; that while he 
 employed himself in philosophical speculations, and contemplated the 
 prosperity of the universe, he neglected that of the Roman empire. 
 The most sublime speculation of the contemplative philosopher can 
 scarce compensate the neglect of the smallest active duty. 
 
 SEC. III. OF SELF-COMMAND. 
 
 THE man who acts according to the rules of perfect prudence, of strict 
 justice, and of proper benevolence, may be said to be perfectly virtuous. 
 But the most perfect knowledge of those rules will not alone enable 
 him to act in this manner : his own passions are very apt to mislead 
 him : sometimes to drive him and sometimes to seduce him to violate 
 all the rules which he himself, in all his sober and cool hours, approves 
 of. The most perfect knowledge, if it is not supported by the most 
 perfect self-command, will not always enable him to do his duty.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 211 
 
 Some of the best of the ancient moralists seem to have considered 
 those passions as divided into two different classes : first, into those 
 which it requires a considerable exertion of self-command to restrain 
 even for a single moment ; and secondly, into those which it is easy to 
 restrain for a single moment, or even for a short period of time ; but 
 which, by their continual and almost incessant solicitations, are, in the 
 course of a life, very apt to mislead into great deviations. 
 
 Fear and anger, together with some other passions which are mixed 
 or connected with them, constitute the first class. The love of ease, of 
 pleasure, of applause, and of many other selfish gratifications, consti- 
 tute the second. Extravagant fear and furious anger, it is often diffi- 
 cult to restrain even for a single moment. The love of ease, of plea- 
 sure, of applause, and other selfish gratifications, it is always easy to 
 restrain for a single moment, or even for a short period of time ; but, 
 by their continual solicitations, they often mislead us into many weak- 
 nesses which we have afterwards much reason to be ashamed of. 
 The former set of passions may often be said to drive, the latter to 
 seduce us, from our duty. The command of the former was, by the 
 ancient moralists above alluded to, denominated fortitude, manhood, 
 and strength of mind ; that of the latter, temperance, decency, modesty, 
 and moderation. 
 
 The command of each of those two sets of passions, independent of 
 the beauty which it derives from its utility ; from its enabling us upon 
 all occasions to act according to the dictates of prudence, of justice, 
 and of proper benevolence ; has a beauty of its own, and seems to 
 deserve for its own sake a certain degree of esteem and admiration. 
 In the one case, the strength and greatness of the exertion excites some 
 degree of that esteem and admiration. In the other, the uniformity, 
 the equality and unremitting steadiness of that exertion. 
 
 The man who, in danger, in torture, upon the approach of death, 
 preserves his tranquillity unaltered, and suffers no word, no gesture to 
 escape him which does not perfectly accord with the feelings of the 
 most indifferent spectator, necessarily commands a very high degree of 
 admiration. If he suffers in the cause of liberty and justice, for the 
 sake of humanity and the love of his country, the most tender compas- 
 sion for his sufferings, the strongest indignation against the injustice of 
 his persecutors, the warmest sympathetic gratitude for his beneficent 
 intentions, the highest sense of his merit, all join and mix themselves 
 with the admiration of his magnanimity, and often inflame that senti- 
 ment into the most enthusiastic and rapturous veneration. The heroes 
 of ancient and modern history, who are remembered with the most 
 peculiar favour and affection, are many of them those who, in the 
 cause of truth, liberty, and justice, have perished upon the scaffold, 
 and who behaved there with that ease and dignity which became them. 
 Had the enemies of Socrates suffered him to die quietly in his bed, the
 
 212 WHAT GIVES GLORY TO THE CHARACTER OF THE SOLDIER. 
 
 glory even of that great philosopher might possibly never have acquired 
 that dazzling splendour in which it has been beheld in all succeeding 
 ages. In the English history, when we look over the illustrious heads 
 which have been engraven by Vertue and Howbraken, there is scarce 
 any body, I imagine, who does not feel that the axe, the emblem of 
 having been beheaded, which is engraved under some of the most illus- 
 trious of them, under those of the Sir Thomas Mores, of the Ra- 
 leighs, the Russels, the Sydneys, &c., sheds a real dignity and depth of 
 interest over the characters to which it is affixed, much superior to 
 what they can derive from all the futile ornaments of heraldry, with 
 which they are sometimes accompanied. 
 
 Nor does this magnanimity give lustre only to the characters of inno- 
 cent and virtuous men. It draws some degree of favourable regard 
 even upon those of the greatest criminals ; and when a robber or 
 highwayman is brought to the scaffold, and behaves there with decency 
 and firmness, though we perfectly approve of his punishment, we often 
 cannot help regretting that a man who possessed such great and noble 
 powers should have been capable of such mean enormities. 
 
 War is the great school both for acquiring and exercising this species 
 of magnanimity. Death, as we say, is the king of terrors ; and the 
 man who has conquered the fear of death, is not likely to lose his 
 presence of mind at the approach of any other natural evil. In war, 
 men become familiar with death, and are thereby necessarily cured of 
 that superstitious horror with which it is viewed by the weak and inex- 
 perienced. They consider it merely as the loss of life, and as no 
 further the object of aversion than as life may happen to be that of 
 desire. They learn from experience, too, that many seemingly great 
 dangers are not so great as they appear ; and that, with courage, 
 activity, and presence of mind, there is often a good probability of 
 extricating themselves with honour from situations where at first they 
 could see no hope. The dread of death is thus greatly diminished ; 
 and the confidence or hope of escaping it, augmented. They learn to 
 expose themselves to danger with less reluctance. They are less 
 anxious to get out of it, and less apt to lose their presence of mind 
 while they are in it. It is this habitual contempt of danger and death 
 which ennobles the profession of a soldier, and bestows upon it, in the 
 natural apprehensions of mankind, a rank and dignity superior to that 
 of any other profession ; and the skilful and successful exercise of 
 this profession, in the service of their country, seems to have consti- 
 tuted the most distinguishing feature in the character of the favourite 
 heroes of all ages. 
 
 Great warlike exploit, though undertaken contrary to every principle 
 of justice, and carried on without any regard to humanity, sometimes 
 interests us, and commands even some degree of a certain sort of 
 esteem for the very worthless characters which conduct it. We are
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 213 
 
 interested even in the exploits of the buccaneers ; and read with some 
 sort of esteem and admiration, the history of the most worthless men, 
 who, in pursuit of the most criminal purposes, endured greater hardships, 
 surmounted greater difficulties, and encountered greater dangers, than 
 perhaps any which the course of history gives an account of. 
 
 The command of anger appears upon many occasions not less 
 generous and noble than that of fear. The proper expression of just 
 indignation composes many of the most splendid and admired passages 
 both of ancient and modern eloquence. The Philippics of Demos- 
 thenes, the Catalinarians of Cicero, derive their whole beauty from the 
 noble propriety with which this passion is expressed. But this just 
 indignation is nothing but anger restrained and properly attempered to 
 what the impartial spectator can enter into. The blustering and noisy 
 passion which goes beyond this, is always odious and offensive, and 
 interests us, not for the angry man, but for the man with whom he is 
 angry. The nobleness of pardoning appears, upon many occasions, 
 superior even to the most perfect propriety of resenting. When either 
 proper acknowledgments have been made by the offending party, or 
 even without any such acknowledgments, when the public interest 
 requires that the most mortal enemies should unite for the discharge 
 of some important duty, the man who can cast away all animosity, 
 and act with confidence and cordiality towards the person who had 
 most grievously offended him, does seem most justly to merit our 
 highest admiration. 
 
 The command of anger, however, does not always appear in such 
 splendid colours. Fear is contrary to anger, and is often the motive 
 which restrains it ; and in such cases the meanness of the motive takes 
 away all the nobleness of the restraint. Anger prompts to attack, and 
 the indulgence of it seems sometimes to show a sort of courage and 
 superiority to fear. The indulgence of anger is sometimes an object of 
 vanity. That of fear never is. Vain and weak men, among their in- 
 feriors, or those who dare not resist them, often affect to be ostenta- 
 tiously passionate, and fancy that they show, what is called, spirit in 
 being so. A bully tells many stories of his own insolence, which are 
 not true, and imagines that he thereby renders himself, if not more 
 amiable and respectable, at least more formidable to his audience. 
 Modern manners, which, by favouring the practice of duelling, may be 
 said, in some cases, to encourage private revenge, contribute, perhaps, 
 a good deal to render, in modern times, the restraint of anger by fear 
 still more contemptible than it might otherwise appear to be. There 
 is always something dignified in the command of fear, whatever may 
 be the motive upon which it is founded. It is not so with the command 
 of anger. Unless it is founded altogether in the sense of decency, of 
 dignity, and propriety, it never is perfectly agreeable. 
 
 To act according to the dictates of prudence, of justice, and proper
 
 214 CO AIM AND OF ANGER IS A GREAT AND NOBLE POWER. 
 
 beneficence, seems to have no great merit where there is no temptation 
 to do otherwise. But to act with cool deliberation in the midst of the 
 greatest dangers and difficulties ; to observe religiously the sacred rules 
 of justice in spite both of the greatest interests which might tempt, and 
 the greatest injuries which might provoke us to violate them ; never to 
 suffer the benevolence of our temper to be damped or discouraged by 
 the malignity and ingratitude of the individuals towards whom it may 
 have been exercised ; is the character of the most exalted wisdom and 
 virtue. Self-command is not only itself a great virtue, but from it all 
 the other virtues seem to derive their principal lustre. 
 
 The command of fear, the command of anger, are always great and 
 noble powers. When they are directed by justice and benevolence, 
 they are not only great virtues, but increase the splendour of those 
 other virtues. They may, however, sometimes be directed by very 
 different motives ; and in this case, though still great and respectable, 
 they may be excessively dangerous. The most intrepid valour may be 
 employed in the cause of the greatest injustice. Amidst great provoca- 
 tions, apparent tranquillity and good humour may sometimes conceal 
 the most determined and cruel resolution to revenge. The strength 
 of mind requisite for such dissimulation, though always and necessarily 
 contaminated by the baseness of falsehood, has, however, been often 
 much admired by many people of no contemptible judgment. The dis- 
 simulation of Catherine of Medicis is often celebrated by the profound 
 historian Davila ; that of Lord Digby, afterwards Earl of Bristol, by 
 the grave and conscientious Lord Clarendon ; that of the first Ashley 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, by the judicious Mr. Locke. Even Cicero seems 
 to consider this deceitful character, not indeed as of the highest dignity, 
 but as not unsuitable to a certain flexibility of manners, which, he thinks 
 may, notwithstanding, be, upon the whole, both agreeable and respect- 
 able. He exemplifies it by the characters of Homer's Ulysses, of the 
 Athenian Themistocles, of the Spartan Lysander, and of the Roman 
 Marcus Crassus. This character of dark and deep dissimulation occurs 
 most commonly in times of great public disorder ; amidst the violence 
 of faction and civil war. When law has become in a great measure im- 
 potent, when the most perfect innocence cannot alone insure safety, 
 regard to self-defence obliges the greatest part of men to have recourse 
 to dexterity, to address, and to apparent accommodation to whatever 
 happens to be, at the moment, the prevailing party. This false cha- 
 racter, too, is frequently accompanied with the coolest and most de- 
 termined courage. The proper exercise of it supposes that courage, as 
 death is commonly the certain consequence of detection. It may be 
 employed indifferently, either to exasperate or to allay those furious 
 animosities of adverse factions which impose the necessity of assuming 
 it ; and though it may sometimes be useful, it is at least equally liable 
 to be excessively pernicious.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 215 
 
 The command of the less violent and turbulent passions seems much 
 less liable to be abused to any pernicious purpose. Temperance, de- 
 cency,, modesty, and moderation, are always amiable, and can seldom 
 be directed to any bad end. It is from the unremitting steadiness of 
 those gentler exertions of self-command, that the amiable virtue of 
 chastity, that the respectable virtues of industry and frugality, derive 
 all that sober lustre which attends them. The conduct of all those who 
 are contented to walk in the humble paths of private and peaceable life, 
 derives from the same principle the greater part of the beauty and 
 grace which belong to it ; a beauty and grace, which, though much less 
 dazzling, is not always less pleasing than those which accompany the 
 more splendid actions of the hero, the statesman, or the legislator. 
 
 After what has already been said, in several different parts of this dis- 
 course, concerning the nature of self-command, I judge it unnecessary 
 to enter into any further detail concerning those virtues. I shall only 
 observe at present, that the point of propriety, the degree of any pas- 
 sion which the impartial spectator approves of, is differently situated in 
 different passions. In some passions the excess is less disagreeable 
 than the defect ; and in such passions the point of propriety seems to 
 stand high, or nearer to the excess than to the defect. In other 
 passions, the defect is less disagreeable than the excess ; and in 
 such passions the point of propriety seems to stand low, or nearer 
 to the defect than to the excess. The former are the passions 
 which the spectator is most, the latter, those which he is least 
 disposed to sympathize with. The former, too, are the passions of 
 which the immediate feeling or sensation is agreeable to the person 
 principally concerned ; the latter, those of which it is disagreeable. It 
 may be laid down as a general rule, that the passions which the specta- 
 tor is most disposed to sympathize with, and in which, upon that 
 account, the point of propriety may be said to stand high, are those of 
 which the immediate feeling or sensation is more or less agreeable to 
 the person principally concerned : and that, on the contrary, the pas- 
 sions which the spectator is least disposed to sympathize with, and in 
 which, upon that account, the point of propriety may be said to stand 
 low, are those of which the immediate feeling or sensation is more or 
 less disagreeable, or even painful, to the person principally concerned. 
 This general rule, so far as I have been able to observe, admits not of 
 a single exception. A few examples will at once both sufficiently ex- 
 plain it and demonstrate the truth of it. 
 
 The disposition to the affections which tend to unite men in society 
 to humanity, kindness, natural affection, friendship, esteem, may some- 
 times be excessive. Even the excess of this disposition, however, 
 renders a man interesting to every body. Though we blame it, we still 
 regard it with compassion, and even with kindness, and never with dis- 
 like. We are more sorry for it than angry at it. To the person him-
 
 2l6 WHAT ARE ENVY AND MEANNESS OF SPIRIT 
 
 self, the indulgence even of such excessive affections is, upon many 
 occasions, not only agreeable, but delicious. Upon some occasions, 
 indeed, especially when directed, as is too often the case, towards un- 
 worthy objects, it exposes him to much real and heartfelt distress. Even 
 upon such occasions, however, a well-disposed mind regards him with 
 the most exquisite pity, and feels the highest indignation against those 
 who affect to despise him for his weakness and imprudence. The 
 defect of this disposition, on the contrary, what is called hardness of 
 heart, while it renders a man insensible to the feelings and distresses of 
 other people, renders other people equally insensible to his ; and, by 
 excluding him from the friendship of all the world, excludes him from 
 the best and most comfortable of all social enjoyments. 
 
 The disposition to the affections which drive men from one another, 
 and which tend, as it were, to break the bands of human society ; the 
 disposition to anger, hatred, envy, malice, revenge ; is, on the contrary, 
 much more apt to offend by its excess than by its defect. The excess 
 renders a man wretched and miserable in his own mind, and the object 
 of hatred, and sometimes even of horror, to other people. The defect 
 is very seldom complained of. It may, however, be defective. The 
 want of proper indignation is a most essential defect in the manly 
 character, and, upon many occasions, renders a man incapable of pro- 
 tecting either himself or his friends from insult and injustice. Even 
 that principle, in the excess and improper direction of which consists 
 the odious and detestable passion of envy, may be defective. Envy is 
 that passion which views with malignant dislike the superiority of those 
 who are really entitled to all the superiority they possess. The man, 
 however, who, in matters of consequence, tamely suffers other people, 
 who are entitled to no such superiority, to rise above him or get before 
 him, is justly condemned as mean-spirited. This weakness is com- 
 monly founded in indolence, sometimes in good nature, in an aversion 
 to opposition, to bustle and solicitation, and sometimes, too, in a sort 
 of ili-judged magnanimity, which fancies that it can always continue to 
 despise the advantage which it then despises, and, therefore, so easily 
 gives up. Such weakness, however, is commonly followed by much 
 regret and repentance ; and what had some appearance of magnanimity 
 in the beginning frequently gives place to a most malignant envy in the 
 end, and to a hatred of that superiority, which those who have once 
 attained it, may often become really entitled to, by the very circum- 
 stance of having attained it. In order to live comfortably in the world, 
 it is, upon all occasions, as necessary to defend our dignity and rank, 
 as it is to defend our life or our fortune. 
 
 Our sensibility to personal danger and distress, like that to personal 
 provocation, is much more apt to offend by its excess than by its defect. 
 No character is more contemptible than that of a coward; no character 
 is more admired than that of the man who faces death with intrepidity,
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 21? 
 
 and maintains his tranquillity and presence of mind amidst the most 
 dreadful dangers. We esteem the man who supports pain and even 
 torture with manhood and firmness ; and we can have little regard for 
 him who sinks under them, and abandons himself to useless outcries 
 and womanish lamentations. A fretful temper, which feels, with too 
 much sensibility, every little cross accident, renders a man miserable 
 in himself and offensive to other people. A calm one, which does not 
 allow its tranquillity to be disturbed, either by the small injuries, or by 
 the little disasters incident to the usual course of human affairs ; but 
 which, amidst the natural and moral evils infesting the world, lays its 
 account and is contented to suffer a little from both, is a blessing to the 
 man himself, and gives ease and security to all his companions. 
 
 Our sensibility, however, both to our own injuries and to our own 
 misfortunes, though generally too strong, may likewise be too weak. 
 The man who feels little for his own misfortunes, must always feel less 
 for those of other people, and be less disposed to relieve them. The 
 man who has little resentment for the injuries which are done to him- 
 self, must always have less for those which are done to other people, 
 and be less disposed either to protect or to avenge them. A stupid 
 insensibility to the events of human life necessarily extinguishes all that 
 keen and earnest attention to the propriety of our own conduct, which 
 constitutes the real essence of virtue. We can feel little anxiety about 
 the propriety of our own actions, when we are indifferent about the 
 events which may result from them. The man who feels the full dis- 
 tress of the calamity which has befallen him, who feels the whole base- 
 ness of the injustice which has been done to him, but who feels still 
 more strongly what the dignity of his own character requires ; who does 
 not abandon himself to the guidance of the undisciplined passions 
 which his situation might naturally inspire ; but who governs his whole 
 behaviour and conduct according to those restrained and corrected 
 emotions which the great inmate, the great demi-god within the breast 
 prescribes and approves of ; is alone the real man of virtue, the only 
 real and proper object of love, respect, and admiration. Insensibility 
 and that noble firmness, that exalted self-command, which is founded 
 in the sense of dignity and propriety, are so far from being altogether 
 the same, that in proportion as the former takes place, the merit of the 
 latter is, in many cases, entirely taken away. 
 
 But though the total want of sensibility to personal injury, to personal 
 danger and distress, would, in such situations, take away the whole 
 merit of self-command, that sensibility, however, may very easily be 
 too exquisite, and it frequently is so. When the sense of propriety, 
 when the authority of the judge within the breast, can control this 
 extreme sensibility, that authority must no doubt appear very noble and 
 very great. But the exertion of it may be too fatiguing ; it may have 
 too much to do. The individual, by a great effort, may behave perfectly
 
 2l8 AVOID THE APPEARANCE OF FORMALITY OR PEDANTRY. 
 
 well. But the contest between the two principles, the warfare within 
 the breast, may be too violent to be at all consistent with internal tran- 
 quillity and happiness. The wise man whom Nature has endowed 
 with this too exquisite sensibility, and whose too lively feelings have not 
 been sufficiently blunted and hardened by early education and proper 
 exercise, will avoid, as much as duty and propriety will permit, the 
 situations for which he is not perfectly fitted. The man whose feeble 
 and delicate constitution renders him too sensible to pain, to hardship, 
 and to every sort of bodily distress, should not wantonly embrace the 
 profession of a soldier. The man of too much sensibility to injury, 
 should not rashly engage in the contests of faction. Though the sense 
 of propriety should be strong enough to command all those sensibilities, 
 the composure of the mind must always be disturbed in the struggle. 
 In this disorder the judgment cannot always maintain its ordinary 
 acuteness and precision ; and though he may always mean to act pro- 
 perly, he may often act rashly and imprudently, and in a manner which 
 he himself will, in the succeeding part of his life, be for ever ashamed 
 of. A certain intrepidity, a certain firmness of nerves and hardiness of 
 constitution, whether natural or acquired, are undoubtedly the best 
 preparatives for all the great exertions of self-command. 
 
 Though war and faction are certainly the best schools for forming 
 every man to this hardiness and firmness of temper, though they are 
 the best remedies for curing him of the opposite weaknesses, yet, if the 
 day of trial should happen to come before he has completely learned 
 his lesson, before the remedy has had time to produce its proper effect, 
 the consequences might not be agreeable. 
 
 Our sensibility to the pleasures, to the amusements, and enjoyments 
 of human life, may offend, in the same manner, either by its excess or 
 by its defect. Of the two, however, the excess seems less disagreeable 
 than the defect. Both to the spectator and to the person principally 
 concerned, a strong propensity to joy is certainly more pleasing than 
 a dull insensibility to the objects of amusement and diversion. We are 
 charmed with the gaiety of youth, and even with the playfulness of 
 childhood : but we soon grow weary of the flat and tasteless gravity 
 which too frequently accompanies old age. When this propensity, 
 indeed, is not restrained by the sense of propriety, when it is unsuitable 
 to the time or to the place, to the age or to the situation of the person, 
 when, to indulge it, he neglects either his interest or his duty ; it is 
 justly blamed as excessive, and as hurtful both to the individual and to 
 the society. In the greater part of such cases, however, what is chiefly 
 to be found fault with is, not so much the strength of the propensity to 
 joy, as the weakness of the sense of propriety and duty. A young man 
 who has no relish for the diversions and amusements that are natural 
 and suitable to his age, who talks of nothing but his book or his 
 business, is disliked as formal and pedantic ; and we give him no credit
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 219 
 
 for his abstinence even from improper indulgences, to which he seems 
 to have so little inclination. 
 
 The principle of self-estimation may be too high, and it may likewise 
 be too low. It is so very agreeable to think highly, and so very disagree- 
 able to think meanly of ourselves, that, to the person himself, it cannot 
 well be doubted, but that some degree of excess must be much less 
 disagreeable than any degree of defect. But to the impartial spectator, 
 it may perhaps be thought, things must appear quite differently, and 
 that to him, the defect must always be less disagreeable than the excess. 
 And in our companions, no doubt, we much more frequently complain 
 of the latter than of the former. When they assume upon us, or set 
 themselves before us, their self-estimation mortifies our own. Our own 
 pride and vanity prompt us to accuse them of pride and vanity, and 
 we cease to be the impartial spectators of their conduct. When the 
 same companions, however, suffer any other man to assume over them 
 a superiority which does not belong to him, we not only blame them, 
 but often despise them as mean-spirited. When, on the contrary, 
 among other people, they push themselves a little more forward, and 
 scramble to an elevation disproportioned, as we think, to their merit, 
 though we may not perfectly approve of their conduct, we are often, 
 upon the whole, diverted with it ; and, where there is no envy in the 
 case, we are almost always much less displeased with them, than we 
 should have been, had they only suffered themselves to sink below 
 their proper station. 
 
 In estimating our own merit, in judging of our own character and 
 conduct, there are two different standards to which we naturally com- 
 pare them. The one is the idea of exact propriety and perfection, so 
 far as we are each of us capable of comprehending that idea. The 
 other is that degree of approximation to this idea which is commonly 
 attained in the world, and which the greater part of our friends and 
 companions, of our rivals and competitors, may have actually arrived 
 at. We very seldom (I am disposed to think, we never) attempt to 
 judge of ourselves without giving more or less attention to both these 
 different standards. But the attention of different men, and even of 
 the same man at different times, is often very unequally divided be- 
 tween them ; and is sometimes principally directed towards the one, 
 and sometimes towards the other. 
 
 So far as our attention is directed towards the first standard, the 
 wisest and best of us all, can, in his own character and conduct, see 
 nothing but weakness and imperfection ; can discover no ground for 
 arrogance and presumption, but a great deal for humility, regret, and 
 repentance. So far as our attention is directed towards the second, we 
 may be affected either in the one way or in the other, and feel ourselves, 
 either really above, or really below, the standard with which we seek 
 to compare ourselves. 
 
 15 *
 
 220 THE WISE AIM AT THE STANDARD OF PROPRIETY. 
 
 The wise and virtuous man directs his principal attention to the 
 first standard ; the idea of exact propriety and perfection. There 
 exists in the mind of every man, an idea of this kind, gradually formed 
 from his observations upon the character and conduct both of himself 
 and of other people. It is the slow, gradual, and progressive work of 
 the great demigod within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of 
 conduct. This idea is in every man more or less accurately drawn, its 
 colouring is more or less just, its outlines are more or less exactly 
 designed, according to the delicacy and acuteness of that sensibility, 
 with which those observations were made, and according to the care and 
 attention employed in making them. In the wise and virtuous man 
 they have been made with the most acute and delicate sensibility, and 
 the utmost care and attention have been employed in making them. 
 Every day some feature is improved ; every day some blemish is cor- 
 rected. He has studied this idea more than other people, he compre- 
 hends it more distinctly, he has formed a much more correct image of 
 it, and is much more deeply enamoured of its exquisite and divine 
 beauty. He endeavours, as well as he can, to assimilate his own cha- 
 racter to this archetype of perfection. But he imitates the work of a 
 divine artist, which can never be equalled. He feels the imperfect 
 success of all his best endeavours, and sees, with grief and affliction, in 
 how many different features the mortal copy falls short of the immortal 
 original. He remembers, with concern and humiliation, how often, 
 from want of attention, from want of judgment, from want of temper, 
 he has, both in words and actions, both in conduct and conversation, 
 violated the exact rules of perfect propriety ; and has so far departed 
 from that model, according to which he wished to fashion his own 
 character and conduct. When he directs his attention towards the 
 second standard, indeed, that degree of excellence which his friends 
 and acquaintances have commonly arrived at, he may be sensible of 
 his own superiority. But, as his principal attention is always directed 
 towards the first standard, he is necessarily much more humbled by the 
 one comparison, than he ever can be elevated by the other. He is 
 never so elated as to look down with insolence even upon those who 
 are really below him. He feels so well his own imperfection, he knows 
 so well the difficulty with which he attained his own distant approxima- 
 tion to rectitude, that he cannot regard with contempt the still greater 
 imperfections of other people. Far from insulting over their inferiority, 
 he views it with the most indulgent commiseration, and, by his advice 
 as well as example, is at all times willing to promote their further ad- 
 vancement. If, in any particular qualification, they happen to be 
 superior to him (for who is so perfect as not to have many superiors in 
 many different qualifications ?), far from envying their superiority, he, 
 who knows how difficult it is to excel, esteems and honours their excel- 
 lence, and never fails to bestow upon it the full measure of applause
 
 221 
 
 which it deserves. His whole mind, in short, is deeply impressed, his 
 whole behaviour and deportment are distinctly stamped with the cha- 
 racter of real modesty ; with that of a very moderate estimation of his 
 own merit, and, at the same time, with a very full sense of the merit 
 of other people. 
 
 In all the liberal and ingenious arts, in painting, in poetry, in music, 
 in eloquence, in philosophy, the great artist feels always the real im- 
 perfection of his own best works, and is more sensible than any man 
 how much they fall short of that ideal perfection of which he has 
 formed some conception, which he imitates as well as he can, but which 
 he despairs of ever equalling. It is the inferior artist only, who is ever 
 perfectly satisfied with his own performances. He has little conception 
 of this ideal perfection, about which he has little employed his thoughts ; 
 and it is chiefly to the works of other artists, of, perhaps, a still lower 
 order, that he deigns to compare his own works. Boileau, the great 
 French poet (in some of his works, perhaps not inferior to the greatest 
 poet of the same kind, either ancient or modern), used to say, that no 
 great man was ever completely satisfied with his own works. His 
 acquaintance Santeuil (a writer of Latin verses, and who, on account 
 of that school-boy accomplishment, had the weakness to fancy himself 
 a poet), assured him that he himself was always completely satisfied 
 with his own. Boileau replied, with, perhaps, an arch ambiguity, that 
 he certainly was the only great man that ever was so. Boileau, in 
 judging of his own works, compared them with the standard of ideal 
 perfection, which, in his own particular branch of the poetic art, he 
 had, I presume, meditated as deeply, and conceived as distinctly, as it 
 is possible for man to conceive it. Santeuil, in judging of his own 
 works, compared them, I suppose, chiefly to those of the other Latin 
 poets of his own time, to the great part of whom he was certainly very 
 far from being inferior. But to support and finish off, if I may say so, 
 the conduct and conversation of a whole life to some resemblance of 
 this ideal perfection, is surely much more difficult than to work up to 
 an equal resemblance any of the productions of any of the ingenious arts. 
 The artist sits down to his work undisturbed, at leisure, in the full 
 possession and recollection of all his skill, experience, and knowledge. 
 The wise man must support the propriety of his own conduct in health 
 and sickness, in success and in disappointment, in the hour of fatigue 
 and drowsy indolence, as well as in that of the most awakened atten- 
 tion. The most sudden and unexpected assaults of difficulty and 
 distress must never surprise him. The injustice of other people must 
 never provoke him to injustice. The violence of faction must never 
 confound him. All the hardships and hazards of war must never 
 either dishearten or appal him. 
 
 Of the persons who, in estimating their own merit, in judging of 
 their own character and conduct, direct by far the greater part of their
 
 222 WHERE ENVY IS NOT, THERE IS PLEASURE IN ADMIRING. 
 
 attention to the second standard, to that ordinary degree of excellence 
 which is commonly attained by other people, there are some who really 
 and justly feel themselves very much above it, and who, by every 
 intelligent and impartial spectator, are acknowledged to be so. The 
 attention of such persons, however, being always principally directed, 
 not to the standard of ideal, but to that of ordinary perfection, they have 
 little sense of their own weaknesses and imperfections ; they have little 
 modesty ; and are often assuming, arrogant, and presumptuous ; great 
 admirers of themselves, and great contemners of other people. Though 
 their characters are in general much less correct, and their merit much 
 inferior to that of the man of real and modest virtue ; yet their exces- 
 sive presumption, founded upon their own excessive self-admiration, 
 dazzles the multitude, and often imposes even upon those who are 
 much superior to the multitude. The frequent, and often wonderful, 
 success of the most ignorant quacks and impostors, both civil and 
 religious, sufficiently demonstrate how easily the multitude are imposed 
 upon by the most extravagant and groundless pretensions. But when 
 those pretensions are supported by a very high degree of real and solid 
 merit, when they are displayed with all the splendour which ostentation 
 can bestow upon them, when they are supported by high rank and 
 great power, when they have often been successfully exerted, and are, 
 upon that account, attended by the loud acclamations of the multitude ; 
 even the man of sober judgment often abandons himself to the general 
 admiration. The very noise of those foolish acclamations often con- 
 tributes to confound his understanding, and while he sees those great 
 men only at a certain distance, he is often disposed to worship them 
 with a sincere admiration, superior even to that with which they appear 
 to worship themselves. When there is no envy in the case, we all take 
 pleasure in admiring, and are, upon that account, naturally disposed, in 
 our own fancies, to render complete and perfect in every respect the 
 characters which, in many respects, are so very worthy of admiration. 
 The excessive self-admiration of those great men is well understood, 
 perhaps, and even seen through, with some degree of derision, by those 
 wise men who are much in their familiarity, and who secretly smile at 
 those lofty pretensions, which, by people at a distance, are often 
 regarded with reverence, and almost with adoration. Such, however, 
 have been, in all ages, the greater part of those men who have pro- 
 cured to themselves the most noisy fame, the most extensive reputa- 
 tion ; a fame and reputation, too, which have too often descended to 
 the remotest posterity. 
 
 Great success in the world, great authority over the sentiments and 
 opinions of mankind, have very seldom been acquired Avithout some 
 degree of this excessive self-admiration. The most splendid characters, 
 the men who have performed the most illustrious actions, who have 
 brought about the greatest revolutions, both in the situations and opin-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 223 
 
 ions of mankind ; the most successful warriors, the greatest statesmen 
 and legislators, the eloquent founders and leaders of the most numer- 
 ous and most successful sects and parties ; have many of them been, 
 not more distinguished for their very great merit, than for a degree of 
 presumption and self-admiration altogether disproportioned even to that 
 very great merit. This presumption was, perhaps, necessary, not only 
 to prompt them to undertakings which a more sober mind would never 
 have thought of, but to command the submission and obedience of their 
 followers to support them in such undertakings. When crowned with 
 success, accordingly, this presumption has often betrayed them into a 
 vanity that approached almost to insanity and folly. Alexander the 
 Great appears, not only to have wished that other people should think 
 him a god, but to have been at least very well-disposed to fancy him- 
 self such. Upon his deathbed, the most ungodlike of all situations, he 
 requested of his friends that, to the respectable list of deities, into 
 which himself had long before been inserted, his old mother Olympia 
 might likewise have the honour of being added. Amidst the respectful 
 admiration of his followers and disciples, amidst the universal applause 
 of the public, after the oracle, which probably had followed the voice of 
 that applause, had pronounced him the wisest of men, the great wisdom 
 of Socrates, though it did not suffer him to fancy himself a god, yet 
 was not great enough to hinder him from fancying that he had secret 
 and frequent intimations from some invisible and divine being. The 
 sound head of Caesar was not so perfectly sound as to hinder him from 
 being much pleased with his divine genealogy from the goddess Venus ; 
 and, before the temple of this pretended great-grandmother, to receive, 
 without rising from his seat, the Roman senate, when that illustrious 
 body came to present him with some decrees conferring upon him the 
 most extravagant honours. This insolence, joined to some other acts 
 of an almost childish vanity, little to be expected from an understand- 
 ing at once so very acute and comprehensive, seems, by exasperating the 
 public jealousy, to have emboldened his assassins, and to have hastened 
 the execution of their conspiracy. The religion and manners of modern 
 times give our great men little encouragement to fancy themselves 
 either gods or even prophets. Success, however, joined to great popu- 
 lar favour, has often so far turned the heads of the greatest of them, as 
 to make them ascribe to themselves both an importance and an ability 
 much beyond what they really possessed ; and, by this presumption, 
 to precipitate themselves into many rash and sometimes ruinous adven- 
 tures. It is a characteristic almost peculiar to the great Duke of Marl- 
 borough, that ten years of such uninterrupted and such splendid success 
 as scarce any other general could boast of, never betrayed him into a 
 a single rash action, scarce into a single rash word or expression. The 
 same temperate coolness and self-command cannot, I think, be ascribed 
 to any other great warrior of later times ; not to Prince Eugene, not to
 
 224 CESAR, AND THE NAME WON AT PHARSALIA. 
 
 the late King of Prussia, not the the great Prince of Conde", not even to 
 Gustavus Adolphus. Turenne seems to have approached the nearest 
 to it ; but several different transactions of his life sufficiently demon- 
 strate that it was in him by no means so perfect as it was in the great 
 Duke of Marlborough. 
 
 In the humble projects of private life, as well as in the ambitious and 
 proud pursuits of high stations, great abilities and successful enterprise, 
 in the beginning, have frequently encouraged to undertakings which 
 necessarily led to bankruptcy and ruin in the end. 
 
 The esteem and admiration which every impartial spectator con- 
 ceives for the real merit of those spirited, magnanimous, and high- 
 minded persons, as it is a just and well-founded sentiment, so it is a 
 steady and permanent one, and altogether independent of their good 
 or bad fortune. It is otherwise with that admiration which he is apt to 
 conceive for their excessive self-estimation and presumption. While 
 they are successful, indeed, he is often perfectly conquered and over- 
 borne by them. Success covers from his eyes, not only the great im- 
 prudence, but frequently the great injustice of their enterprises ; and 
 far from blaming this defective part of their character, he often views 
 it with the most enthusiastic admiration. When they are unfortunate, 
 however, things change their colours and their names. What was be- 
 fore heroic magnanimity, resumes its proper appellation of extravagant 
 rashness and folly ; and the blackness of that avidity and injustice, 
 which was before hid under the splendour of prosperity, comes full into 
 view, and blots the whole lustre of their enterprise. Had Caesar, 
 instead of gaining, lost the battle of Pharsalia, his character would, at 
 this hour, have ranked a little above that of Cataline, and the weakest 
 man would have viewed his enterprise against the laws of his country 
 in blacker colours, than, perhaps even Cato, with all the animosity of a 
 partyman, ever viewed it at the time. His real merit, the justness of 
 his taste, the simplicity and elegance of his writings, the propriety of 
 his eloquence, his skill in war, his resources in distress, his cool and 
 sedate judgment in danger, his faithful attachment to hrs friends, his 
 unexampled generosity to his enemies, would all have been acknow- 
 ledged ; as the real merit of Cataline, who had many great qualities, is 
 acknowledged at this day. But the insolence and injustice of his all- 
 grasping ambition would have darkened and extinguished the glory of 
 all that real merit. Fortune has in this, as well as in some other re- 
 spects already mentioned, great influence over the moral sentiments of 
 mankind, and, according as she is either favourable or adverse, can 
 render the same character the object, either of general love and admi- 
 ration, or of universal hatred and contempt. This great disorder in our 
 moral sentiments is by no means, however, without its utility ; and we 
 may on this, as well as on many other occasions, admire the wisdom of 
 God even in the weakness and folly of man. Our admiration of sue-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 225 
 
 cess is founded upon the same principle with our respect for wealth and 
 greatness, and is equally necessary for establishing the distinction of 
 ranks and the order of society. By this admiration of success we are 
 taught to submit more easily to those superiors, whom the course of 
 human affairs may assign to us ; to regard with reverence, and some- 
 times even with a sort of respectful affection, that fortunate violence 
 which we are no longer capable of resisting ; not only the violence of 
 such splendid characters as those of a Caesar or an Alexander, but often 
 that of the most brutal and savage barbarians, of an Attila, a Gengis, 
 or a Tamerlane. To all such mighty conquerors the great mob of man- 
 kind are naturally disposed to look up with a wondering, though, no 
 doubt, with a very weak and foolish admiration. By this admiration, 
 however, they are taught to acquiesce with less reluctance under that 
 government which an irresistible force imposes upon them, and from 
 which no reluctance could deliver them. 
 
 Though in prosperity, however, the man of excessive self-estimation 
 may sometimes appear to have some advantage over the man of cor- 
 rect and modest virtue ; though the applause of the multitude, and of 
 those who see them both only at a distance, is often much louder in 
 favour of the one than it ever is in favour of the other ; yet, all things 
 fairly computed, the real balance of advantage is, perhaps in all cases, 
 greatly in favour of the latter and against the former. The man who 
 neither ascribes to himself, nor wishes that other people should ascribe 
 to him, any other merit besides that which really belongs to him, fears 
 no humiliation, dreads no detection ; but rests contented and secure 
 upon the genuine truth and solidity of his own character. His admirers 
 may neither be very numerous nor very loud in their applauses ; but 
 the wisest man who sees him the nearest and who knows him the best, 
 admires him the most. To a real wise man the judicious and well- 
 weighed approbation of a single wise man, gives more heartfelt satis- 
 faction than all the noisy applauses of ten thousand ignorant though 
 enthusiastic admirers. He may say with Parmenides, who, upon read- 
 ing a philosophical discourse before a public assembly at Athens, and 
 observing, that, except Plato, the whole company had left him, con- 
 tinued, notwithstanding, to read on, and said that Plato alone was 
 audience sufficient for him. 
 
 It is otherwise with the man of excessive self-estimation. The wise 
 men who see him the nearest, admire him the least. Amidst the 
 intoxication of prosperity, their sober and just esteem falls so far short 
 of the extravagance of his own self-admiration, that he regards it as 
 mere malignity and envy. He suspects his best friends. Their com- 
 pany becomes offensive to him. He drives them from his presence, 
 and often rewards their services, not only with ingratitude, but with 
 cruelty and injustice. He abandons his confidence to flatterers and 
 traitors, who pretend to idolize his vanity and presumption ; and that
 
 226 THE VICES OF PRIDE AND VANITY DEFINED. 
 
 character which in the beginning, though in some respects defective, 
 was, upon the whole, both amiable and respectable, becomes contemp- 
 tible and odious in the end. Amidst the intoxication of prosperity, 
 Alexander killed Clytus, for having preferred the exploits of his father 
 Philip to his own ; put Calisthenes to death in torture, for having 
 refused to adore him in the Persian manner ; and murdered the great 
 friend of his father, the venerable Parmenio, after having, upon the 
 most groundless suspicions, sent first to the torture and afterwards to 
 the scaffold the only remaining son of that old man, the rest having all 
 before died in his own service. This was that Parmenio of whom 
 Philip used to say, that the Athenians were very fortunate who could 
 find ten generals every year, while he himself, in the whole course of 
 his life, could never find one but Parmenio. It was upon the vigilance 
 and attention of this Parmenio that he reposed at all times with confi- 
 dence and security, and, in his hours of mirth and jollity, used to say, 
 ' Let us drink, my friends : we may do it with safety, for Parmenio 
 ' never drinks.' It was this same Parmenio, with whose presence and 
 counsel, it had been said, Alexander had gained all his victories ; and 
 without his presence and counsel, he had never gained a single victory. 
 The humble, admiring, and flattering friends, whom Alexander left in 
 power and authority behind him, divided his empire among them- 
 selves, and after having thus robbed his family and kindred of their 
 inheritance, put, one after another, every single surviving individual of 
 them, whether male or female, to death. 
 
 We frequently, not only pardon, but thoroughly enter into and sym- 
 pathize with the excessive self-estimation of those splendid characters 
 in which we observe a great and distinguished superiority above the 
 common level of mankind. We call them spirited, magnanimous, and 
 high-minded ; words which all involve in their meaning a considerable 
 degree of praise and admiration. But we cannot enter into and sym- 
 pathize with the excessive self-estimation of those characters in which 
 we can discern no such distinguished superiority. We are disgusted 
 and revolted by it ; and it is with some difficulty that we can either 
 pardon or suffer it. We call it pride or vanity ; two words, of which 
 the latter always, and the former for the most part, involve in their 
 meaning a considerable degree of blame. 
 
 Those two vices, however, though resembling, in some respects, as 
 being both modifications of excessive self-estimation, are yet, in many 
 respects, very different from one another. 
 
 The proud man is sincere, and, in the bottom of his heart, is con- 
 vinced of his own superiority ; though it may sometimes be difficult to 
 guess upon what that conviction is founded. He wishes you to view 
 him in no other light than that in which, when he places himself in 
 your situation, he really views himself. He demands no more of you 
 than, what he thinks, justice. If you appear not to respect him as he-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY oF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 227 
 
 respects himself, he is more offended than mortified, and feels the 
 same indignant resentment as if he had suffered a real injury. He 
 does not even then, however, deign to explain the grounds of his own 
 pretensions. He disdains to court your esteem. He affects even to 
 despise it, and endeavours to maintain his assumed station, not so 
 much by making you sensible of his superiority, as of your own mean- 
 ness. He seems to wish not so much to excite your esteem for him- 
 self, as to mortify that for yourself. 
 
 The vain man is not sincere, and, in the bottom of his heart, is very 
 seldom convinced of that superiority which he wishes you to ascribe to 
 him. He wishes you to view him in much more splendid colours than 
 those in which, when he places himself in your situation, and supposes 
 you to know all that he knows, he can really view himself. When you 
 appear to view him, therefore, in different colours, perhaps in his proper 
 colours, he is much more mortified than offended. The grounds of his 
 claim to that character which he wishes you to ascribe to him, he takes 
 every opportunity of displaying, both by the most ostentatious and 
 unnecessary exhibition of the good qualities and accomplishments 
 which he possesses in some tolerable degree, and sometimes even by 
 false pretensions to those which he either possesses in no degree, or in 
 so very slender a degree that he may well enough be said to possess 
 them in no degree. Far from despising your esteem, he courts it with 
 the most anxious assiduity. Far from wishing to mortify your self- 
 estimation, he is happy to cherish it, in hopes that in return you will 
 cherish his own. He flatters in order to be flattered. He studies to 
 please, and endeavours to bribe you into a good opinion of him by 
 politeness and complaisance, and sometimes even by real and essential 
 good offices, though often displayed, perhaps, with unnecessary osten- 
 tation. 
 
 The vain man sees the respect which is paid to rank and fortune, 
 and wishes to usurp this respect, as well as that for talents and virtues. 
 His dress, his equipage, his way of living, accordingly, all announce 
 both a higher rank and a greater fortune than really belong to him ; 
 and in order to support this foolish imposition for a few years in the 
 beginning of his life, he often reduces himself to poverty and distress 
 long before the end of it. As long as he can continue his expense, 
 however, his vanity is delighted with viewing himself, not in the light 
 in which you would view him if you knew all that he knows ; but in 
 that in which, he imagines, he has, by his own address, induced you 
 actually to view him. Of all the illusions of vanity that is, perhaps, 
 the most common. Obscure strangers who visit foreign countries, or 
 who, from a remote province, come to visit, for a short time, the capital 
 of their own country, most frequently attempt to practise it. The folly 
 of the attempt, though always very great and most unworthy of a man 
 of sense, may not be altogether so great upon such as upon most other
 
 228 THE PROUD GENERALLY FRUGAL, NOT ALWAYS CIVIL. 
 
 occasions. If their stay is short, they may escape any disgraceful 
 detection ; and, after indulging their vanity for a few months or a few 
 years, they may return to their own homes, and repair, by future par- 
 simony, the waste of their past profusion. 
 
 The proud man can very seldom be accused of this folly. His sense 
 of his own dignity renders him careful to preserve his independency, 
 and, when his fortune happens not to be large, though he wishes to be 
 decent, he studies to be frugal and attentive in all his expenses. The 
 ostentatious expense of the vain man is highly offensive to him. It 
 outshines, perhaps, his own. It provokes his indignation as an insolent 
 assumption of a rank which is by no means due ; and he never talks of 
 it without loading it with the harshest and severest reproaches. 
 
 The proud man does not always feel himself at his ease in the com- 
 pany of his equals, and still less in that of his superiors. He cannot 
 lay down his lofty pretensions, and the countenance and conversation 
 of such company Overawe him so much that he dare not display them. 
 He has recourse to humbler company, for which he has little respect, 
 which he would not willingly choose, and which is by no means agree- 
 able to him ; that of his inferiors, his flatterers, and dependants. He 
 seldom visits his superiors, or, if he does, it is rather to show that he is 
 entitled to live in such company, than for any real satisfaction that he 
 enjoys in it. It is as Lord Clarendon says of the Earl of Arundel, that 
 he sometimes went to court, because he could there only find a greater 
 man than himself; but that he went very seldom, because he found 
 there a greater man than himself. 
 
 It is quite otherwise with the vain man. He courts the company of 
 his superiors as much as the proud man shuns it. Their splendour, he 
 seems to think, reflects a splendour upon those who are much about 
 them. He haunts the courts of kings and the levees of ministers, and 
 gives himself the air of being a candidate for fortune and preferment, 
 when in reality he possesses the much more precious happiness, if he 
 knew how to enjoy it, of not being one. He is fond of being admitted 
 to the tables of the great, and still more fond of magnifying to other 
 people the familiarity with which he is honoured there. He associates 
 himself, as much as he can, with fashionable people, with those who 
 are supposed to direct the public opinion, with the witty, with the 
 learned, with the popular; and he shuns the company of his best 
 friends whenever the very uncertain current of public favour happens 
 to run in any respect against them. With the people to whom he 
 wishes to recommend himself, he is not always very delicate about the 
 means which he employs for that purpose ; unnecessary ostentation, 
 groundless pretensions, constant assentation, frequently flattery-, though 
 for the most part a pleasant and sprightly flattery, and very seldom the 
 gross and fulsome flattery of a parasite. The proud man, on the con- 
 trary, never flatters, and is frequently scarce civil to any body.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 229 
 
 Notwithstanding all its groundless pretensions, however, vanity is 
 almost always a sprightly and a gay, and very often a good-natured 
 passion. Pride is always a grave, a sullen, and a severe one. Even 
 the falsehoods of the vain man are all innocent falsehoods, meant to 
 raise himself, not to lower other people. To do the proud man justice 
 he veiy seldom stoops to the baseness of falsehood. When he does, 
 however, his falsehoods are by no means so innocent. They are all 
 mischievous, and meant to lower other people. He is full of indignation 
 at the unjust superiority, as he thinks it, which is given to them. He 
 views them with malignity and envy, and, in talking of them, often 
 endeavours, as much as he can, to extenuate and lessen whatever are 
 the grounds upon which their superiority is supposed to be founded. 
 Whatever tales are circulated to their disadvantage, though he seldom 
 forges them himself, yet he often takes pleasure in believing them, is 
 by no means unwilling to repeat them, and even sometimes with some 
 degree of exaggeration. The worst falsehoods of vanity are what we 
 call white lies : those of pride, whenever it condescends to falsehood, 
 are all of the opposite complexion. 
 
 Our dislike to pride and vanity generally disposes us to rank the 
 persons whom we accuse of those vices rather below than above the 
 common level. In this judgment however, I think, we are most fre- 
 quently in the wrong, and that both the proud and the vain man are 
 often (perhaps for the most part) a good deal above it ; though not near 
 so much as either the one really thinks himself, or as the other wishes 
 you to think him. If we compare them with their own pretensions, 
 they may appear the just objects of contempt. But when we compare 
 them with what the greater part of their rivals and competitors really 
 are, they may appear quite otherwise, and very much above the 
 common level. Where there is this real superiority, pride is frequently 
 attended with many respectable virtues ; with truth, with integrity, with 
 a high sense of honour, with cordial and steady friendship, with the 
 most inflexible firmness and resolution. Vanity, with many amiable 
 ones; with humanity, with politeness, with a desire to oblige in all 
 little matters, and sometimes with a real generosity in great ones; a 
 generosity, however, which it often wishes to display in the most 
 splendid colours that it can. By their rivals and enemies, the French, 
 in the last century, were accused of vanity ; the Spaniards, of pride ; 
 and foreign nations were disposed to consider the one as the more 
 amiable; the other, as the more respectable people. 
 
 The words -vain and vanity are never taken in a good sense. We 
 sometimes say of a man, when we are talking of him in good humour, 
 that he is the better for his vanity, or that his vanity is more diverting 
 than offensive ; but we still consider it as a foible and a ridiculous 
 feature in his character. 
 
 The words proud and pride, on the contrary, are sometimes taken in
 
 230 WHAT IS THE GREAT SECRET OF EDUCATION ? 
 
 a good sense. We frequently say of a man, that he is too proud, or 
 that he has too much noble pride, ever to suffer himself to do a mean 
 thing. Pride is, in this case, confounded with magnanimity. Aristotle, 
 a philosopher who certainly knew the world, in drawing the character 
 of the magnanimous man, paints him with many features which, in the 
 two last centuries, were commonly ascribed to the Spanish character : 
 that he was deliberate in all his resolutions ; slow, and even tardy, in 
 all his actions ; that his voice was grave, his speech deliberate, his step 
 and motion slow ; that he appeared indolent and even slothful, not at 
 all disposed to bustle about little matters, but to act with the most 
 determined and vigorous resolution upon all great and illustrious 
 occasions : that he was not a lover of danger, or forward to expose 
 himself to little dangers, but to great dangers ; and that, when he ex- 
 posed himself to danger, he was altogether regardless of his life. 
 
 The proud man is commonly too well contented with himself to 
 think that his character requires any amendment. The man who feels 
 himself all-perfect, naturally enough despises all further improvement. 
 His self-sufficiency and absurd conceit of his own superiority, com- 
 monly attend him from his youth to his most advanced age ; and he 
 dies, as Hamlet says, 'with all his sins upon his head, unanointed, 
 unanealed.' 
 
 It is frequently quite otherwise with the vain man. The desire of 
 the esteem and admiration of other people, when for qualities and 
 talents which are the natural and proper objects of esteem and admi- 
 ration, is the real love of true glory ; a passion which, if not the very 
 best passion of human nature, is certainly one of the best. Vanity is 
 very frequently no more than an attempt prematurely to usurp that 
 glory before it is due. Though your son, under five-and-twenty years 
 of age, should be but a coxcomb ; do not, upon that account, despair 
 of his becoming, before he is forty, a very wise and worthy man, and a 
 real proficient in all those talents and virtues to which, at present, he 
 may only be an ostentatious and empty pretender. The great secret 
 of education is to direct vanity to proper objects. Never suffer him to 
 value himself upon trivial accomplishments. But do not always dis- 
 courage his pretensions to those that are of real importance. He would 
 not pretend to them if he did not earnestly desire to possess them. 
 Encourage this desire ; afford him every means to facilitate the acqui- 
 sition ; and do not take too much offence, although he should some- 
 times assume the air of having attained it a little before the time. 
 
 Such, I say, are the distinguishing characteristics of pride and vanity, 
 when each of them acts according to its proper character. But the 
 proud man is often vain ; and the vain man is often proud. Nothing 
 can be more natural than that the man, who thinks much more highly 
 of himself than he deserves, should wish that other people should think 
 still more highly of him : or that the man, who wishes that other people
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 231 
 
 should think more highly of him than he thinks of himself, should, at 
 the same time, think much more highly of himself than he deserves. 
 Those two vices being frequently blended in the same character, the 
 characteristics of both are necessarily confounded ; and we sometimes 
 find the superficial and impertinent ostentation of vanity joined to the 
 most malignant and derisive insolence of pride. We are sometimes, 
 upon that account, at a loss how to rank a particular character, or 
 whether to place it among the proud or among the vain. 
 
 Men of merit considerably above the common level, sometimes under- 
 rate as well as over-rate themselves. Such characters, though not very 
 dignified, are often, in private society, far from being disagreeable. His 
 companions all feel themselves much at their ease in the society of a 
 man so perfectly modest and unassuming. If those companions, how- 
 ever, have not both more discernment and more generosity than ordi- 
 nary, though they may have some kindness for him, they have seldom 
 much respect ; and the warmth of their kindness is very seldom suffi- 
 cient to compensate the coldness of their respect. Men of no more 
 than ordinary discernment never rate any person higher than he 
 appears to rate himself. He seems doubtful himself, they say, whether 
 he is perfectly fit for such a situation or such an office ; and imme- 
 diately give the preference to some impudent blockhead who entertains 
 no doubt about his own qualifications. Though they should have dis- 
 cernment, yet, if they want generosity, they never fail to take advantage 
 of his simplicity, and to assume over him an impertinent superiority 
 which they are by no means entitled to. His good nature may enable 
 him to bear this for some time ; but he grows weary at last, and fre- 
 quently when it is too late, and when that rank, which he ought to 
 have assumed, is lost irrecoverably, and usurped, in consequence of his 
 own backwardness, by some of his more forward, though much less 
 meritorious companions. A man of this character must have been very 
 fortunate in the early choice of his companions, if, in going through 
 the world, he meets always with fair justice, even from those whom, 
 from his own past kindness, he might have some reason to consider as 
 his best friends ; and a youth, who may be too unassuming and too 
 unambitious, is frequently followed by an insignificant, complaining, 
 and discontented old age. 
 
 Those unfortunate persons whom nature has formed a good deal 
 below the common level, seem oftentimes to rate themselves still more 
 below it than they really are. This humility appears sometimes to sink 
 them into idiotism. Whoever has taken the trouble to examine idiots 
 with attention, will find that, in many of them, the faculties of the 
 understanding are by no means weaker than in several other people, 
 who, though acknowledged to be dull and stupid, are not, by any body, 
 accounted idiots. Many idiots, with no more than ordinary education, 
 have been taught to read, write, and account tolerably well. Many
 
 232 FAIR SELF-ESTIMATION THE BASIS OF GOOD CHARACTER. 
 
 persons, never accounted idiots, notwithstanding the most careful 
 education, and notwithstanding that, in their advanced age, they have 
 had spirit enough to attempt to learn what their early education had 
 not taught them, have never been able to acquire, in any tolerable de- 
 gree, any one of those three accomplishments. By an instinct of pride, 
 however, they set themselves upon a level with their equals in age and 
 situation ; and, with courage and firmness, maintain their proper station 
 among their companions. By an opposite instinct, the idiot feels him- 
 self below every company into which you can introduce him. Ill-usage, 
 to which he is extremely liable, is capable of throwing him into the 
 most violent fits of rage and fury. But no good usage, no kindness or 
 indulgence, can ever raise him to converse with you as your equal. If 
 you can bring him to converse with you at all, however, you will fre- 
 quently find his answers sufficiently pertinent, and even sensible. But 
 they are always stamped with a distinct consciousness of his own great 
 inferiority. He seems to shrink and, as it were, to retire from your 
 look and conversation ; and to feel, when he places himself in your 
 situation, that, notwithstanding your apparent condescension, you 
 cannot help considering him as immensely below you. Some idiots, 
 perhaps the greater part, seem to be so, chiefly or altogether, from a 
 certain numbness or torpidity in the faculties of the understanding. 
 But there are others, in whom those faculties do not appear more 
 torpid or benumbed than in many other people who are not accounted 
 idiots. But that instinct of pride, necessary to support them upon an 
 equality with their brethren, seems to be totally wanting in the former 
 and not in the latter. 
 
 That degree of self-estimation, therefore, which contributes most to 
 the happiness and contentment of the person himself, seems likewise 
 most agreeable to the impartial spectator. 
 
 The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he 
 ought, seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he 
 himself thinks due. He desires no more than is due to him, and he 
 rests upon it with complete satisfaction. 
 
 The proud and the vain man, on the contrary, are constantly dis- 
 satisfied. The one is tormented with indignation at the unjust supe- 
 riority, as he thinks it, of other people. The other is in continual 
 dread of the shame, which, he foresees, would attend upon the de- 
 tection of his groundless pretensions. Even the extravagant preten- 
 sions of the man of real magnanimity, though, when supported by 
 splendid abilities and virtues, and, above all, by good fortune, they 
 impose upon the multitude, whose applauses he little regards, do not 
 impose upon those wise men whose approbation he can only value, and 
 whose esteem he is most anxious to acquire. He feels that they see 
 through, and suspects that they despise his excessive presumption ; 
 and he often suffers the cruel misfortune of becoming, first the jealous
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OP MORAL SENTIMENTS. 233 
 
 and secret, and at last the open, furious, and vindictive enemy of those 
 very persons, whose friendship it would have given him the greatest 
 happiness to enjoy with unsuspicious security. 
 
 Though our dislike to the proud and the vain often disposes us to 
 rank them rather below than above their proper station, yet, unless we 
 are provoked by some particular and personal impertinence, we very 
 seldom venture to use them ill. In common cases, we endeavour, for 
 our own ease, rather to acquiesce, and, as well as we can, to accom- 
 modate ourselves to their folly. But, to the man who under-rates him- 
 self, unless we have both more discernment and more generosity than 
 belong to the greater part of men, we seldom fail to do, at least, all the 
 injustice which he does to himself, and frequently a great deal more. 
 He is not only more unhappy in his own feelings than either the proud 
 or the vain, but he is much more liable to every sort of ill-usage from 
 other people. In almost all cases, it is better to be a little too proud, 
 than, in any respect, too humble ; and, in the sentiment of self-estima- 
 tion, some degree of excess seems, both to the person himself and to 
 the impartial spectator, to be less disagreeable than any degree of 
 defect of that feeling. 
 
 In this, therefore, as well as in every other emotion, passion, and 
 habit, the degree that is most agreeable to the impartial spectator is 
 likewise most agreeable to the person himself ; and according as either 
 the excess or the defect is least offensive to the former, so, either the 
 one or the other is in proportion least disagreeable to the latter. 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE SIXTH PART. 
 
 CONCERN for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of pru- 
 dence : concern for that of other people, the virtues of justice and 
 beneficence; of which, the one restrains us from hurting, the other 
 prompts us to promote that happiness. Independent of any regard 
 either to what are, or to what ought to be, or to what upon a certain 
 condition would be, the sentiments of other people, the first of those 
 three virtues is originally recommended to us by our selfish, the other 
 two by our benevolent affections. Regard to the sentiments of other 
 people, however, comes afterwards both to enforce and to direct the 
 practice of all those virtues ; and no man during, either the whole 
 course of his life, or that <v any considerable part of it, ever trod 
 steadily and uniformly in the paths of prudence, of justice, or of proper 
 beneficence, whose conduct was not principally directed by a regard to 
 the sentiments of the supposed impartial spectator, of the great inmate 
 of the breast, the great judge and arbiter of conduct. If in the course 
 of the day we have swerved in any respect from the rules which he 
 prescribes to us ; if we have either exceeded or relaxed in our frugality ; 
 
 16
 
 234 RESPECT FOR OTHERS RESTRAINING DISPLAY OF PASSION. 
 
 if we have either exceeded or relaxed in our industry; if through 
 passion or inadvertency, we have hurt in any respect the interest or 
 happiness of our neighbour ; if we have neglected a plain and proper 
 opportunity of promoting that interest and happiness ; it is this inmate 
 who, in the evening, calls us to an account for all those omissions and 
 violations, and his reproaches often make us blush inwardly both for 
 our folly and inattention to our own happiness, and for our still greater 
 indifference and inattention, perhaps, to that of other people. 
 
 But though the virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence, may, 
 upon different occasions, be recommended to us almost equally by two 
 different principles ; those of self-command are, upon most occasions, 
 principally and almost entirely recommended to us by one; by the 
 sense of propriety, by regard to the sentiments of the supposed im- 
 partial spectator. Without the restraint which this principle imposes, 
 every passion would, upon most occasions, rush headlong, if I may say 
 so, to its own gratification. Anger would follow the suggestions of its 
 own fury ; fear those of its own violent agitations. Regard to no time 
 or place would induce vanity to refrain from the loudest and most 
 impertinent ostentation; or voluptuousness from the most open, in- 
 decent, and scandalous indulgence. Respect for what are, or for what 
 ought to be, or for what upon a certain condition would be, the senti- 
 ments of other people, is the sole principle which, upon most occasions, 
 over-awes all those mutinous and turbulent passions into that tone and 
 temper which the impartial spectator can enter into and cordially 
 sympathize with. 
 
 Upon some occasions, indeed, those passions are restrained, not so 
 much by a sense of their impropriety, as by prudential considerations 
 of the bad consequences which might follow from their indulgence. In 
 such cases, the passions, though restrained, are not always subdued, 
 but often remain lurking in the breast with all their original fury. The 
 man whose anger is restrained by fear, does not always lay aside his 
 anger, but only reserves its gratification for a more safe opportunity. 
 But the man who, in relating to some other person the injury which 
 has been done to him, feels at once the fury of his passion cooled and 
 becalmed by sympathy with the more moderate sentiments of his com- 
 panion, who at once adopts those more moderate sentiments, and comes 
 to view that injury, not in the black and atrocious colours in which he 
 had originally beheld it, but in the much milder and fairer light in 
 which his companion naturally views it ; not only restrains, but in 
 some measure subdues, his anger. The passion becomes really less 
 than it was before, and less capable of exciting him to the violent and 
 bloody revenge which at first, perhaps, he might have thought of 
 inflicting on his enemy. 
 
 Those passions which are restrained by the sense of propriety, are 
 all in some degree moderated and subdued by it. But those which are
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 235 
 
 restrained only by prudential considerations of any kind, are, on the 
 contrary, frequently inflamed by the restraint, and sometimes (long 
 after the provocation given, and when nobody is thinking about it) 
 burst out absurdly and unexpectedly, and that with tenfold fury and 
 violence. 
 
 Anger, however, as well as every other passion, may, upon many 
 occasions, be very properly restrained by prudential considerations. 
 Some exertion of manhood and self-command is even necessary for 
 this sort of restraint; and the impartial spectator may sometimes 
 view it with that sort of cold esteem due to that species of conduct 
 which he considers as a mere matter of vulgar prudence ; but never 
 with that affectionate admiration with which he surveys the same 
 passions, when, by the sense of propriety, they are moderated and 
 subdued to what he himself can readily enter into. In the former 
 species of restraint, he may frequently discern some degree of pro- 
 priety, and, if you will, even of virtue ; but it is a propriety and virtue 
 of a much inferior order to those which he always feels with transport 
 and admiration in the latter. 
 
 The virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence, have no tendency 
 to produce any but the most agreeable effects. Regard to those effects, 
 as it originally recommends them to the actor, so does it afterwards to 
 the impartial spectator. In our aoprobation of the character of the 
 prudent man, we feel, with peculiar complacency, the security which 
 he must enjoy while he walks under the safeguard of that sedate and 
 deliberate virtue. In our approbation of the character of the just man, 
 we feel, with equal complacency, the security which all those connected 
 with him, whether in neighbourhood, society, or business must derive 
 from his scrupulous anxiety never either to hurt or offend. In our 
 approbation of the character of the beneficent man, we enter into the 
 gratitude of all those who are within the sphere of his good offices, and 
 conceive with them the highest sense of his merit. In our approbation 
 of all those virtues, our sense of their agreeable effects, of their utility, 
 either to the person who exercises them, or to some other persons, joins 
 with our sense of their propriety, and constitutes always a considerable, 
 frequently the greater part of that approbation. 
 
 But in our approbation of the virtues of self-command, complacency 
 with their effects sometimes constitutes no part, and frequently but a 
 small part, of that approbation. Those effects may sometimes be 
 agreeable, and sometimes disagreeable; and though our approbation 
 is no doubt stronger in the former case, it is by no means altogether 
 destroyed in the latter. The most heroic valour may be employed 
 indifferently in the cause either of justice or of injustice ; and though 
 it is no doubt much more loved and admired in the former case, it still 
 appears a great and respectable quality even in the latter. In that, and 
 in all the other Virtues of self-command, the splendid and dazzling 
 
 16 *
 
 236 THE TWO QUESTIONS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS. 
 
 quality seems always to be the greatness and steadiness of the exertion, 
 and the strong sense of propriety which is necessary in order to make 
 and to maintain that exertion. The effects are too often but too little 
 regarded. 
 
 Part VII. Of Systems of Moral Philosophy. 
 
 SEC. I. OF THE QUESTIONS WHICH OUGHT TO BE EXAMINED IN A 
 THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 
 
 IF we examine the most celebrated and remarkable of the different 
 theories which have been given concerning the nature and origin of our 
 moral sentiments, we shall find that almost all of them coincide with 
 some part or other of that which I have been endeavouring to give an 
 account of ; and that if every thing which has already been said be 
 fully considered, we shall be at no loss to explain what was the view or 
 aspect of nature which led each particular author to form his particular 
 system. From some one or other of those principles which I have 
 been endeavouring to unfold, every system of morality that ever had 
 any reputation in the world has, perhaps, ultimately been derived. As 
 they are all of them, in this respect, founded upon natural principles, 
 they are all of them in some measure in the right. But as many of them 
 are derived from a partial and imperfect view of nature, there are many 
 of them too in some respects in the wrong. 
 
 In treating of the principles of morals there are two questions to be 
 considered. First, wherein does virtue consist ? Or what is the tone 
 of temper, and tenor of conduct, which constitutes the excellent and 
 praise-worthy character, the character which is the natural object of 
 esteem, honour, and approbation ? And, secondly, by what power or 
 faculty in the mind is it, that this character, whatever it be, is recom- 
 mended to us ? Or in other words, how and by what means does it 
 come to pass, that the mind prefers one tenor of conduct to another, 
 denominates the one right and the other wrong ; considers the one as 
 the object of approbation, honour, and reward, and the other of blame, 
 censure, and punishment ? 
 
 We examine the first question when we consider whether virtue con- 
 sists in benevolence, as Dr. Hutcheson imagines ; or in acting suitably 
 to the different relations we stand in, as Dr. Clark supposes ; or in the 
 wise and prudent pursuit of our own real and solid happiness, as has 
 been the opinion of others. 
 
 We examine the second question, when we consider, whether the 
 virtuous character, whatever it consists in, be recommended to us by 
 self-love, which makes us perceive that this character, both in ourselves 
 and others, tends most to promote our own private interest ; or by 
 reason, which points out to us the difference between one-character and
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 237 
 
 another, in the same manner as it does that between truth and false- 
 hood ; or by a peculiar power of perception, called a moral sense, which 
 this virtuous character gratifies and pleases, as the contrary disgusts 
 and displeases it ; or last of all, by some other principle in human 
 nature, such as a modification of sympathy, or the like. 
 
 I shall begin with considering the systems which have been formed 
 concerning the first of these questions, and shall proceed afterwards to 
 examine those concerning the second. 
 
 SEC. II. OF THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS WHICH HAVE BEEN GIVEN 
 OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. The different accounts which have been given of the 
 nature of virtue, or of the temper of mind which constitutes the excellent 
 and praise-worthy character, may be reduced to three different classes. 
 According to some, the virtuous temper of mind does not consist in any 
 one species of affections, but in the proper government and direction 
 of all our affections, which may be either virtuous or vicious according 
 to the objects which they pursue, and the degree of vehemence with 
 which they pursue them. According to these authors, therefore, virtue 
 consists in propriety. 
 
 According to others, virtue consists in the judicious pursuit of our 
 own private interest and happiness, or in the proper government and 
 direction of those selfish affections which aim solely at this end. In 
 the opinion of these, therefore, virtue consists in prudence. 
 
 Another set of authors make virtue consist in those affections only 
 which aim at the happiness of others, not in those which aim at our 
 ov/n. According to them, therefore, disinterested benevolence is the 
 only motive which can stamp upon actions the character of virtue. 
 
 The character of virtue, it is evident, must either be ascribed in- 
 differently to all our affections, when under proper government and 
 direction ; or be confined to some one class or division of them. 
 
 The great division of our affections is into the selfish and the bene- 
 volent. If the character of virtue, therefore, cannot be ascribed indif- 
 ferently to all our affections, when under proper government and direc- 
 tion, it must be confined either to those which aim directly at our 
 own private happiness, or to those which aim directly at that of 
 others. If virtue, therefore, does not consist in propriety, it must con- 
 sist either in prudence or in benevolence. Besides these three, it is 
 scarce possible to imagine that any other account can be given of the 
 nature of virtue. I shall endeavour to show hereafter how all the other 
 accounts, which are seemingly different from any of these, coincide at 
 bottom with some one or other of them.
 
 238 WHAT FORMS THE ESSENTIAL VIRTUE OF PRUDENCE. 
 
 CHAP. I. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in Propriety. 
 
 ACCORDING to Plato, to Aristotle, and to Zeno, virtue consists in the 
 propriety of conduct, or in the suitableness of the affection from which 
 we act to the object which excites it 
 
 I. In the system of Plato (See Plato de Rep. lib. iv.) the soul is 
 considered as something like a little state or republic, composed of 
 three different faculties or orders. 
 
 The first is the judging faculty, the faculty which determines not only 
 what are the proper means for attaining any end, but also what ends 
 are fit to be pursued, and what degree of relative value we ought to put 
 upon each. This faculty Plato called, as it is very properly called, 
 reason, and considered it as what had a right to be the governing prin- 
 ciple of the whole. Under this appellation, it is evident, he compre- 
 hended not only that faculty by which we judge of truth and falsehood, 
 but that by which we judge of the propriety or the impropriety of our 
 desires and affections. 
 
 The different passions and appetites, the natural subjects of this 
 ruling principle, but which are so apt to rebel against their master, he 
 reduced to two different classes or orders. The first consisted of those 
 passions, which are founded in pride and resentment, or in what the 
 schoolmen called the irascible part of the soul ; ambition, animosity, 
 the love of honour, and the dread of shame, the desire of victory, 
 superiority, and revenge ; all those passions, in short, which are sup- 
 posed either to rise from, or to denote what, by a metaphor in our lan- 
 guage, we commonly call spirit or natural fire. The second consisted 
 of those passions which are founded in the love of pleasure, or in what 
 the schoolmen called the concupiscible part of the soul. It compre- 
 hended all the appetites of the body, the love of ease and of security, 
 and of all the sensual gratifications. 
 
 It rarely happens that we break in upon that plan of conduct, which 
 the governing principle prescribes, and which in all our cool hours we 
 had laid down to ourselves as what was most proper for us to pursue, 
 but when prompted by one or other of those two different sets of pas- 
 sions ; either by ungovernable ambition and resentment, or by the 
 importunate solicitations of present ease and pleasure. But though 
 these two orders of passions are so apt to mislead us, they are still 
 considered as necessary parts of human nature : the first having been 
 given to defend us against injuries, to assert our rank and dignity in 
 the world, to make us aim at what is noble and honourable, and to 
 make us distinguish those who act in the same manner; the second, to 
 provide for the support and necessities of the body. 
 
 In the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the governing principle 
 was placed the essential virtue of prudence, which, according to Plato,
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 239 
 
 consisted in a just and clear discernment, founded upon general and 
 scientific ideas, of the ends which were proper to be pursued, and of the 
 means which were proper for attaining them. 
 
 When the first set of passions, those of the irascible part of the soul, 
 had that degree of strength and firmness, which enabled them, under 
 the direction of reason, to despise all dangers in the pursuit of what 
 was honourable and noble ; it constituted the virtue of fortitude and 
 magnanimity. This order of passions, according to this system, was 
 of a more generous and noble nature than the other. They were con- 
 sidered upon many occasions as the auxiliaries of reason, to check and 
 restrain the inferior and brutal appetites. We are often angry at our- 
 selves, it was observed, we often become the objects of our own resent- 
 ment and indignation, when the love of pleasure prompts to do what 
 we disapprove of ; and the irascible part of our nature is in this manner 
 called in to assist the rational against the concupiscible. 
 
 When all those three different parts of our nature were in perfect 
 concord with one another, when neither the irascible nor concupiscible 
 passions ever aimed at any gratification which reason did not approve 
 of, and when reason never commanded any thing, but what these of 
 their own accord were willing to perform : this happy composure, this 
 perfect and complete harmony of soul, constituted that virtue which in 
 their language is expressed by a word which we commonly translate 
 temperance, but which might more properly be translated good temper, 
 or sobriety and moderation of mind. 
 
 Justice, the last and greatest of the four cardinal virtues, took place, 
 according to this system, when each of those three faculties of the 
 mind confined itself to its proper office, without attempting to encroach 
 upon that of any other ; when reason directed and passion obeyed, and 
 when each passion performed its proper duty, and exerted itself towards 
 its proper object easily and without reluctance, and with that degree of 
 force and energy, which was suitable to the value of what it pursued. 
 In this consisted that complete virtue, that perfect propriety of con- 
 duct, which Plato, after some of the ancient Pythagoreans, has well 
 denominated Justice. 
 
 The word, it is to be observed, which expresses justice in the Greek 
 language, has several different meanings ; and as the correspondent 
 word in all other languages, so far as I know, has the same, there must 
 be some natural affinity among those various significations. In one 
 sense we are said to do justice to our neighbour when we abstain from 
 doing him any positive harm, and do not directly hurt him, either in 
 his person, or in his estate, or in his reputation. This is that justice 
 which I have treated of above, the observance of which may be extorted 
 by force, and the violation of which exposes to punishment. In another 
 sense we are said not to do justice to our neighbour unless we conceive I 
 for him all that love, respect, and esteem, which his character, his situa-
 
 24 ACCOUNT GIVEN BY PLATO OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE. 
 
 tion, and his connexion with ourselves, render suitable and proper for 
 us to feel, and unless we act accordingly. It is in this sense that we 
 are said to do injustice to a man of merit who is connected with us, 
 though we abstain from hurting him in every respect, if we do not 
 exert ourselves to serve him and to place him in that situation in which 
 the impartial spectator would be pleased to see him. The first sense ot 
 the word coincides with what Aristotle and the Schoolmen call com- 
 mutative justice, and with what Grotius calls the justitia expletrix, 
 which consists in abstaining from what is another's, and in doing volun- 
 tarily whatever we can with propriety be forced to do. The second 
 sense of the word coincides with what some have called distributive 
 justice, and with \h& justitia attributrix of Grotius, which consists in 
 proper beneficence, in the becoming use of what is our own, and in the 
 applying it to those purposes, either of charity or generosity, to which 
 it is most suitable, in our situation, that it should be applied. In this 
 sense justice comprehends all the social virtues. There is yet another 
 sense in which the word justice is sometimes taken, still more extensive 
 than either of the former, though very much akin to the last ; and 
 which runs too, so far as I know, through all languages. It is in this 
 last sense that we are said to be unjust, when we do not seem to value 
 any particular object with that degree of esteem, or to pursue it with 
 that degree of ardour which to the impartial spectator it may appear to 
 deserve or to be naturally fitted for exciting. Thus we are said to do 
 injustice to a poem or a picture, when we do not admire them enough, 
 and we are said to do them more than justice when we admire them 
 too much. In the same manner we are said to do injustice to ourselves 
 when we appear not to give sufficient attention to any particular object 
 of self-interest. In this last sense, what is called justice means the 
 same thing with exact and perfect propriety of conduct and behaviour, 
 and comprehends in it, not only the offices of both commutative and 
 distributive justice, but of every other virtue, of prudence, of fortitude, 
 of temperance. It is in this last sense that Plato evidently understands 
 what he calls justice, and which, therefore, according to him, compre- 
 hends in it the perfection of every sort of virtue. 
 
 Such is the account given by Plato of the nature of virtue, or of that 
 temper of mind which is the proper object of praise and approbation. 
 It consists, according to him, in that state of mind in which every 
 faculty confines itself within its proper sphere without encroaching 
 upon that of any other, and performs its proper office with that precise 
 degree of strength and vigour which belongs to it. His account, it is 
 evident, coincides in every respect with what we have said above con- 
 cerning the propriety of conduct. 
 
 II. Virtue, according to Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. 1. 2. c. 5. et seq. et 1. 3. 
 
 The distributive justice of Aristotle is somewhat different. It consists in the proper dis- 
 tribution of rewards from the public stock of a community. See Aristotle Ethic. Nic. 1. 5. c. v
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 241 
 
 c. 4. et seq.), consists in the habit of mediocrity according to right 
 reason. Every particular virtue, according to him, lies in a kind of 
 middle between two opposite vices, of which the one offends from 
 being too much, the other from being too little affected by a particular 
 species of objects. Thus the virtue of fortitude or courage lies in the 
 middle between the opposite vices of cowardice and of presumptuous 
 rashness, of which the one offends from being too much, and the other 
 from being too little affected by the objects of fear. Thus too the 
 virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and profusion, of 
 which the one consists in an excess, the other in a defect of the proper 
 attention to the objects of self-interest. Magnanimity, in the same 
 manner, lies in a middle between the excess of arrogance and the 
 defect of pusillanimity, of which the one consists in too extravagant, 
 the other in too weak a sentiment of our own worth and dignity. It is 
 unnecessary to observe that this account of virtue corresponds, too, 
 pretty exactly with what has been said above concerning the propriety 
 and impropriety of conduct. 
 
 According to Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. lib. ii. ch. I, 2, 3, and 4.), indeed, 
 virtue did not so much consist in those moderate and right affections, 
 as in the habit of this moderation. In order to understand this, it is to 
 be observed, that virtue may be considered either as the quality of an 
 action, or the quality of a person. Considered as the quality of an 
 action, it consists, even according to Aristotle, in the reasonable mode- 
 ration of the affection from which the action proceeds, whether this 
 disposition be habitual to the person or not. Considered as the quality 
 of a person, it consists in the habit of this reasonable moderation, in 
 its having become the customary and usual disposition of the mind. 
 Thus the action which proceeds from an occasional fit of generosity is 
 undoubtedly a generous action, but the man who performs it, is not 
 necessarily a generous person, because it may be the single action of 
 the kind which he ever performed. The motive and disposition of 
 heart, from which this action was performed, may have been quite 
 just and proper: but as this happy mood seems to have been the effect 
 rather of accidental humour than of any thing steady or permanent in 
 the character, it can reflect no great honour on the performer. When 
 we denominate a character generous or charitable, or virtuous in any 
 respect, we mean to signify that the disposition expressed by each of 
 those appellations is the usual and customary disposition of the person. 
 But single actions of any kind, how proper and suitable soever, are of 
 little consequence to show that this is the case. If a single action was 
 sufficient to stamp the character of any virtue upon the person who 
 performed it, the most worthless of mankind might lay claim to all the 
 virtues ; since there is no man who has not, upon some occasions, 
 acted with prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. But though 
 single actions, how laudable soever, reflect very little praise upon the
 
 242 THE RANGE EMBRACED BY THE SELF-LOVE OF MAN. 
 
 person who performs them, a single vicious action performed by one 
 whose conduct is usually pretty regular, greatly diminishes and some- 
 times destroys altogether our opinion of his virtue. A single action of 
 this kind sufficiently shows that his habits are not perfect, and that he 
 is less to be depended upon, than, from the usual train of his behaviour, 
 we might have been apt to imagine. 
 
 Aristotle too (Mag. Mor. lib. i. ch. i.) when he made virtue to consist 
 in practical habits, had it probably in his view to oppose the doctrine of 
 Plato, who seems to have been of opinion that just sentiments and 
 reasonable judgments concerning what was fit to be done or to be 
 avoided, were alone sufficient to constitute the most perfect virtue. 
 Virtue, according to Plato, might be considered as a species of science, 
 and no man, he thought, could see clearly and demonstratively what 
 was right and what was wrong, and not act accordingly. Passion 
 might make us act contrary to doubtful and uncertain opinions, not to 
 plain and evident judgments. Aristotle, on the contrary, was of opinion 
 that no conviction of the understanding was capable of getting the 
 better of inveterate habits, and that our good morals arose not from 
 knowledge but from action. 
 
 III. According to Zeno,* the founder of the Stoical doctrine, every 
 animal was by nature recommended to its own care, and was endowed 
 with the principle of self-love, that it might endeavour to preserve, not 
 only its existence, but all the different parts of its nature, in the best 
 and most perfect state of which they were capable. 
 
 The self-love of man embraced, if I may say so, his body and all its 
 different members, his mind and all its different faculties and powers, 
 and desired the preservation and maintenance of them all in their best 
 and most perfect condition. Whatever tended to support this state of 
 existence was, therefore, by nature pointed out to him as fit to be 
 chosen ; and whatever tended to destroy it, as fit to be rejected. Thus 
 health, strength, agility, and ease of body as well as the external con- 
 veniences which could promote these ; wealth, power, honours, the 
 respect and esteem of those we live with ; were naturally pointed out 
 to us as things eligible, and of which the possession was preferable to 
 the want. On the other hand, sickness, infirmity, unwieldiness, pain of 
 body, as well as' all the external inconveniences which tend to occasion 
 or bring on any of them ; poverty, the want of authority, the contempt 
 or hatred of those we live with ; were, in the same manner, pointed out 
 to us as things to be shunned and avoided. In each of those two 
 opposite classes of objects, there were some which appeared to be more 
 the objects either of choice or rejection, than others in the same class. 
 Thus, in the first class, health appeared evidently preferable to strength, 
 and strength to agility ; reputation to power, and power to riches. And 
 thus too, in the second class, sickness was more to be avoided than 
 
 * See Cicero de finibus, lib. iii. ; also Diogenes Laertius in Zenone, lib. vii. segment 84.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 243 
 
 unwieldiness of body, ignominy than poverty, and poverty than the 
 loss of power. Virtue and the propriety of conduct consisted in choos- 
 ing and rejecting all different objects and circumstances according as 
 they were by nature rendered more or less the objects of choice or 
 rejection; in selecting always from among the several objects of choice 
 presented to us, that which must be chosen, when we could not obtain 
 them all ; and in selecting, too, out of the several objects of rejection 
 offered to us, that which was least to be avoided, when it was not in our 
 power to avoid them all. By choosing and rejecting with this just and 
 accurate discernment, by thus bestowing upon every object the precise 
 degree of attention it deserved, according to the place which it held in 
 this natural scale of things, we maintained, acccording to the Stoics, 
 that perfect rectitude of conduct which constituted the essence of 
 virtue. This was what they called to live consistently, to live according 
 to nature, and to obey those laws and directions which nature, or the 
 Author of nature, had prescribed for our conduct. 
 
 So far the Stoical idea of propriety and virtue is not very different 
 from that of Aristotle and the ancient Peripatetics. 
 
 Among those primary objects which nature had recommended to us 
 as eligible, was the prosperity of our family, of our relations, of our 
 friends, of our country, of mankind, and of the universe in general. 
 Nature too, had taught us, that as the prosperity of two was preferable 
 to that of one, that of many, or of all, must be infinitely more so. 
 That we ourselves were but one, and that consequently wherever our 
 prosperity was inconsistent with that, either of the whole, or of any 
 considerable part of the whole, it ought, even in our own choice, to 
 yield to what was so vastly preferable. As all the events in this world 
 were conducted by the providence of a wise, powerful, and good God, 
 we might be assured that whatever happened tended to the prosperity 
 and perfection of the whole. If we ourselves, therefore, were in 
 poverty, in sickness, or in any other calamity, we ought, first of all, to 
 use our utmost endeavours, so far as justice and our duty to others will 
 allow, to rescue ourselves from this disagreeable circumstance. But if, 
 after all we could do, we found this impossible, we ought to rest satis- 
 fied that the order and perfection of the universe required that we 
 should in the mean time continue in this situation. And as the pros- 
 perity of the whole should, even to us, appear preferable to so insigni- 
 ficant a part as ourselves, our situation, whatever it was, ought from 
 that moment to become the object of our liking, if we would maintain 
 that complete propriety and rectitude of sentiment and conduct in 
 which consisted the perfection of our nature. If, indeed, any oppor- 
 tunity of extricating ourselves should offer, it became our duty to 
 embrace it. The order of the universe, it was evident, no longer 
 required our continuance in this situation, and the great Director of 
 the world plainly called upon us to leave it, by so clearly pointing out
 
 244 THE DOCTRINE OF AN OVER-RULING PROVIDENCE. 
 
 the road which we were to follow. It was the same case with the 
 adversity of our relations, our friends, our country. If, without violat- 
 ing any more sacred obligation, it was in our power to prevent or put 
 an end to their calamity, it undoubtedly was our duty to do so. The 
 propriety of action, the rule which Jupiter had given us for the direc- 
 tion of our conduct, evidently required this of us. But if it was alto- 
 gether out of our power to do either, we ought then to consider this 
 event as the most fortunate which could possibly have happened : be- 
 cause we might be assured that it tended most to the prosperity and 
 order of the whole, which was that we ourselves, if we were wise and 
 equitable, ought most of all to desire. It was our own final interest 
 considered as a part of that whole, of which the prosperity ought to be, 
 not only the principal, but the sole object of our desire. 
 
 ' In what sense,' says Epictetus, ' are some things said to be accord- 
 ' ing to our nature, and others contrary to it ? It is in that sense in 
 ' which we consider ourselves as separated and detached from all other 
 ' things. For thus it may be said to be according to the nature of the 
 ' foot to be always clean. But if you consider it as a foot, and not as 
 ' something detached from the rest of the body, it must behove it some- 
 ' times to trample in the dirt, and sometimes to tread upon thorns, and 
 ' sometimes, too, to be cut off for the sake of the whole body ; and if it 
 ' refuses this, it is no longer a foot. Thus, too, ought we to conceive 
 ' with regard to ourselves. What are you ? A man. If you consider 
 ' yourself as something separated and detached, it is agreeable to your 
 ' nature to live to old age, to be rich, to be in health. But if you con- 
 ' sider yourself as a man, and as a part of a whole, upon account of that 
 ' whole, it will behove you sometimes to be in sickness, sometimes to be 
 ' exposed to the inconveniency of a sea voyage, sometimes to be in 
 ' want, and at last perhaps to die before your time. Why then do you 
 ' complain ? Do not you know that by doing so, as the foot ceases to 
 ' be a foot, so you cease to be man ?' 
 
 A wise man never complains of the destiny of Providence, nor thinks 
 the universe in confusion when he is out of order. He does not look 
 upon himself as a whole, separated and detached from every other part 
 of nature, to be taken care of by itself and for itself. He regards him- 
 self in the light in which he imagines the great genius of human nature, 
 and of the world, regards him. He enters, if I may say so, into the 
 sentiments of that divine Being, and considers himself as an atom, a 
 particle, of an immense and infinite system, which must and ought to 
 be disposed of according to the conveniency of the whole. Assured of 
 the wisdom which directs all the events of human life, whatever lot be- 
 falls him, he accepts it with joy, satisfied that, if he had known all the 
 connections and dependencies of the different parts of the universe, it 
 is the very lot which he himself would have wished for. If it is life, he 
 is contented to live ; and if it is death, as nature must have no further
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OP MORAL SENTIMENTS. 245 
 
 occasion for his presence here, he willingly goes where he is appointed. 
 I accept, said a cynical philosopher, whose doctrines were in this re- 
 spect the same as those of the Stoics, I accept, with equal joy and satis- 
 faction, whatever fortune can befall me. Riches or poverty, pleasure 
 or pain, health or sickness, all is alike : nor would I desire that the 
 gods should in any respect change my destination. If I was to ask of 
 them any thing beyond what their bounty has already bestowed, it 
 should be that they would inform me beforehand what it was their 
 pleasure should be done with me, that I might of my own accord place 
 myself in this situation, and demonstrate the cheerfulness with which I 
 embraced their allotment. If I am going to sail, says Epictetus, I 
 choose the best ship and the best pilot, and I wait for the fairest 
 weather that my circumstances and duty will allow. Prudence and 
 propriety, the principles which the gods have given me for the direction 
 of my conduct, require this of me ; but they require no more : and if, 
 notwithstanding, a storm arises, which neither the strength of the 
 vessel nor the skill of the pilot are likely to withstand, I give myself no 
 trouble about the consequence. All that I had to do is done already. 
 The directors of my conduct never command me to be miserable, to be 
 anxious, desponding, or afraid. Whether we are to be drowned, or to 
 come to a harbour, is the business of Jupiter, not mine. I leave it en- 
 tirely to his determination, nor ever break my rest with considering 
 which way he is likely to decide it, but receive whatever may come 
 with equal indifference and security. 
 
 From this perfect confidence in that benevolent wisdom which 
 governs the universe, and from this entire resignation to whatever order 
 that wisdom might think proper to establish, it necessarily followed, 
 that to the Stoical wise man, all the events of human life must be in a 
 great measure indifferent. His happiness consisted altogether, first, in 
 the contemplation of the happiness and perfection of the great system 
 of the universe, of the good government of the great republic of gods 
 and men, of all rational and sensible beings ; and, secondly, in dis- 
 charging his duty, in acting properly in the affairs of this great republic 
 whatever little part that wisdom had assigned to him. The propriety 
 or impropriety of his endeavours might be of great consequence to him. 
 Their success or disappointment could be of none at all ; could excite 
 no passionate joy or sorrow, no passionate desire or aversion. If he 
 preferred some events to others, if some situations were the objects of 
 his choice and others of his rejection, it was not because he regarded 
 the one as in themselves in any respect better than the other, or thought 
 that his own happiness would be more complete in what is called the 
 fortunate than in what is regarded as the distressful situation ; but be- 
 cause the propriety of action, the rule which the gods had given him 
 for the direction of his conduct, required him to choose and reject in 
 this manner. All his affections were absorbed and swallowed up in
 
 246 THE BRAVE EXULT IN DANGERS FORTUNE INVOLVES THEM IN. 
 
 two great affections ; in that for the discharge of his own duty, and in 
 thatforthegreatest possible happiness of all rational and sensible beings. 
 For the gratification of this latter affection, he rested with the most per- 
 fect security upon the wisdom and power of the great Superintendent 
 of the universe. His sole anxiety was about the gratification of the 
 former ; not about the event, but about the propriety of his own en- 
 deavours. Whatever the event might be, he trusted to a superior 
 power and wisdom for turning it to promote that great end which he 
 himself was most desirous of promoting. 
 
 This propriety of choosing and rejecting, though originally pointed 
 out to us, and as it were recommended and introduced to our acquaint- 
 ance by the things, and for the sake of the things, chosen and rejected ; 
 yet when we had once become thoroughly acquainted with it, the order, 
 the grace, the beauty which we discerned in this conduct, the happi- 
 ness which we felt resulted from it, necessarily appeared to us of much 
 greater value than the actual obtaining of all the different objects of 
 choice, or the actual avoiding of all those of rejection. From the ob- 
 servation of this propriety arose the happiness and the glory ; from the 
 neglect of it, the misery and the disgrace of human nature. 
 
 But to a wise man, to one whose passions were brought under perfect 
 subjection to the ruling principles of his nature, the exact observation 
 of this propriety was equally easy upon all occasions. Was he in pros- 
 perity, he returned thanks to Jupiter for having joined him with cir- 
 cumstances which were easily mastered, and in. which there was little 
 temptation to do wrong. Was he in adversity, he equally returned 
 thanks to the director of this spectacle of human life, for having op- 
 posed to him a vigorous athlete, over whom, though the contest was 
 likely to be more violent, the victory was more glorious, and equally 
 certain. Can there be any shame in that distress which is brought 
 upon us without any fault of our own, and in which we behave with 
 perfect propriety ? There can, therefore, be no evil, but, on the con- 
 trary, the greatest good and advantage. A brave man exults in those 
 dangers in which, from no rashness of his own, his fortune has involved 
 him. They afford an opportunity of exercising that heroic intrepidity, 
 whose exertion gives the exalted delight which flows from the conscious- 
 ness of superior propriety and deserved admiration. One who is master 
 of all his exercises has no aversion to measure his strength and activity 
 with the strongest. And, in the same manner, one who is master of all his 
 passions, does not dread any circumstance in which the Superintendent 
 of the universe may think proper to place him. The bounty ot that 
 divine Being has provided him with virtues which render him superior 
 to every situation. If it is pleasure, he has temperance to refrain from 
 it ; if it is pain, he has constancy to bear it ; if it is danger or death, 
 he has magnanimity and fortitude to despise it. The events of human 
 life can never find him unprepared, or at a loss how to maintain that
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS, 247 
 
 propriety of sentiment and conduct which, in his own apprehension, 
 constitutes at once his glory and his happiness. 
 
 Human life the Stoics appear to have considered as a game of great 
 skill ; in which, however, there was a mixture of chance, or of what is 
 vulgarly understood to be chance. In such games the stake is com- 
 monly a trifle, and the whole pleasure of the game arises from playing 
 well, from playing fairly, and playing skilfully. If notwithstanding all 
 his skill, however, the good player should, by the influence of chance, 
 happen to lose, the loss ought to be a matter, rather of merriment, than 
 of serious sorrow. He has made no false stroke ; he has done nothing 
 which he ought to be ashamed of; he has enjoyed completely the whole 
 pleasure of the game. If, on the contrary, the bad player notwith- 
 standing all his blunders, should, in the same manner, happen to win, 
 his success can give him but little satisfaction. He is mortified by the 
 remembrance of all the faults which he committed. Even during the 
 play he can enjoy no part of the pleasure which it is capable of afford- 
 ing. From ignorance of the rules of the game, fear and doubt and 
 hesitation are the disagreeable sentiments that precede almost every 
 stroke which he plays ; and when he has played it, the mortification of 
 finding it a gross blunder, commonly completes the unpleasing circle of 
 his sensations. Human life, with all the advantages which can possi- 
 bly attend it, ought, according to the Stoics, to be regarded but as a 
 mere twopenny stake ; a matter by far too insignificant to merit any 
 anxious concern. Our only anxious concern ought to be, not about the 
 stake, but about the proper method of playing. If we placed our 
 happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended upon 
 causes beyond our power and out of our direction. We necessarily 
 exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to 
 grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing 
 well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skilfully ; in the propriety 
 of our own conduct in short ; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, 
 education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and 
 under our own direction. Our happiness was perfectly secure, and be- 
 yond the reach of fortune. The event of our actions, if it was out of 
 our power, was equally out of our concern, and we could never feel 
 either fear or anxiety about it ; nor ever suffer any grievous, or even 
 any serious disappointment. 
 
 Human life itself, as well as every different advantage or disad- 
 vantage which can attend it, might, they said, according to different 
 circumstances, be the proper object either of our choice or of our 
 rejection. If, in our actual situation, there were more circumstances 
 agreeable to nature than contrary to it; more circumstances which 
 were the objects of choice than of rejection; life, in this case, was, 
 upon the whole, the proper object of choice, and the propriety of con- 
 duct required that we should remain in it. If, on the other hand, there
 
 248 THE OPINION OF THE STOICS ON FREEDOM OP DEATH. 
 
 * 
 
 were, in our actual situation, without any probable hope of amendment, 
 more circumstances contrary to nature than agreeable to it; more cir- 
 cumstances which were the objects of rejection than of choice; life 
 itself, in this case, became, to a wise man, the object of rejection, and 
 he was not only at liberty to remove out of it, but the propriety of con- 
 duct, the rule which the gods had given him for the direction of his 
 conduct, required him to do so. I am ordered, says Epictetus, not to 
 dwell at Nicopolis. I do not dwell there. I am ordered not to dwell 
 at Athens. I do not dwell at Athens. I am ordered not to dwell in 
 Rome. I do not dwell in Rome. I am ordered to dwell in the little 
 and rocky island of Gyarae. I go and dwell there. But the house 
 smokes in Gyarae. If the smoke is moderate, I will bear it, and stay 
 there. If it is excessive, I will go to a house from whence no tyrant 
 can remove me. I keep in mind always that the door is open, that I 
 can walk out when I please, and retire to that hospitable house which 
 is at all times open to all the world ; for beyond my undermost gar- 
 ment, beyond my body, no man living has any power over me. If your 
 situation is upon the whole disagreeable; if your house smokes too 
 much for you, said the Stoics, walk forth by all means. But walk forth 
 without repining; without murmuring or complaining. Walk forth 
 calm, contented, rejoicing, returning thanks to the gods, who, from 
 their infinite bounty, have opened the safe and quiet harbour of death, 
 at all times ready to receive us from the stormy ocean of human life ; 
 who have prepared this sacred, this inviolable, this great asylum, 
 always open, always accessible ; altogether beyond the reach of human 
 rage and injustice ; and large enough to contain both all those who 
 wish, and all those who do not wish to retire to it : an asylum which 
 takes away from every man every pretence of complaining, or even of 
 fancying that there can be any evil in human life, except such as he 
 may suffer from his own folly and weakness. 
 
 The Stoics, in the few fragments of their philosophy which have 
 come down to us, sometimes talk of leaving life with a gaiety, and even 
 with a levity, which, were we to consider those passages by themselves, 
 might induce us to believe that they imagined we could with propriety 
 leave it whenever we had a mind, wantonly and capriciously, upon the 
 slightest disgust or uneasiness. ' When you sup with such a person, 
 says Epictetus, ' you complain of the long stories which he tells you 
 ' about hi-3 Mysian wars. " Now my friend," says he, "having told you 
 ' " how I took possession of an eminence at such a place, I will tell you 
 ' " how I was besieged in such another place." But if you have a mind 
 ' not to be troubled with his long stories, do not accept of his supper. 
 ' If you accept of his supper, you have not the least pretence to com- 
 ' plain of his long stories. It is the same case with what you call the 
 'evils of human life. Never complain of that of which it is at all times 
 ' in your power to rid yourself.' Notwithstanding this gaiety and even
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 4AQ 
 
 levity of expression, however, the alternative of leaving life, or of re- 
 maining in it, was, according to the Stoics, a matter of the most serious 
 and important deliberation. We ought never to leave it till we were 
 distinctly called upon to do so by that superintending Power which 
 had originally placed us in it. But we were to consider ourselves as 
 called upon to do so, not merely at the appointed and unavoidable 
 term of human life. Whenever the providence of that superintending 
 Power had rendered our condition in life upon the whole the proper 
 object rather of rejection than of choice ; the great rule which he had 
 given us for the direction of our conduct, then required us to leave it. 
 We might then be said to hear the awful and benevolent voice of that 
 divine Being distinctly calling upon us to do so. 
 
 It was upon this account that, according to the Stoics, it might be 
 the duty of a wise man to remove out of life though he was perfectly 
 happy ; while, on the contrary, it might be the duty of a weak man to 
 remain in it, though he was necessarily miserable. If, in the situation 
 of the wise man, there were more circumstances which were the natural 
 objects of rejection than of choice, the whole situation became the 
 object of rejection, and the rule which the gods had given him for the 
 direction of his conduct, required that he should remove out of it as 
 speedily as particular circumstances might render convenient. He 
 was, however, perfectly happy even during the time that he might 
 think proper to remain in it. He had placed his happiness, not in 
 obtaining the objects of his choice, or in avoiding those of his rejection ; 
 but in always choosing and rejecting with exact propriety ; not in the 
 success, but in the fitness of his endeavours and exertions. If, in the 
 situation of the weak man, on the contrary, there were more circum- 
 stances which were the natural objects of choice than of rejection ; his 
 whole situation became the proper object of choice, and it was his duty 
 to remain in it. He was unhappy, however, from not knowing how to 
 use those circumstances. Let his cards be ever so good, he did not 
 know how to play them, and could enjoy no sort of real satisfaction, 
 either in the progress, or in the event of the game, in whatever manner 
 it might happen to turn out. (Cicero de finibus, lib. 3. c. 13.) 
 
 The propriety, upon some occasions, of voluntary death, though it 
 was, perhaps, more insisted upon by the Stoics, than by any other sect 
 of ancient philosophers, was, however, a doctrine common to them all, 
 even to the peaceable and indolent Epicureans. During the age in 
 which flourished the founders of all the principal sects of ancient philo- 
 sophy; during the Peloponnesian war and for many years after its 
 conclusion, all the different republics of Greece were, at home, almost 
 always distracted by the most furious factions ; and abroad, involved 
 in the most sanguinary wars, in which each fought, not merely for 
 superiority or dominion, but either completely to extirpate all its 
 enemies, or, what was not less cruel, to reduce them into the vilest of
 
 250 STOICS HELD HAPPINESS TO BE INDEPENDENT OF FORTUNE. 
 
 all states, that of domestic slavery, and to sell them, man, woman, and 
 child, like so many herds of cattle, to the highest bidder in the market. 
 The smalmess of the greater part of those states, too, rendered it, to 
 each of them, no very improbable event, that it might itself fall into 
 that very calamity which it had so frequently, 'either, perhaps, actually 
 inflicted, or at least attempted to inflict upon some of its neighbours. 
 In this disorderly state of things, the most perfect innocence, joined to 
 both the highest rank and the greatest public services, could give no 
 security to any man that, even at home and among his own relations 
 and fellow-citizens, he was not, at some time or another, from the pre- 
 valence of some hostile and furious faction, to be condemned to the 
 most cruel and ignominious punishment. If he was taken prisoner in 
 war, or if the city of which he was a member was conquered, he was 
 exposed, if possible, to still greater injuries and insults. But every man 
 naturally, or rather necessarily, familiarizes his imagination with the 
 distresses to which he foresees that his situation may frequently expose 
 him. It is impossible that a sailor should not frequently think of 
 storms and shipwrecks and foundering at sea, and of how he himself 
 is likely both to feel and to act upon such occasions. It was im- 
 possible, in the same manner, that a Grecian patriot or hero should 
 not familiarize his imagination with all the different calamities to which 
 he was sensible his situation must frequently, or rather constantly, 
 expose him. As an American savage prepares his death-song, and 
 considers how he should act when he has fallen into the hands of his 
 enemies, and is by them put to death in the most lingering tortures, 
 and amidst the insults and derision of all the spectators ; so a Grecian 
 patriot or hero could not avoid frequently employing his thoughts in 
 considering what he ought both to suffer and to do in banishment, in 
 captivity, when reduced to slavery, when put to the torture, when 
 brought to the scaffold. But the philosophers of all the different sects 
 very justly represented virtue; that is, wise, just, firm and temperate 
 conduct ; not only as the most probable, but as the certain and in- 
 fallible road to happiness even in this life. This conduct, however, 
 could not always exempt, and might even sometimes expose the person 
 who followed it to all the calamities which were incident to that un- 
 settled situation of public affairs. They endeavoured, therefore, to 
 show that happiness was either altogether, or at least in a great mea- 
 sure, independent of fortune; the Stoics, that it was so altogether; 
 the Academic and Peripatetic philosophers, that it was so in a great 
 measure. Wise, prudent, and good conduct was, in the first place, the 
 conduct most likely to ensure success in every species of undertaking ; 
 and secondly, though it should fail of success, yet the mind was not 
 left without consolation. The virtuous man might still enjoy the com- 
 plete approbation of his own breast; and might still feel that, hov,- 
 untoward soever things might be without, all was calm and peace and
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 251 
 
 concord within. He might generally comfort himself, too, with the 
 assurance that he possessed the love and esteem of every intelligent 
 and impartial spectator, who could not fail both to admire his conduct, 
 and to regret his misfortune. 
 
 Those philosophers endeavoured, at the same time, to show, that 
 the greatest misfortunes to which human life was liable, might be sup- 
 ported more easily than was commonly imagined. They endeavoured 
 to point out the comforts which a man might still enjoy when reduced 
 to poverty, when driven into banishment, when exposed to the injustice 
 of popular clamour, when labouring under blindness, under deafness, 
 in the extremity of old age, upon the approach of death. They pointed 
 out, too, the considerations which might contribute to support his con- 
 stancy under the agonies of pain and even of torture, in sickness, in 
 sorrow for the loss of children, for the death of friends and relations, 
 etc. The few fragments which have come down to us of what the 
 ancient philosophers had written upon these subjects, form, perhaps, 
 one of the most instructive, as well as one of the most interesting 
 remains of antiquity. The spirit and manhood of their doctrines make 
 a wonderful contrast with the desponding, plaintive, and whining tone 
 of some modern systems. 
 
 But while those ancient philosophers endeavoured in this manner to 
 suggest every consideration which could, as Milton says, arm the 
 obdured breast with stubborn patience, as with triple steel ; they, at 
 the same time, laboured above all to convince their followers that there 
 neither was nor could be any evil in death ; and that, if their situation 
 became at any time too hard for their constancy to support, the remedy 
 was at hand, the door was open, and they might, without fear, walk out 
 when they pleased. If there was no world beyond the present, death, 
 they said, could be no evil ; and if there was another world, the gods 
 must likewise be in that other, and a just man could fear no evil while 
 under their protection. Those philosophers, in short, prepared a death- 
 song, if I may say so, which the Grecian patriots and heroes might 
 make use of upon the proper occasions ; and, of all the different sects, 
 the Stoics, I think it must be acknowledged, had prepared by far the 
 most animated and most spirited song. 
 
 Suicide, however, never seems to have been very common among the 
 Greeks. Excepting Cleomenes, I cannot at present recollect any very 
 illustrious either patriot or hero of Greece, who died by his own hand. 
 The death of Aristomenes is as much beyond the period of true history 
 as that of Ajax. The common story of the death of Themistocles, 
 though within that period, bears upon its face all the marks of a most 
 romantic fable. Of all the Greek heroes whose lives have been written 
 by Plutarch, Cleomenes appears to have been the only one who perished 
 in this manner. Theramines, Socrates, and Phocion, who certainly did 
 not want courage, suffered themselves to be sent to prison, and sub- 
 
 17
 
 252 SUICIDE MORE FREQUENT IN ROME THAN GREECE. 
 
 mitted patiently to that death to which the injustice of their fellow- 
 citizens had condemned them. The brave Eumenes allowed himself 
 to be delivered up, by his own mutinous soldiers, to his enemy Anti- 
 gonus, and was starved to death, without attempting any violence. The 
 gallant Philopcemen suffered himself to be taken prisoner by the Mes- 
 senians, was thrown into a dungeon, and was supposed to have been 
 privately poisoned. Several of the philosophers, indeed, are said to 
 have died in this manner ; but their lives have been so very foolishly 
 written, that very little credit is due to the greater part of the tales 
 which are told of them. Three different accounts have been given of 
 the death of Zeno the Stoic. One is, that after enjoying, for ninety- 
 eight years, the most perfect state of health, he happened, in going out 
 of his school, to fall ; and though he suffered no other damage than 
 that of breaking or dislocating one of his fingers, he struck the ground 
 with his hand, and, in the words of the Niobe of Euripides, said, / 
 come, why doest tJiou call me? and immediately went home and hanged 
 himself. At that great age, one should think, he might have had a 
 little more patience. Another account is, that, at the same age, and in 
 consequence of a like accident, he starved himself to death. The third 
 account is, that, at seventy-two years of age, he died in the natural way ; 
 by far the most probable account of the three, and supported too by the 
 authority of a cotemporary, who must have had every opportunity of 
 being well-informed ; of Persaeus, originally the slave, and afterwards 
 the friend and disciple of Zeno. The first account is given by Apol- 
 lonius of Tyre, who flourished about the time of Augustus Caesar, 
 between two and three hundred years after the death of Zeno. I know 
 not who is the author of the second account. Apollonius, who was 
 himself a Stoic, had probably thought it would do honour to the founder 
 of a sect which talked so much about voluntary death, to die in this 
 manner by his own hand. Men of letters, though, after their death, 
 they are frequently more talked of than the greatest princes or states- 
 men of their times, are generally, during their life, so obscure and 
 insignificant that their adventures are seldom recorded by cotemporary 
 historians. Those of after-ages, in order to satisfy the public curiosity, 
 and having no authentic documents either to support or to contradict 
 their narratives, seem frequently to have fashioned them according to 
 their own fancy ; and almost always with a great mixture of the mar- 
 vellous. In this particular case the marvellous, though supported by 
 no authority, seems to have prevailed over the probable, though sup- 
 ported by the best. Diogenes Laertius plainly gives the preference to 
 the story of Apollonius. Lucian and Lactantius appear both to have 
 given credit to that of the great age and of the violent death. 
 
 This fashion of voluntary death appears to have been much more 
 prevalent among the proud Romans, than it ever was among the lively, 
 ingenious, and accommodating Greeks. Even among the Romans, the
 
 SMITH S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 253 
 
 fashion seems not to have been established in the early and, what are 
 called, the virtuous ages of the republic. The common story of the 
 death of Regulus, though probably a fable, could never have been 
 invented, had it been supposed that any dishonour could fall upon that 
 hero, from patiently submitting to the tortures which the Carthaginians 
 are said to have inflicted upon him. In the later ages of the republic, 
 some dishonour, I apprehend, would have attended this submission. 
 In the different civil wars which preceded the fall of the commonwealth, 
 many of the eminent men of all the contending parties chose rather to 
 perish by their own hands, than to fall into those of their enemies. The 
 death of Cato, celebrated by Cicero, and censured by Caesar, and be- 
 come the subject of a very serious controversy between, perhaps, the 
 two most illustrious advocates that the world had ever beheld, stamped 
 a character of splendour upon this method of dying which it seems to 
 have retained for several ages after. The eloquence of Cicero was 
 superior to that of Caesar. The admiring prevailed greatly over the 
 censuring party, and the lovers of liberty, for many ages afterwards, 
 looked up to Cato as to the most venerable martyr of the republican 
 party. The head of a party, the Cardinal de Retz observes, may do 
 what he pleases ; as long as he retains the confidence of his own friends, 
 he can never do wrong ; a maxim of which his eminence had himself, 
 upon several occasions, an opportunity of experiencing the truth. Cato, 
 it seems, joined to his other virtues that of an excellent bottle compa- 
 nion. His enemies accused him of drunkenness, but, says Seneca, who- 
 ever objected this vice to Cato, will find it easier to prove that drunken- 
 ness is a virtue, than that Cato could be addicted to any vice. 
 
 Under the Emperors this method of dying seems to have been, for a 
 long time, perfectly fashionable. In the epistles of Pliny we find an 
 account of several persons who chose to die in this manner, rather from 
 vanity and ostentation, it would seem, than from what would appear, 
 even to a sober and judicious Stoic, any proper or necessary reason. 
 Even the ladies, who are seldom behind in following the fashion, seem 
 frequently to have chosen, most unnecessarily, to die in this manner ; 
 and, like the ladies in Bengal, to accompany, upon some occasions, 
 their husbands to the tomb. The prevalence of this fashion certainly 
 occasioned many deaths which would not otherwise have happened. 
 All the havoc, however, which this, perhaps the highest exertion of 
 human vanity and impertinence, could occasion, would, probably, at no 
 time, be very great. 
 
 The principle of suicide, the principle which would teach us, upon 
 some occasions, to consider that violent action as an object of applause 
 and approbation, seems to be altogether a refinement of philosophy. 
 Nature, in her sound and healthful state, seems never to prompt us to 
 suicide. There is, indeed, a species of melancholy (a disease to which 
 human nature, among its other calamities, is unhappily subject) which
 
 254 SUICIDE CAUSED BY LACK OF FIRMNESS AND MANHOOD. 
 
 seems to be accompanied with, what one may call, an irresistible 
 appetite for self-destruction. In circumstances often of the highest 
 external prosperity, and sometimes too, in spite even of the most serious 
 and deeply impressed sentiments of religion, this disease has frequently 
 been known to drive its wretched victims to this fatal extremity. The 
 unfortunate persons who perish in this miserable manner, are the pro- 
 per objects, not of censure, but of commiseration. To attempt to 
 punish them, when they are beyond the reach of all human punish- 
 ment, is not more absurd than it is unjust. That punishment can fall 
 only on their surviving friends and relations, who are always perfectly 
 innocent, and to whom the loss of their friend, in this disgraceful 
 manner, must always be alone a very heavy calamity. Nature, in her 
 sound and healthful state, prompts us to avoid distress upon all occa- 
 sions ; upon many occasions to defend ourselves against it, though at 
 the hazard, or even with the certainty of perishing in that defence. 
 But, when we have neither been able to defend ourselves from it, nor 
 have perished in that defence, no natural principle, no regard to the 
 approbation of the supposed impartial spectator, to the judgment of the 
 man within the breast, seems to call upon us to escape from it by 
 destroying ourselves. It is only the consciousness of our own weak- 
 ness, of our own incapacity to support the calamity with proper man- 
 hood and firmness, which can drive us to this resolution. I do not 
 remember to have either read or heard of any American savage, who, 
 upon being taken prisoner by some hostile tribe, put himself to death, 
 in order to avoid being afterwards put to death in torture, and amidst 
 the insults and mockery of his enemies. He places his glory in sup- 
 porting those torments with manhood, and in retorting those insults 
 with tenfold contempt and derision. 
 
 This contempt of life and death, however, and, at the same time, the 
 most entire submission to the order of Providence ; the most complete 
 contentment with every event which the current of human affairs could 
 possibly cast up, may be considered as the two fundamental doctrines 
 upon which rested the whole fabric of Stoical morality. The indepen- 
 dent and spirited, but often harsh Epictetus, may be considered as the 
 great apostle of the first of those doctrines : the mild, the humane, the 
 benevolent Antoninus, of the second. 
 
 The emancipated slave of Epaphroditus, who, in his youth, had been 
 subjected to the insolence of a brutal master, who, in his riper years, 
 was, by the jealousy and caprice of Domitian, banished from Rome and 
 Athens, and obliged to dwell at Nicopolis, and who, by the same tyrant, 
 might expect every moment to be sent to Gyarae, or, perhaps, to be put to 
 death ; could preserve his own tranquillity only by fostering in his mind 
 the most sovereign contempt of human life. He never exults so much, 
 accordingly ; his eloquence is never so animated as when he represents 
 the futility and nothingness of all its pleasures and all its pains.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 255 
 
 The good-natured emperor, the absolute sovereign of the whole civil- 
 ized part of the world, who certainly had no peculiar reason to com- 
 plain of his own allotment, delights in expressing his contentment with 
 the ordinary course of things, and in pointing out beauties even in 
 those parts of it where vulgar observers are not apt to see any. There 
 is a propriety and even an engaging grace, he observes, in old age as 
 well as in youth ; and the weakness and decrepitude of the one state 
 are as suitable to nature as the bloom and vigour of the other. Death, 
 too, is just as proper a termination of old age, as youth is of childhood, 
 or manhood of youth. 'As we frequently say/ he remarks upon another 
 occasion, ' that the physician has ordered to such a man to ride on 
 ' horseback, or to use the cold bath, or to walk barefooted ; so ought 
 ' we to say, that Nature, the great conductor and physician of the uni- 
 ' verse, has ordered to such a man a disease, or the amputation of a 
 ' limb, or the loss of a child.' By the prescriptions of ordinary physi- 
 cians the patient swallows many a bitter potion, undergoes many a 
 painful operation. From the very uncertain hope, however, that health 
 may be the consequence, he gladly submits to all. The harshest pre- 
 scriptions of the great Physician of nature, the patient may, in the 
 same manner, hope will contribute to his own health, to his own final 
 prosperity and happiness : and he may be perfectly assured that they 
 not only contribute, but are indispensably necessary to the health, to 
 the prosperity and happiness of the universe, to the furtherance and 
 advancement of the great plan of Jupiter. Had they not been so, the 
 universe would never have produced them ; its all-wise Architect and 
 Conductor would never have suffered them to happen. As all, even 
 the smallest of the co-existent parts of the universe, are exactly fitted 
 to one another, and all contribute to compose one immense and con- 
 nected system, so all, even apparently the most insignificant of the 
 successive events which follow one another, make parts, and necessary 
 parts, of that great chain of causes and effects which had no beginning, 
 and which will have no end ; and which, as they all necessarily result 
 from the original arrangement and contrivance of the whole ; so they 
 are all essentially necessary, not only to its prosperity, but to its con- 
 tinuance and preservation. Whoever does not cordially embrace what- 
 ever befalls him, whoever is sorry that it has befallen him, whoever 
 wishes that it had not befallen him, wishes, so far as in him lies, to 
 stop the motion of the universe, to break that great chain of succession, 
 by the progress of which that system can alone be continued and pre- 
 served, and, for some little conveniency of his own, to disorder and 
 discompose the whole machine of the world. ' O world,' says he, in 
 another place, 'all things are suitable to me which are suitable to thee. 
 ' Nothing is too early or too late to me which is seasonable for thee. 
 ' All is fruit to me which thy seasons bring forth. From thee are all 
 ' things ; in thee are all things ; for thee are all things. One man
 
 256 THE SUMMUM BONUM OF STOIC INDIFFERENCE. 
 
 ' says, O beloved city of Cecrops. Wilt not thou say, O beloved 
 'city of God?' 
 
 From these very sublime doctrines the Stoics, or at least some of the 
 Stoics, attempted to deduce all their paradoxes. 
 
 The Stoical wise man endeavoured to enter into the views of the 
 great Superintendent of the universe, and to see things in the same 
 light in which that divine Being beheld them. But, to the great 
 Superintendent of the universe, all the different events which the 
 course of his providence may bring forth, what to us appear the 
 smallest and the greatest, the bursting of a bubble, as Mr. Pope says, 
 and that of a world, for example, were perfectly equal, were equally 
 parts of that great chain which he had predestined from all eternity, 
 were equally the effects of the same unerring wisdom, of the same 
 universal and boundless benevolence. To the Stoical wise man, in the 
 same manner, all those different events were perfectly equal. In the 
 course of those events, indeed, a little department, in which he had 
 himself some little management and direction, had been assigned to 
 him. In this department he endeavoured to act as properly as he 
 could, and to conduct himself according to those orders which, he 
 understood, had been prescribed to him. But he took no anxious or 
 passionate concern either in the success, or in the disappointment of 
 his own most faithful endeavours. The highest prosperity and the 
 total destruction of that little department, of that little system which 
 had been in some measure committed to his charge, were perfectly 
 indifferent to him. If those events had depended upon him, he would 
 have chosen the one, and he would have rejected the other. But as 
 they did not depend upon him, he trusted to a superior wisdom, and 
 was perfectly satisfied that the event which happened, whatever it 
 might be, was the very event which he himself, had he known all the 
 connections and dependencies of things, would most earnestly arid 
 devoutly have wished for. Whatever he did under the influence and 
 direction of those principles was equally perfect ; and when he stretched 
 out his finger, to give the example which they commonly made use of, 
 he performed an action in every respect as meritorious, as worthy of 
 praise and admiration, as when he laid down his life for the service of 
 his country. As, to the great Superintendent of the universe, the 
 greatest and the smallest exertions of his power, the formation and 
 dissolution of a world, the formation and dissolution of a bubble, were 
 equally easy, were equally admirable, and equally the effects of the 
 same divine wisdom and benevolence ; so, to the Stoical wise man, 
 what we would call the great action required no more exertion than the 
 little one, was equally easy, proceeded from exactly the same principles, 
 was in no respect more meritorious, nor worthy of any higher degree of 
 praise and admiration. 
 
 As all those who had arrived at this state of perfection were equally
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 257 
 
 happy, so all those who fell in the smallest degree short of it, how 
 nearly soever they might approach to it, were equally miserable. As 
 the man, they said, who was but an inch below the surface of the 
 water, could no more breathe than he who was an hundred yards below 
 it ; so the man who had not completely subdued all his private, partial, 
 and selfish passions, who had any other earnest desire but that for the 
 universal happiness, who had not completely emerged from that abyss 
 of misery and disorder into which his anxiety for the gratification of 
 those private, partial, and selfish passions had involved him, could no 
 more breathe the free air of liberty and independency, could no more 
 enjoy the security and happiness of the wise man, than he who was 
 most remote from that situation. As all the actions of the wise man 
 were perfect and equally perfect ; so all those of the man who had not 
 arrived at this supreme wisdom were faulty, and, as some Stoics pre- 
 tended, equally faulty. As one truth, they said, could not be more 
 true, nor one falsehood more false than another ; so an honourable 
 action could not be more honourable, nor a shameful one more shame- 
 ful than another. As in shooting at a mark, the man who missed it by 
 an inch had equally missed it with him who had done so by a hundred 
 yards ; so the man who, in what to us appears the most insignificant 
 action, had acted improperly and without a sufficient reason, was 
 equally faulty with him who had done so in, what to us appears, the 
 most important ; the man who has killed a cock, for example, impro- 
 perly and without a sufficient reason, was as criminal as he who had 
 murdered his father. 
 
 If the first of those two paradoxes should appear sufficiently violent, 
 the second is evidently too absurd to deserve any serious consideration. 
 It is, indeed, so very absurd that one can scarce help suspecting that it 
 must have been in some measure misunderstood or misrepresented. 
 At any rate, I cannot allow myself to believe that such men as Zeno or 
 Cleanthes, men, it is said, of the most simple as well as of the most 
 sublime eloquence, could be the authors, either of these, or of the 
 greater part of the other Stoical paradoxes, which are in general mere 
 impertinent quibbles, and do so little honour to their system that I 
 shall give no further account of them. I am disposed to impute them 
 rather to Chrysippus, the disciple and follower, indeed, of Zeno and 
 Cleanthes, but who, from all that has been delivered down to us con- 
 cerning him, seems to have been a mere dialectical pedant, without 
 taste or elegance of any kind. He may have been the first who 
 reduced their doctrines into a scholastic or technical system of artificial 
 definitions, divisions, and subdivisions ; one of the most effectual ex- 
 pedients, perhaps, for extinguishing whatever degree of good sense 
 there may be in any moral or metaphysical doctrine. Such a man may 
 very easily be supposed to have understood too literally some animated 
 expressions of his masters in describing the happiness of the man of
 
 258 STOICAL PHILOSOPHY NOT ON THE PLAN OF NATURE. 
 
 perfect virtue, and the unhappiness of whoever might fall short of that 
 character. 
 
 The Stoics in general seem to have admitted that there might be a 
 degree of proficiency in those who had not advanced to perfect virtue 
 and happiness. They distributed those proficients into different classes, 
 according to the degree of their advancement ; and they called the 
 imperfect virtues which they supposed them capable of exercising, not 
 rectitudes, but proprieties, fitnesses, decent and becoming actions, for 
 which a plausible or probable reason could be assigned, what Cicero 
 expresses by the Latin word officia, and Seneca, I think more exactly, 
 by that of convenientia. The doctrine of those imperfect, but attain- 
 able virtues, seems to have constituted what we may call the practical 
 morality of the Stoics. It is the subject of Cicero's Offices ; and is 
 said to have been that of another book written by Marcus Brutus, but 
 which is now lost. 
 
 The plan and system which Nature has sketched out for our 
 conduct, seems to us to be altogether different from that of the 
 Stoical philosophy. 
 
 By Nature the events which immediately affect that little depart- 
 ment in which we ourselves have some little management and direc- 
 tion, which immediately affect ourselves, our friends, our country, are 
 the events which interest us the most, and which chiefly excite our 
 desires and aversions, our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows. 
 Should those passions be, what they are very apt to be, too vehement, 
 Nature has provided a proper remedy and correction. The real or 
 even the imaginary presence of the impartial spectator, the authority 
 of the man within the breast, is always at hand to overawe them into 
 the proper tone and temper of moderation. 
 
 If, notwithstanding our most faithful exertions, all the events which 
 can affect this little department, should turn out the most unfortunate 
 and disastrous, Nature has by no means left us without consolation. 
 That consolation may be drawn, not only from the complete approba- 
 tion of the man within the breast, but, if possible, from a still nobler 
 and more generous principle, from a firm reliance upon, and a reveren- 
 tial submission to, that benevolent wisdom which directs all the events 
 of human life, and which, we may be assured, would never have suffered 
 those misfortunes to happen, had they not been indispensably necessary 
 for the good of the whole. 
 
 Nature has not prescribed to us this sublime contemplation as the 
 great business and occupation of our lives. She only points it out to us 
 as the consolation of our misfortunes. The Stoical philosophy pre- 
 scribes it as the great business and occupation of our lives. That 
 philosophy teaches us to interest ourselves earnestly and anxiously in 
 no events, external to the good order of our own minds, to the propriety 
 of our own choosing and rejecting, except in those which concern a
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 259 
 
 department where we neither have nor ought to have any sort of 
 management or direction, the department of the great Superintendent 
 of the universe. By the peifect apathy which it prescribes to us, by 
 endeavouring, not merely to moderate, but to eradicate all our private, 
 partial, and selfish affections, by suffering us to feel for whatever can 
 befall ourselves, our friends, our country, not even the sympathetic and 
 reduced passions of the impartial spectator, it endeavours to render us 
 altogether indifferent and unconcerned in the success or miscarriage of 
 every thing which Nature has prescribed to us as the proper business 
 and occupation of our lives. 
 
 The reasonings of philosophy, it may be said, though they may con- 
 1 found and perplex the understanding, can never break down the neces- 
 sary connection which Nature has established between causes and their 
 effects. The causes which naturally excite our desires and aversions, 
 our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, would no doubt, notwith- 
 standing all the reasonings of Stoicism, produce upon each individual, 
 according to the degree of his actual sensibility, their proper and neces- 
 sary effects. The judgments of the man within the breast, however, 
 might be a good deal affected by those reasonings, and that great 
 inmate might be taught by them to attempt to overawe all our private, 
 partial, and selfish affections into a more or less perfect tranquillity. To 
 direct the judgments of this inmate is the great purpose of all systems of 
 morality. That the Stoical philosophy had very great influence upon 
 the character and conduct of its followers, cannot be doubted ; and 
 that, though it might sometimes incite them to unnecessary violence, 
 its general tendency was to animate them to actions of the most heroic 
 magnanimity and most extensive benevolence. 
 
 IV. Besides these ancient, there are some modern systems, accord- 
 ing to which virtue consists in propriety ; or in the suitableness of the 
 affection from which we act, to the cause or object which excites it. 
 The system of Dr. Clark, which places virtue in acting according to 
 the relation of things, in regulating our conduct according to the fit- 
 ness or incongruity which there may be in the application of certain 
 actions to certain things, or to certain relations : that of Mr. Wollaston, 
 which places it in acting according to the truth of things, according to 
 their proper nature and essence, or in treating them as what they really 
 are, and not as what they are not : that of my Lord Shaftesbury, which 
 places it in maintaining a proper balance of the affections, and in 
 allowing no passion to go beyond its proper sphere ; are all of them 
 more or less inaccurate descriptions of the same fundamental idea. 
 
 None of those systems either give, or even pretend to give, any pre- 
 cise or distinct measure by which this fitness or propriety of affection 
 can be ascertained or judged of. That precise and distinct measure can 
 be found no where but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and 
 well-informed spectator.
 
 260 BENEFICENT ACTIONS MERIT APPROBATION AND RECOMPENSE. 
 
 The description of virtue, besides, which is either given, or at least 
 meant and intended to be given in each of those systems, for some of 
 the modern authors are not very fortunate in their manner of expres- 
 sing themselves, is no doubt quite just, so far as it goes. There is no 
 virtue without propriety, and wherever there is propriety some degree 
 of approbation is due. But still this description is imperfect. For 
 though propriety is an essential ingredient in every virtuous action, it 
 is not always the sole ingredient. Beneficent actions have in them 
 another quality by which they appear not only to deserve approbation 
 but recompense. None of those systems account either easily or 
 sufficiently for that superior degree of esteem which seems due to such 
 actions, or for that diversity of sentiment which they naturally excite. 
 Neither is the description of vice more complete. For, in the same 
 manner, though impropriety is a necessary ingredient in every vicious 
 action, it is not always the sole ingredient ; and there is often the 
 highest degree of absurdity and impropriety in very harmless and 
 insignificant actions. Deliberate actions, of a pernicious tendency to 
 those we live with, have, besides their impropriety, a peculiar quality of 
 their own by which they appear to deserve, not only disapprobation, 
 but punishment ; and to be the objects, not of dislike merely, but of 
 resentment and revenge : and none of those systems easily and suffi- 
 ciently account for that superior degree of detestation which we feel 
 for such actions. 
 
 CHAP. II. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in 
 
 Prudence. 
 
 THE most ancient of those systems which make virtue consist in pru- 
 dence, and of which any considerable remains have come down to us, 
 is that of Epicurus, who is said, however, to have borrowed all the 
 leading principles of his philosophy from some of those who had gone 
 before him, particularly from Aristippus ; though it is very probable, 
 notwithstanding this allegation of his enemies, that at least his manner 
 of applying those principles was altogether his own. 
 
 According to Epicurus (Cicero de finibus, lib. i. Diogenes Laert. 1. x.) 
 bodily pleasure and pain were the sole ultimate objects of natural 
 desire and aversion. That they were always the natural objects of 
 those passions, he thought required no proof. Pleasure might, indeed, 
 appear sometimes to be avoided ; not, however, because it was plea- 
 sure, but because, by the enjoyment of it, we should either forfeit some 
 greater pleasure, or expose ourselves to some pain that was more to be 
 avoided than this pleasure was to be desired. Pain, in the same man- 
 ner, might appear sometimes to be eligible ; not, however, because it 
 was pain, but because by enduring it we might either avoid a still
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 261 
 
 greater pain, or acquire some pleasure of much more importance. That 
 bodily pain and pleasure, therefore, were always the natural objects of 
 desire and aversion, was, he thought, abundantly evident. Nor was it 
 less so, he imagined, that they were the sole ultimate objects of those 
 passions. Whatever else was either desired or avoided, was so, accord- 
 ing to him, upon account of its tendency to produce one or other of 
 those sensations. The tendency to procure pleasure rendered power 
 and riches desirable, as the contrary tendency to produce pain made 
 poverty and insignificancy the objects of aversion. Honour and repu- 
 tation were valued, because the esteem and love of those we live with 
 were of the greatest consequence both to procure pleasure and to defend 
 us from pain. Ignominy and bad fame, on the contrary, were to be 
 avoided, because the hatred, contempt, and resentment of those we 
 lived with, destroyed all security, and necessarily exposed us to the 
 greatest bodily evils. 
 
 All the pleasures and pains of the mind were, according to Epicurus, 
 ultimately derived from those of the body. The mind was happy when 
 it thought of the past pleasures of the body, and hoped for others 
 to come : and it was miserable when it thought of the pains which 
 the body had formerly endured, and dreaded the same or greater 
 thereafter. 
 
 But the pleasures and pains of the mind, though ultimately derived 
 from those of the body, were vastly greater than their originals. The 
 body felt only the sensation of the present instant, whereas the mind 
 felt also the past and the future, the one by remembrance, the other by 
 anticipation, and consequently both suffered and enjoyed much more. 
 When we are under the greatest bodily pain, he observed, we shall 
 always find, if we attend to it, that it is not the suffering of the present 
 instant which chiefly torments us, but either the agonizing remembrance 
 of the past, or the yet more horrible dread of the future. The pain of 
 each instant, considered by itself, and cut off from all that goes before 
 and all that comes after it, is a trifle, not worth the regarding. Yet 
 this is all which the body can ever be said to suffer. In the same 
 manner, when we enjoy the greatest pleasure, we shall always find that 
 the bodily sensation, the sensation of the present instant, makes but a 
 small part of our happiness, that our enjoyment chiefly arises either 
 from the cheerful recollection of the past, or the still more joyous anti- 
 cipation of the future, and that the mind always contributes by much . 
 the largest share of the entertainment. 
 
 Since our happiness and misery, therefore, depended chiefly on the 
 mind, if this part of our nature was well disposed, if our thoughts and 
 opinions were as they should be, it was of little iuportance in what 
 manner our body was affected. Though under great bodily pain, we 
 might still enjoy a considerable share of happiness, if our reason and 
 judgment maintained their superiority. We might entertain ourselves
 
 262 HAPPINESS PLACED, BY EPICURUS, IN EASE OP BODY. 
 
 with the remembrance of past, and with the hopes of future pleasure ; 
 we might soften the rigour of our pains, by recollecting what it was 
 which, even in this situation, we were under any necessity of suffering. 
 That this was merely the bodily sensation, the pain of the present 
 instant, which by itself could never be very great. That whatever 
 agony we suffered from the dread of its continuance, was the effect of 
 an opinion of the mind, which might be corrected by juster sentiments ; 
 by considering that, if our pains were violent, they would probably be 
 of short duration ; and that if they were of long continuance, they 
 would probably be moderate, and admit of many intervals of ease ; and 
 that, at any rate, death was always at hand and within call to deliver 
 us, which as, according to him, it put an end to all sensation, either of 
 pain or pleasure, could not be regarded as an evil. When we are, said 
 he, death is not ; and when death is, we are not ; death therefore can 
 be nothing to us. 
 
 If the actual sensation of positive pain was in itself so little to be 
 feared, that of pleasure was still less to be desired. Naturally the 
 sensation of pleasure was much less pungent than that of pain. If, 
 therefore, this last could take so very little from the happiness of a well- 
 disposed mind, the other could add scarce any thing to it. When the 
 body was free from pain and the mind from fear and anxiety, the super- 
 added sensation of bodily pleasure could be of very little importance ; 
 and though it might diversify, could not properly be said to increase 
 the happiness of this situation. 
 
 In ease of body, therefore, and in security of tranquillity of mind, 
 consisted, according to Epicurus, the most perfect state of human 
 nature, the most complete happiness which man was capable of enjoy- 
 ing. To obtain this great end of natural desire was the sole object of 
 all the virtues, which, according to him, were not desirable upon their 
 own account, but chiefly upon account of their tendency to bring 
 about this situation. 
 
 Prudence, for example, though, according to this philosophy, the 
 source and principle of all the virtues, was not desirable upon its own 
 account. That careful and laborious and circumspect state of mind, 
 ever watchful and ever attentive to the most distant consequences of 
 every action, could not be a thing pleasant or agreeable for its own 
 sake, but upon account of its tendency to procure the greatest goods 
 and to keep off the greatest evils. 
 
 To abstain from pleasure too, to curb and restrain our natural pas- 
 sions for enjoyment, which was the office of temperance, could never be 
 desirable for its own sake. The whole value of this virtue arose from its 
 utility, from its enabling us to postpone the present enjoyment for the 
 sake of a greater to come, or to avoid a greater pain that might ensue 
 from it. Temperance, in short, was, according to the Epicureans, 
 nothing but prudence with regard to pleasure.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 263 
 
 To support labour, to endure pain, to be exposed to danger or to 
 death, the situations which fortitude would often lead us into, were 
 surely still less the objects of natural desire. They were chosen only 
 to avoid greater evils. We submitted to labour, in order to avoid the 
 greater shame and pain of poverty, and we exposed ourselves to danger 
 and to death in defence of our liberty and property, the means and 
 instruments of pleasure and happiness ; or in defence of our country, 
 in the safety of which our own was necessarily comprehended. Forti- 
 tude enabled us to do all this cheerfully, as the best which, in our pre- 
 sent situation, could possibly be done, and was in reality no more than 
 prudence, good judgment, and presence of mind in properly appreciat- 
 ing pain, labour, and danger, always choosing the less in order to avoid 
 the greater evil. 
 
 It is the same case with justice. To abstain from what is another's 
 was not desirable on its own account, and it could not surely be better 
 for you, that I should possess what is my own, than that you should 
 possess it. You ought, however, to abstain from whatever belongs to 
 me, because by doing otherwise you will provoke the resentment and 
 indignation of mankind. The security and tranquillity of your mind 
 will be entirely destroyed. You will be filled with fear and consterna- 
 tion at the thought of that punishment which you will imagine that 
 men are at all times ready to inflict upon you, and from which no 
 power, no art, no concealment, will ever, in your own fancy, be suffi- 
 cient to protect you. The other species of justice which consists in 
 doing proper good offices to different persons, according to the various 
 relations of neighbours, kinsmen, friends, benefactors, superiors, or 
 equals, which they may stand in to us, is recommended by the same 
 reasons. To act properly in all these different relations procures us 
 the esteem and love of those we live with; as to do otherwise excites 
 their contempt and hatred. By the one we naturally secure, by the 
 other we necessarily endanger our own ease and tranquillity, the great 
 and ultimate objects of all our desires. The whole virtue of justice, 
 therefore, the most important of all the virtues, is no more than dis- 
 creet and prudent conduct with regard to our neighbours. 
 
 Such is the doctrine of Epicurus concerning the nature of virtue. It 
 may seem extraordinary that this philosopher, who is described as a 
 person of the most amiable manners, should never have observed, that, 
 whatever may be the tendency of those virtues, or of the contrary vices, 
 with regard to our bodily ease and security, the sentiments which they 
 naturally excite in others are the objects of a much more passionate 
 desire or aversion than all their other consequences ; that to be ami- 
 able, to be respectable, to be the proper object of esteem, is by every 
 well-disposed mind more valued than all the ease and security which 
 love, respect, and esteem can procure us ; that, on the contrary, to be 
 odious, to be contemptible, to be the proper object of indignation, is
 
 264 VIRTUE IS, ON ALL ORDINARY OCCASIONS, REAL WISDOM. 
 
 more dreadful than all that we can suffer in our body from hatred, 
 contempt, or indignation ; and that consequently our desire of the one 
 character, and our aversion to the other, cannot arise from any regard 
 to the effects which either of them may produce upon the body. 
 
 This system is, no doubt, altogether inconsistent with that which I 
 have been endeavouring to establish. It is not difficult, however, to 
 discover from what phasis, if I may say so, from what particular view 
 or aspect of nature, this account of things derives its probability. By 
 the wise contrivance of the Author of nature, virtue is upon all ordinary 
 occasions, even with regard to this life, real wisdom, and the surest and 
 readiest means of obtaining both safety and advantage. Our success 
 or disappointment in our undertakings must very much depend upon 
 the good or bad opinion which is commonly entertained of us, and 
 upon the general disposition of those we live with, either to assist or to 
 oppose us. But the best, the surest, the easiest, and the readiest way 
 of obtaining the advantageous, and of avoiding the unfavourable judg- 
 ments of others, is undoubtedly to render ourselves the proper objects 
 of the former and not of the latter. ' Do you desire,' said Socrates, 
 ' the reputation of a good musician ? The only sure way of obtaining 
 'it, is to become a good musician. Would you desire in the same 
 ' manner to be thought capable of serving your country either as a 
 'general or as a statesman ? The best way in this case too is really to 
 ' acquire the art and experience of war and government, and to become 
 ' really fit to be a general or a statesman. And in the same manner if 
 ' you would be reckoned sober, temperate, just, and equitable, the best 
 ' way of acquiring this reputation is to become sober, temperate, just, 
 ' and equitable. If you can really render yourself amiable, respectable, 
 ' and the proper object of esteem, there is no fear of your not soon 
 'acquiring the love, the respect, and esteem of those you live with.' 
 Since the practice of virtue, therefore, is in general so advantageous, 
 and that of vice so contrary to our interest, the consideration of those 
 opposite tendencies undoubtedly stamps an additional beauty and pro- 
 priety upon the one, and a new deformity and impropriety upon the 
 other. Temperarfce, magnanimity, justice, and beneficence, come thus 
 to be approved of, not only under their proper characters, but under 
 the additional character of the highest wisdom and most real prudence. 
 And in the same manner, the contrary vices of intemperance, pusilla- 
 nimity, injustice, and either malevolence or sordid selfishness, come to 
 be disapproved of, not only under their proper characters, but under 
 the additional character of the most short-sighted folly and weakness. 
 Epicurus appears in every virtue to have attended to this .species of 
 propriety only. It is that which is most apt to occur to those who are 
 endeavouring to persuade others to regularity of conduct. When men 
 by their practice, and perhaps too by their maxims, manifestly show 
 that the natural beauty of virtue is not like to have much effect upon
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 265 
 
 them, how is it possible to move them but by representing the folly of 
 their conduct, and how much they themselves are in the end likely to 
 suffer by it ? 
 
 By running up all the different virtues too to this one species of pro- 
 priety, Epicurus indulged a propensity, which is natural to all men, but 
 which philosophers in particular are apt to cultivate with a peculiar 
 fondness, as the great means of displaying their ingenuity, the propen- 
 sity to account for all appearances from as few principles as possible. 
 And he, no doubt, indulged this propensity still further, when he re- 
 ferred all the primary objects of natural desire and aversion to the 
 pleasures and pains of the body. The great patron of the atomical 
 philosophy, who took so much pleasure in deducing all the powers and 
 qualities of bodies from the most obvious and familiar, the figure, 
 motion, and arrangement of the small parts of matter, felt no doubt a 
 similar satisfaction, when he accounted, in the same manner, for all 
 the sentiments and passions of the mind from those which are most 
 obvious and familiar. 
 
 The system of Epicurus agreed with those of Plato, Aristotle, and 
 Zeno, in making virtue consist in acting in the most suitable manner 
 to obtain (Prima naturae) primary objects of natural desire. It differed 
 from, all of them in two other respects ; first, in the account which IE 
 gave of those primary objects of natural desire; and secondly, in the 
 account which it gave of the excellence of virtue, or of the reason why 
 that quality ought to be esteemed. 
 
 The primary objects of natural desire consisted, according to Epi- 
 curus, in bodily pleasure and pain, and in nothing else : whereas, 
 according to the other three philosophers, there were many other ob- 
 jects, such as knowledge, such as the happiness of our relations, of our 
 friends, and of our country, which were ultimately desirable for their 
 own sakes. 
 
 Virtue too, according to Epicurus, did not deserve to be pursued for 
 its own sake, nor was itself one of the ultimate objects of natural 
 appetite, but was eligible only upon account of its tendency to prevent 
 pain and to procure ease and pleasure. In the opinion of the other 
 three, on the contrary, it was desirable, not merely as the means of 
 procuring the other primary objects of natural desire, but as something 
 which was in itself more valuable than them all. Man, they thought, 
 being born for action, his happiness must consist, not merely in the 
 agreeableness of his passive sensations, but also in the propriety of his 
 active exertions. 
 
 CHAP. III. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in 
 
 Benevolence. 
 
 THE system which makes virtue consist in benevolence, though I think 
 
 18
 
 266 PROPER BENEVOLENCE THE MOST GRACEFUL OF AFFECTIONS. 
 
 not so ancient as all those which I have already given an account of, 
 is, however, of very great antiquity. It seems to have been the doctrine 
 of the greater part of those philosophers who, about and after the age 
 of Augustus, called themselves Eclectics, who pretended to follow 
 chiefly the opinions of Plato and Pythagoras, and who upon that ac- 
 count are commonly known by the name of the later Platonists. 
 
 In the divine nature, according to these authors, benevolence or love 
 was the sole principle of action, and directed the exertion of all the 
 other attributes. The wisdom of the Deity was employed in finding 
 out the means for bringing about those ends which his goodness sug- 
 gested, and his infinite power was exerted to execute them. Benevo- 
 lence, however, was still the supreme and governing attribute, to which 
 the others were subservient, and from which the whole excellency, or 
 the whole morality, if I may be allowed s.uch an expression, of the 
 divine operations, was ultimately derived. The whole perfection and 
 virtue of the human mind consisted in some resemblance or participa- 
 tion of the divine perfections, and, consequently, in being filled with 
 the same principle of benevolence and love which influenced all the 
 actions of the Deity. The actions of men which flowed from this 
 motive were alone truly praise-worthy, or could claim any merit in the 
 sight of the Deity, It was by actions of charity and love only that we 
 could imitate, as became us, the conduct of God, that we could express 
 our humble and devout admiration of his infinite perfections, that by 
 fostering in our own minds the same divine principle, we could bring 
 our own affections to a greater resemblance with his holy attributes, 
 and thereby become more proper objects of his love and esteem ; till 
 we arrived at that immediate converse and communication with the 
 Deity to which it was the great object of this philosophy to raise us. 
 
 This system, as it was much esteemed by many ancient fathers of 
 the Christian church, so after the Reformation it was adopted by 
 several divines of the most eminent piety and learning and of the most 
 amiable manners; particularly, by Dr. Ralph Cudworth, by Dr. Henry 
 More, and by Mr. John Smith of Cambridge. But of all the patrons 
 of this system, ancient or modern, the late Dr. Hutcheson was un- 
 doubtedly, beyond all comparison, the most acute, the most distinct, 
 the most philosophical, and what is of the greatest consequence of all, 
 the soberest and most judicious. 
 
 That virtue consists in benevolence is a notion supported by many 
 appearances in human nature. It has been observed already, that 
 proper benevolence is the most graceful and agreeable of all the affec- 
 tions, that it is recommended to us by a double sympathy, that as its 
 tendency is necessarily beneficent, it is the proper object of gratitude 
 and reward, and that upon all these accounts it appears to our natural 
 sentiments to possess a merit superior to any other. It has been 
 observed, too, that even the weaknesses of benevolence are not verj
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 267 
 
 disagreeable to us, whereas those of every other passion are always 
 extremely disgusting. Who does not abhor excessive malice, excessive 
 selfishness, or excessive resentment ? But the most excessive indul- 
 gence even of partial friendship is not so offensive. It is the benevo- 
 lent passions only which can exert themselves without any regard or 
 attention to propriety, and yet retain something about them which is 
 engaging. There is something pleasing even in mere instinctive good- 
 will, which goes on to do good offices without once reflecting whether 
 by this conduct it is the proper object either of blame or approbation. 
 It is not so with the other passions. The moment they are deserted, 
 the moment they are unaccompanied by the sense of propriety, they 
 cease to be agreeable. 
 
 As benevolence bestows upon those actions which proceed from it, 
 a beauty superior to all others, so the want of it, and much more the 
 contrary inclination, communicates a peculiar deformity to whatever 
 evidences such a disposition. Pernicious actions are often punishable 
 for no other reason than because they show a want of sufficient atten- 
 tion to the happiness of our neighbour. 
 
 Besides all this, Dr. Hutcheson (Inquiry concerning Virtue, sect. i. 
 and 2.) observed, that whenever in any action, supposed to proceed 
 from benevolent affections, some other motive had been discovered, 
 our sense of the merit of this action was just so far diminished as this 
 motive was believed to have influenced it. If an action, supposed to 
 proceed from gratitude, should be discovered to have arisen from an 
 expectation of some new favour, or if what was apprehended to proceed 
 from public spirit, should be found out to have taken its origin from 
 the hope of a pecuniary reward, such a discovery would entirely destroy 
 all notion of merit or praise-worthiness in either of these actions. 
 Since, therefore, the mixture of any selfish motive, like that of a baser 
 alloy, diminished or took away altogether the merit which would other- 
 wise have belonged tc any action, it was evident, he imagined, that 
 virtue must consist in pure and disinterested benevolence alone. 
 
 When those actions, on the contrary, which are commonly supposed 
 to proceed from a selfish motive, are discovered to have arisen from a 
 benevolent one, it greatly enhances our sense of their merit. If we 
 believed of any person that he endeavoured to advance his fortune 
 from no other view but that of doing friendly offices, and of making 
 proper returns to his benefactors, we should only love and esteem him 
 the more. And this observation seemed still more to confirm the con- 
 clusion, that it was benevolence only which could stamp upon any 
 action the character of virtue. 
 
 Last of all, what, he imagined, was an evident proof of the justness 
 of this account of virtue, in all the disputes of casuists concerning the 
 rectitude of conduct, the public good, he observed, was the standard to 
 which they constantly referred; thereby universally acknowledging 
 
 18 *
 
 268 THE GREATER THE BENEVOLENCE THE GREATER THE PRAISE. 
 
 that whatever tended to promote the happiness of mankind was right 
 and laudable and virtuous, and the contrary, wrong, blamable, and 
 vicious. In the late debates about passive obedience and the right of 
 resistance, the sole point in controversy among men of sense was 
 whether universal submission would probably be attended with greater 
 evils than temporary insurrections when privileges were invaded. 
 Whether what, upon the whole, tended most to the happiness of 
 mankind, was not also morally good, was never once, he said, made 
 a question by them. 
 
 Since benevolence, therefore, was the only motive which could be- 
 stow upon any action the character of virtue, the greater the benevo- 
 lence which was evidenced by any action, the greater the praise which 
 must belong to it. 
 
 Those actions which aimed at the happiness of a great community, 
 as they demonstrated a more enlarged benevolence than those which 
 aimed only at that of a smaller system, so were they, likewise, propor- 
 tionally the more virtuous. The most virtuous of all affections, there- 
 fore, was that which embraced as its object the happiness of all intel- 
 ligent beings. The least virtuous, on the contrary, of those to which 
 the character of virtue could in any respect belong, was that which 
 aimed no further than at the happiness of an individual, such as a son, 
 a brother, a friend. 
 
 In directing all our actions to promote the greatest possible good, in 
 submitting all inferior affections to the desire of the general happiness 
 of mankind, in regarding one's self but as one of the many, whose pros- 
 perity was to be pursued no further than it was consistent with, or con- 
 ducive to that of the whole, consisted the perfection of virtue. 
 
 Self-love was a principle which could never be virtuous in any de- 
 gree of in any direction. It was vicious whenever it obstructed the 
 general good. When it had no other effect than to make the individ- 
 ual take care of his own happiness, it was merely innocent, and though 
 it deserved no praise, neither ought it to incur any blame. Those 
 benevolent actions which were performed, notwithstanding some strong 
 motive from self-interest, were the more virtuous upon that account. 
 They demonstrated the strength and vigour of the benevolent principle. 
 
 Dr. Hutcheson * was so far from allowing self-love to be in any case 
 a motive of virtuous actions, that even a regard to the pleasure of self- 
 approbation, to the comfortable applause of our own consciences, ac 
 cording to him, diminished the merit of a benevolent action. This was 
 a selfish motive, he thought, which, so far as it contributed to any action, 
 demonstrated the weakness of that pure and disinterested benevolence 
 which could alone stamp upon the conduct of man the character of 
 virtue. In the common judgments of mankind, however, this regard 
 
 * Inquiry concerning Virtue, sect. -2. art. 4. ; also Illustrations on the Moral Sense, sect. 
 5, last paragraph.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 269 
 
 to the approbation of our own minds is so far from being considered as 
 what can in any respect diminish the virtue of any action, that it is 
 often rather looked upon as the sole motive which deserves the appel- 
 lation of virtuous. 
 
 Such is the account given of the nature of virtue in this amiable sys- 
 tem, a system which has a peculiar tendency to nourish and support in 
 the human heart the noblest and the most agreeable of all affections, and 
 not only to check the injustice of self-love, but in some measure to dis- 
 courage that principle altogether, by representing it as what could never 
 reflect any honour upon those who were influenced by it. 
 
 As some of the other systems which I have already given an account 
 of, do not sufficiently explain from whence arises the peculiar excellency 
 of the supreme virtue of beneficence, so this system seems to have the 
 contrary defect, of not sufficiently explaining from whence arises our 
 approbation of the inferior virtues of prudence, vigilance, circumspec- 
 tion, temperance, constancy, firmness. The view and aim of our affec- 
 tions, the beneficent and hurtful effects which they tend to produce, are 
 the only qualities at all attended to in this system. Their propriety 
 and impropriety, their suitableness and unsuitableness, to the cause 
 which excites them, are disregarded altogether. 
 
 Regard to our own private happiness and interest, too, appear upon 
 many occasions very laudable principles of action. The habits of 
 oeconomy, industry, discretion, attention, and application of thought, 
 are generally supposed to be cultivated from self-interested motives, and 
 at the same time are apprehended to be very praise-worthy qualities, 
 which deserve the esteem and approbation of every body. The mix- 
 ture of a selfish motive, it is true, seems often to sully the beauty of 
 those actions which ought to arise from a benevolent affection. The 
 cause of this, however, is not that self-love can never be the motive of 
 a virtuous action, but that the benevolent principle appears in this par- 
 ticular case to want its due degree of strength, and to be altogether un- 
 suitable to its object. The character, therefore, seems evidently im- 
 perfect, and upon the whole to deserve blame rather than praise. The 
 mixture of a benevolent motive in an action to which self-love alone 
 ought to be sufficient to prompt us, is not so apt indeed to diminish our 
 sense of its propriety, or of the virtue of the person who performs it. 
 We are not ready to suspect any person of being defective in selfish- 
 ness. This is by no means the weak side of human nature, or the fail- 
 ing of which we are apt to be suspicious. If we could really believe, 
 however, of any man, that, was it not from a regard to his family and 
 friends, he' would not take that proper care of his health, his life, or his 
 fortune, to which self-preservation alone ought to be sufficient to prompt 
 him, it would undoubtedly be a failing, though one of those amiable 
 failings which render a person rather the object of pity than of con- 
 tempt or hatred. It would still, however, somewhat diminish the
 
 270 THE CREATURE MUST OBEY THE WILL OF THE CREATOR. 
 
 dignity and respectableness of his character. Carelessness and want 
 of ceconomy are universally disapproved of, not, however, as proceed- 
 ing from a want of benevolence, but from a want of proper attention to 
 the objects of self-interest. 
 
 Though the standard by which casuists frequently determine what is 
 right or wrong in human conduct, be its tendency to the welfare or 
 disorder of society, it does not follow that a regard to the welfare of 
 society should be the sole virtuous motive of action, but only that, in 
 competition, it ought to cast the balance against all other motives. 
 
 Benevolence may, perhaps, be the sole principle of action in the 
 Deity, and there are several not improbable arguments which tend to 
 persuade us that it is so. It is not easy to conceive what other motive 
 an independent and all-perfect Being, who stands in need of nothing 
 external, and whose happiness is complete in himself, can act from. 
 But whatever may be the case with the Deity, so imperfect a creature 
 as man, the support of whose existence requires so many things ex- 
 ternal to him, must often act from many other motives. The con- 
 dition of human nature were peculiarly hard, if those affections, which, 
 by the very nature of our being, ought frequently to influence our con- 
 duct, could upon no occasion appear virtuous, or deserve esteem and 
 commendation from any body. 
 
 Those three systems, that which places virtue in propriety, that which 
 places it in prudence, and that which makes it consist in benevolence, 
 are the principal accounts which have been given of the nature of 
 virtue. To one or other of them, all the other descriptions of virtue, 
 how different soever they may appear, are easily reducible. 
 
 That system which places virtue in obedience to the will of the Deity, 
 may be accounted either among those which make it consist in pru- 
 dence, or among those which make it consist in propriety. When it is 
 asked, why we ought to obey the will of the Deity, this question, which 
 would be impious and absurd in the highest degree, if asked from any 
 doubt that we ought to obey him, can admit but of two different 
 answers. It must either be said that we ought to obey the will of the 
 Deity because he is a Being of infinite power, who will reward us eter- 
 nally if we do so, and punish us eternally if we do otherwise : or it must 
 be said, that independent of any regard to our own happiness, or to 
 rewards and punishments of any kind, there is a congruity and fitness 
 that a creature should obey its creator, that a limited and imperfect 
 being should submit to one of infinite and incomprehensible perfections. 
 Besides one or other of these two, it is impossible to conceive that any 
 other answer can be given to this question. If the first answer be the 
 proper one, virtue consists in prudence, or in the proper pursuit of our 
 own final interest and happiness ; since it is upon this account that we 
 are obliged to obey the will of the Deity. If the second answer be the 
 proper one, virtue must consist in propriety, since the ground of our
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 271 
 
 obligation to obedience is the suitableness or congruity of the senti- 
 ments of humility and submission to the superiority of the object which 
 excites them. 
 
 That system which places virtue in utility, coincides too with that 
 which makes it consist in propriety. According to this system, all 
 those qualities of the mind which are agreeable or advantageous, either 
 to the person himself or to others, are approved of as virtuous, and 
 the contrary are disapproved of as vicious. But the agreeableness or 
 utility of any affection depends upon the degree which it is allowed to 
 subsist in. Every anection is useful when it is confined to a certain 
 degree of moderation ; and every affection is disadvantageous when it 
 exceeds the proper bounds. According to this system therefore, virtue 
 consists not in any one affection, but in the proper degree of all the 
 affections. The only difference between it and that which I have been 
 endeavouring to establish, is, that it makes utility, and not sympathy, 
 or the correspondent affection of the spectator, the natural and original 
 measure of this proper degree. 
 
 CHAP. IV. Of Licentious Systems. 
 
 ALL those systems, which I have hitherto given an account of, suppose 
 that that there is a real and essential distinction between vice and 
 virtue, whatever these qualities may consist in. There is a real and 
 essential difference between the propriety and impropriety of any affec- 
 tion, between benevolence and any other principle of action, between 
 real prudence and short-sighted folly or precipitate rashness. In the 
 main, too, all of them contribute to encourage the praiseworthy, and to 
 discourage the blameable disposition. 
 
 It may be true, perhaps, of some of them, that they tend, in some 
 measure, to break the balance of the affections, and to give the mind a 
 particular bias to some principles of action, beyond the proportion that 
 is due to them. The ancient systems, which place virtue in propriety, 
 seem chiefly to recommend the great, the awful, and the respectable 
 virtues, the virtues of self-government and self-command ; fortitude, 
 magnanimity, independency upon fortune, the contempt of all outward 
 accidents, of pain, poverty, exile and death. It is in these great 
 exertions that the noblest propriety of conduct is displayed. The soft, 
 the amiable, the gentle virtues, all the virtues of indulgent humanity 
 are, in comparison, but little insisted upon, and seem, on the contrary, 
 by the Stoics in particular, to have been often regarded as weaknesses, 
 which it behoved a wise man not to harbour in his breast. 
 
 The benevolent system, on the other hand, while it fosters and 
 encourages all those milder virtues in the highest degree, seems entirely 
 to neglect the more awful and respectable qualities of the mind. It
 
 272 INFLUENCE OF EPICURUS ON OPINION OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 even denies them the appellation of virtues. It calls them moral 
 abilities, and treats them as qualities which do not deserve the same 
 sort of esteem and approbation, that is due to what is properly denomi- 
 nated virtue. All those principles of action which aim only at our own 
 interest, it treats, if that be possible, still worse. So far from having 
 any merit of their own, they diminish, it pretends, the merit of bene- 
 volence, when they co-operate with it ; and prudence, it is asserted, 
 when employed only in promoting private interest, can never even be 
 imagined a virtue. 
 
 That system, again, which makes virtue consist in prudence only, 
 while it gives the highest encouragement to the habits of caution, 
 vigilance, sobriety, and judicious moderation, seems to degrade equally 
 both the amiable and respectable virtues, and to strip the former of 
 all their beauty, and the latter of all their grandeur. 
 
 But notwithstanding these defects, the general tendency of each of those 
 three systems is to encourage the best and most laudable habits of the 
 human mind, and it were well for society, if, either mankind in general, 
 or even those few who pretend to live according to any philosophical 
 rule, were to regulate their conduct by the precepts of any one of them. 
 We may learn from each of them something that is both valuable 
 and peculiar. If it was possible, by precept and exhortation, to inspire 
 the mind with fortitude and magnanimity, the ancient systems of 
 propriety would seem sufficient to do this. Or if it was possible, by the 
 same means, to soften it into humanity, and to awaken the affections of 
 kindness and general love towards those we live with, some of the 
 pictures which the benevolent system presents us, might seem capable 
 of producing this effect. We may learn from the system of Epicurus, 
 though undoubtedly the most imperfect of all the three, how much the 
 practice of both the amiable and respectable virtues is conducive to 
 our own interest, to our own ease and safety and quiet even in this life. 
 As Epicurus placed happiness in the attainment of ease and security, 
 he exerted himself in a particular manner to show that virtue was, not 
 merely the best and the surest, but the only means of acquiring those 
 invaluable possessions. The good effects of vjrtue upon our inward 
 tranquillity and peace of mind, are what other philosophers have chiefly 
 celebrated. Epicurus, without neglecting this topic, has chiefly insisted 
 unpon the influence of that amiable quality on our outward prosperity 
 and safety. It was upon this account that his writings were so much 
 studied in the ancient world by men of all different philosophical parties. 
 It is from him that Cicero, the great enemy of the Epicurean system, 
 borrows his most agreeable proofs that virtue alone is sufficient to secure 
 happiness. Seneca, though a Stoic, the sect most opposite to that of 
 Epicurus, yet quotes this philosopher more frequently than any other. 
 
 There is, however, another system which seems to take away alto- 
 gether the distinction between vice and virtue, and of which the ten-
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 273 
 
 dency is, upon that account, wholly pernicious : I mean the system of 
 Dr. Mandeville. Though the notions of this author are in almost every 
 respect erroneous, there are, however, some appearances in human 
 nature, which, when viewed in a certain manner, seem at first sight to 
 favour them. These described and exaggerated by the lively and 
 humorous, though coarse and rustic eloquence of Dr. Mandeville, 
 have thrown upon his doctrines an air of truth and probability which is 
 very apt to impose upon the unskilful. 
 
 Dr. Mandeville considers whatever is done from a sense of propriety, 
 from a.} regard to what is commendable and praiseworthy, as being 
 done from a love of praise and commendation, or as he calls it from 
 vanity. Man, he observes, is naturally much more interested in his 
 own happiness than in that of others, and it is impossible that in his 
 heart he can ever really prefer their prosperity to his own. Whenever 
 he appears to do so, we may be assured that he imposes upon us, and 
 that he is then acting from the same selfish motives as at all other 
 times. Among his other selfish passions, vanity is one of the strongest, 
 and he is always easily flattered and greatly delighted with the ap- 
 plauses of those about him. When he appears to sacrifice his own 
 interest to that of his companions, he knows that this conduct will be 
 highly agreeable to their self-love, and that they will not fail to express 
 their satisfaction by bestowing upon him the most extravagant praises. 
 The pleasure which he expects from this, over-balances, in his opinion, 
 the interest which he abandons in order to procure it. His conduct, 
 therefore, upon this occasion, is in reality just as selfish, and arises 
 from just as mean a motive as upon any other. He is flattered, how- 
 ever, and he flatters himself with the belief that it is entirely disin- 
 terested ; since, unless this was supposed, it would not seem to merit 
 any commendation either in his own eyes or in those of others. All 
 public spirit, therefore, all preference of public to private interest, is, 
 according to him, a mere cheat and imposition upon mankind; and 
 that human virtue which is so much boasted of, and which is the occa- 
 sion of so much emulation among men, is the mere offspring of flattery 
 begot upon pride. 
 
 Whether the most generous and public-spirited actions may not, in 
 some sense, be regarded as proceeding from self-love, I shall not at 
 present examine. The decision of this question is not, I apprehend, of 
 any importance towards establishing the reality of virtue, since self- 
 love may frequently be a virtuous motive of action. I shall only en- 
 deavour to show that the desire of doing what is honourable and noble, 
 of rendering ourselves the proper objects of esteem and approbation, 
 cannot with any propriety be called vanity. Even the love of well- 
 grounded fame and reputation, the desire of acquiring esteem by what 
 is really estimable, does not deserve that name. The first is the love of 
 virtue, the noblest and the best passion of human nature. The second
 
 274 EXAMINATION OF THE SYSTEM OF MANDEVILLE. 
 
 is the love of true glory, a passion inferior no doubt to the former, but 
 which in dignity appears to come immediately after it. He is guilty of 
 vanity who desires praise for qualities which are either not praise-worthy 
 in any degree, or not in that degree in which he expects to be praised 
 for them ; who sets his character upon the frivolous ornaments of dress 
 and equipage, or upon the equally frivolous accomplishments of ordi- 
 nary behaviour. He is guilty of vanity who desires praise for what 
 indeed very well deserves it, but what he perfectly knows does not 
 belong to him. The empty coxcomb who gives himself airs of im- 
 portance which he has no title to, the silly liar who assumes the merit 
 of adventures which never happened, the foolish plagiary who gives 
 himself out for the author of what he has no pretensions to, are pro- 
 perly accused of this passion. He too is said to be guilty of vanity 
 who is not contented with the silent sentiments of esteem and appro- 
 bation, who seems to be fonder of their noisy expressions and acclama- 
 tions than of the sentiments themselves, who is never satisfied but 
 when his own praises are ringing in his ears, and who solicits with the 
 most anxious importunity all external marks of respect, is fond of titles, 
 of compliments, of being visited, of being attended, of being taken 
 notice of in public places with the appearance of deference and atten- 
 tion. This frivolous passion is altogether different from either of the 
 two former, and is the passion of the lowest and the least of mankind, 
 as they are of the noblest and the greatest. 
 
 But though these three passions, the desire of rendering ourselves 
 the proper objects of honour and esteem, or of becoming what is 
 honourable and estimable ; the desire of acquiring honour and esteem 
 by really deserving those sentiments ; and the frivolous desire of praise 
 at any rate, are widely different; though the two former are always 
 approved of, while the latter never fails to be despised ; there is, how- 
 ever, a certain remote affinity among them, which, exaggerated by the 
 humorous and diverting eloquence of this lively author, has enabled 
 him to impose upon his readers. There is an affinity between vanity 
 and the love of true glory, as both these passions aim at acquiring 
 esteem and approbation. But they are different in this, that the one is 
 a just, reasonable, and equitable passion, while the other is unjust, ab- 
 surd, and ridiculous. The man who desires esteem for what is really 
 estimable, desires nothing but what he is justly entitled to, and what 
 cannot be refused him without some sort of injury. He, on the con- 
 trary, who desires it upon any other terms, demands what he has no 
 just claim to. The first is easily satisfied, is not apt to be jealous or 
 suspicious that we do not esteem him enough, and is seldom solicitous 
 about receiving many external marks of our regard. The other, on the 
 contrary, is never to be satisfied, is full of jealousy and suspicion that 
 we do not esteem him so much as he desires, because he has some 
 secret consciousness that he desires more than he deserves. The least
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 275 
 
 neglect of ceremony, he considers as a mortal affront, and as an ex- 
 pression of the most determined contempt. He is restless and im- 
 patient, and perpetually afraid that we have lost all respect for him, 
 and is upon this account always anxious to obtain new expressions of 
 our esteem, and cannot be kept in temper but by continual attendance 
 and adulation. 
 
 There is an affinity, too, between the desire of becoming what is 
 honourable and estimable and the desire of honour and esteem, be- 
 tween the love of virtue and the love of true glory. They resemble one 
 another not only in this respect, that both aim at really being what is 
 honourable and noble, but even in that 'respect in which the love of 
 true glory resembles what is properly called vanity, some reference to 
 the sentiments of others. The man of the greatest magnanimity, who 
 desires virtue for its own sake, and is most indifferent about what 
 actually are the opinions of mankind with regard to him, is still, how- 
 ever, delighted with the thoughts of what they should be, with the 
 consciousness that though he may neither be honoured nor applauded, 
 he is still the proper object of honour and applause, and that if man- 
 kind were cool and candid and consistent with themselves, and pro- 
 perly informed of the motives and circumstances of his conduct, they 
 would not fail to honour and applaud him. Though he despises the 
 opinions which are actually entertained of him, he has the highest 
 value for those which ought to be entertained of him. That he might 
 think himself worthy of those honourable sentiments, and, whatever 
 was the idea which other men might conceive of his character, that 
 when he should put himself in their situation, and consider, not what 
 was, but what ought to be their opinion, he should always have the 
 highest idea of it himself, was the great and exalted motive of his con- 
 duct. As even in the love of virtue, therefore, there is still some 
 reference, though not to what is, yet to what in reason and propriety 
 ought to be, the opinion of others, there is even in this respect some 
 affinity between it and the love of true glory. There is, however, at 
 the same time, a very great difference between them. The man who 
 acts solely from a regard to what is right and fit to be done, from a 
 regard to what is the proper object of esteem and approbation, though 
 these sentiments should never be bestowed upon him, acts from the 
 most sublime and godlike motive which human nature is even capable 
 of conceiving. The man, on the other hand, who while he desires to 
 merit approbation, is at the same time anxious to obtain it, though he, 
 too, is laudable in the main, yet his motives have a greater mixture of 
 human infirmity. He is in danger of being mortified by the ignorance 
 and injustice of mankind, and his happiness is exposed to the envy of 
 his rivals and the folly of the public. The happiness of the other, on 
 the contrary, is altogether secure and independent of fortune, and of 
 the caprice of those he lives with. The contempt and hatred which
 
 276 INGENIOUS SOPHISTRY OF* THE LANGUAGE OF MANDEVILLE. 
 
 may be thrown upon him by the ignorance of mankind, he considers as 
 not belonging to him, and is not at all mortified by it. Mankind 
 despise and hate him from a false notion of his character and conduct. 
 If they knew him better, they would esteem and love him. It is not 
 him whom, properly speaking, they hate and despise, but another 
 person whom they mistake him to be. Our friend, whom we should 
 meet at a masquerade in the garb of our enemy, would be more diverted 
 than mortified, if under that disguise we should vent our indignation 
 against him. Such are the sentiments of a man of real magnanimity, 
 when exposed to unjust censure. It seldom happens, however, that 
 human nature arrives at this degree of firmness. Though none but 
 the weakest and most worthless of mankind are much delighted with 
 false glory, yet, by a strange inconsistency, false ignominy is capable of 
 mortifying those who appear the most resolute and determined. 
 
 Dr. Mandeville is not satisfied with representing the frivolous motive 
 of vanity, as the source of all those actions which are commonly ac- 
 counted virtuous. He endeavours to point out the imperfection of 
 human virtue in many other respects. In every case, he pretends, it 
 falls short of that complete self-denial which it pretends to, and, instead 
 of a conquest, is commonly no more than a concealed indulgence of our 
 passions. Wherever our reserve with regard to pleasure falls short of 
 the most ascetic abstinence, he treats it as gross luxury and sensuality. 
 Every thing, according to him, is luxury which exceeds what is abso- 
 lutely necessary for the support of human nature, so that there is vice 
 even in the use of a clean shirt or of a convenient habitation. The 
 indulgence of the inclination to sex, in the most lawful union, he con- 
 siders as the same sensuality with the most hurtful gratification of that 
 passion, and derides that temperance and that chastity which can be 
 practised at so cheap a rate. The ingenious sophistry of his reasoning, 
 is here, as upon many other occasions, covered by the ambiguity of 
 language. There are some of our passions which have no other names 
 except those which mark the disagreeable and offensive degree. The 
 spectator is more apt to take notice of them in this degree than in any 
 other. When they shock his own sentiments, when they give him 
 some sort of antipathy and uneasiness, he is necessarily obliged to 
 attend to them, and is from thence naturally led to give them a name. 
 When they fall in with the natural state of his own mind, he is very 
 apt to overlook them altogether, and either gives them no name at all, 
 or, if he gives them any, it is one which marks rather the subjection 
 and restraint of the passion, than the degree which it still is allowed to 
 subsist in, after it is so subjected and restrained. Thus the common 
 names (luxury and lust) of the love of pleasure, and of the love of sex, 
 denote a vicious and offensive degree of those passions. The words 
 temperance and chastity, on the other hand, seem to mark rather the 
 restraint and subjection which they are kept under, than the degree
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 277 
 
 which they are still allowed lo subsist in. When he can show, there- 
 fore, that they still subsist in some degree, he imagines, he has entirely 
 demolished the reality of the virtues of temperance and chastity, and 
 shown them to be mere impositions upon the inattention and simplicity 
 of mankind. Those virtues, however, do not require an entire insensi- 
 bility to the objects of the passions which they mean to govern. They 
 only aim at restraining the violence of those passions so far as not to 
 hurt the individual, and neither disturb nor offend society. 
 
 It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book (Fable of the Bees) to 
 represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and 
 in any direction. It is thus that he treats every thing as vanity which 
 has any reference, either to what are, or to what ought to be the senti- 
 ments of others ; and it is by means of this sophistry, that he esta- 
 blishes his favourite conclusion, that private vices are public benefits. 
 If the love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improve- 
 ments of human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, 
 or equipage, for architecture, statuary, painting, and music, is to be 
 regarded as luxury, sensuality, and ostentation, even in those whose 
 situation allows, without any inconveniency, the indulgence of those 
 passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality, and ostentation are public 
 benefits : since without the qualities upon which he thinks proper to 
 bestow such opprobrious names, the arts of refinement could never find 
 encouragement, and must languish for want of employment. Some 
 popular ascetic doctrines which had been current before his time, and 
 which placed virtue in the entire extirpation and annihilation of all our 
 passions, were the real foundation of this licentious system. It was 
 easy for Dr. Mandeville to prove, first, that this entire conquest never 
 actually took place among men ; and secondly, that if it was to take 
 place universally, it would be pernicious to society, by putting an end 
 to all industry and commerce, and in a manner to the whole business 
 of human life. By the first of these propositions, he seemed to prove 
 that there was no real virtue, and that what pretended to be such, was 
 a mere cheat and imposition upon mankind ; and by the second, that 
 our private vices were public benefits, since without them no society 
 could prosper or flourish. 
 
 Such is the system of Dr. Mandeville, which once made so much 
 noise in the world, and which, though, perhaps, it never gave occasion 
 to more vice than what would have been without it, at least taught that 
 vice, which arose from other causes, to appear with more effrontery, 
 and to avow the corruption of its motives with a profligate audacious- 
 ness which had never been heard of before. 
 
 But how destructive soever this system may appear, it could never 
 have imposed upon so great a number of persons, nor have occasioned 
 so general an alarm among those who are the friends of better princi- 
 ples, had it not in some respects bordered upon the truth. A system of
 
 278 THE DIFFICULTY OF IMPROVING UNSOUND SYSTEMS OF ETHICS. 
 
 natural philosophy may appear very plausible, and be for a long time 
 very generally received in the world, and yet have no foundation in 
 nature, nor any sort of resemblance to the truth. The vortices of Des 
 Cartes were regarded by a very ingenious nation, for near a century 
 together, as a most satisfactory account of the revolutions of the 
 heavenly bodies. Yet it has been demonstrated, to the conviction of 
 ail mankind, that these pretended causes of those wonderful effects, 
 not only do not actually exist, but are utterly impossible, and if they 
 did exist, could produce no such effects as are ascribed to them. But 
 it is otherwise with systems of moral philosophy, and an author who 
 pretends to account for the origin of our moral sentiments, cannot 
 deceive us so grossly, nor depart so very far from all resemblance to 
 the truth. When a traveller gives an account of some distant country, 
 he may impose upon our credulity, the most groundless and absurd 
 fictions as the most certain matters of fact. But when a person pre- 
 tends to inform us of what passes in our neighbourhood, and of the 
 affairs of the very parish which we live in, though here too, if we are so 
 careless as not to examine things with our own eyes, he may deceive us 
 in many respects, yet the greatest falsehoods which he imposes upon us 
 must bear some resemblance to the truth, and must even have a con- 
 siderable mixture of truth in them. An author who treats of natural 
 philosophy, and pretends to assign the causes of the great phenomena 
 of the universe, pretends to give an account of the affairs of a very 
 distant country, concerning which he may tell us what he pleases, and 
 as long as his narration keeps within the bounds of seeming possibility, 
 he need not despair of gaining of belief. But when he proposes to 
 explain the origin of our desires and affections, of our sentiments of 
 approbation and disapprobation, he pretends to give an account, not 
 only of the affairs of the very parish that we live in, but of our own 
 domestic concerns. Though here too, like indolent masters who put 
 their trust in a steward who deceives them, we are very liable to be im- 
 posed upon, yet we are incapable of passing any account which does 
 not preserve some little regard to the truth. Some of the articles, at 
 least, must be just, and even those which are most overcharged must 
 have had some foundation, otherwise the fraud would be detected even by 
 that careless inspection which we are disposed to give. The author 
 who should assign, as the cause of any natural sentiment, some princi- 
 ple which neither had any connection with it, nor resembled any other 
 principle which had some such connection, would appear absurd and 
 ridiculous to the most injudicious and unexperienced reader.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 279 
 
 SEC. III. OF THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS WHICH HAVE BEEN FORMED 
 CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLE OF APPROBATION. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. After the inquiry concerning the nature of virtue, 
 the next question of importance in Moral Philosophy, is concerning the 
 principle of approbation, concerning the power or faculty of the mind 
 which renders certain characters agreeable or disagreeable to us, makes 
 us prefer one tenor of conduct to another, denominate the one right and 
 the other wrong, and consider the one as the object of approbation, 
 honour, and reward, or the other as that of blame, censure, and 
 punishment. 
 
 Three different accounts have been given of this principle of appro- 
 bation. According to some, we approve and disapprove both of our 
 own actions and of those of others, from self-love only, or from some 
 view of their tendency to our own happiness or disadvantage : accord- 
 ing to others, reason, the same faculty by which we distinguish be- 
 tween truth and falsehood, enables us to distinguish between what 
 is fit and unfit both in actions and affections : according to others, 
 this distinction is altogether the effect of immediate sentiment and feel- 
 ing, and arises from the satisfaction or disgust with which the view of 
 certain actions or affections inspires us. Self-love, reason and senti- 
 ment, therefore, are the three different sources which have been as- 
 signed for the principle of approbation. 
 
 Before I proceed to give an account of those different systems, I 
 must observe, that the determination of this second question, though 
 of the greatest importance in speculation, is of none in practice. The 
 question concerning the nature of virtue necessarily has some influence 
 upon our notions of right and wrong in many particular cases. That 
 concerning the principle of approbation can possibly have no such 
 effect. To examine from what contrivance or mechanism within, those 
 different notions or sentiments arise, is a mere matter of philosophical 
 curiosity. 
 
 CHAP. I. Of those Systems which deduce the Principle of Approbation 
 from Self-love. 
 
 THOSE who account for the principle of approbation from self-love, do 
 not all account for it in the same manner, and there is a good deal of 
 confusion and inaccuracy in all their different systems. According to 
 Mr. Hobbes, and many of his followers (Puffendorff, Mandeville), man 
 is driven to take refuge in society, not by any natural love which he 
 bears to his own kind, but because without the assistance of others he 
 is incapable of subsisting with ease or safety. Society, upon this 
 account, becomes necessary to him, and whatever tends to its support 
 and welfare, he considers as having a remote tendency to his own
 
 280 SOCIETY LIKE AN IMMENSE MACHINE VIRTUE THE OIL. 
 
 interest ; and, on the contrary, whatever is likely to disturb or destroy 
 it, he regards as in some measure hurtful or pernicious to himself. 
 Virtue is the great support, and vice the great disturber of human 
 society. The former, therefore, is agreeable, and the latter offensive to 
 every man ; as from the one he foresees the prosperity, and from the 
 other the ruin and disorder of what is so necessary for the comfort and 
 the security of his existence. 
 
 That the tendency of virtue to promote, and of vice to disturb the 
 order of society, when we consider it coolly and philosophically, reflects 
 a very great beauty upon the one, and a very great deformity upon the 
 other, cannot, as I have observed upon a former occasion, be called in 
 question. Human society, when we contemplate it in a certain abstract 
 and philosophical light, appears like a great, an immense machine, 
 whose regular and harmonious movements produce a thousand agree- 
 able effects. As in any other beautiful and noble machine that was 
 the production of human art, whatever tended to render its movements 
 more smooth and easy, would derive a beauty from this effect, and, on 
 the contrary, whatever tended to obstruct them would displease upon 
 that account : so virtue, which is, as it were, the fine polish to the 
 wheels of society, necessarily pleases ; while vice, like the vile rust, 
 which makes them jar and grate upon one another, is as necessarily 
 offensive. This account, therefore, of the origin of approbation and 
 disapprobation, so far as it derives them from a regard to the order of 
 society, runs into that principle which gives beauty to utility, and which 
 I have explained upon a former occasion ; and it is from thence that 
 this system derives all that appearance of probability which it possesses. 
 When those authors describe the innumerable advantages of a culti- 
 vated and social, above a savage and solitary life ; when they expatiate 
 upon the necessity of virtue and good order for the maintenance of the 
 one, and demonstrate how infallibly the prevalence of vice and disobedi- 
 ence to the laws tend to bring back the other, the reader is charmed with 
 the novelty and grandeur of those views which they open to him : he 
 sees plainly a new beauty in virtue, and a new deformity in vice, which 
 he had never taken notice of before, and is commonly so delighted with 
 the discovery, that he seldom takes time to reflect, that this political 
 view having never occurred to him in his life before, cannot possibly be 
 the ground of that approbation and disapprobation with which he has 
 been accustomed to consider those different qualities. 
 
 When those authors, on the other hand, deduce from self-love the 
 interest which we take in the welfare of society, and the esteem which 
 upon that account we bestow upon virtue, they do not mean, that when 
 we in this age applaud the virtue of Cato, and detest the villany of 
 Cataline, our sentiments are influenced by the notion of any benefit we 
 receive from the one, or of any detriment we suffer from the other. It 
 was not because the prosperity or subversion of society, in those remote
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 281 
 
 ages and nations, was apprehended to have any influence upon our 
 happiness or misery in the present times ; that according to those 
 philosophers, we esteemed the virtuous and blamed the disorderly 
 character. They never imagined that our sentiments were influenced 
 by any benefit or damage which we suppposed actually to redound to 
 us, from either ; but by that which might have redounded to us, had 
 we lived in those distant ages and countries ; or by that which might 
 still redound to us, if in our own times we should meet with characters 
 of the same kind. The idea, in short, which those authors were grop- 
 ing about, but which they were never able to unfold distinctly, was that 
 indirect sympathy which we feel with the gratitude or resentment of 
 those who received the benefit or suffered the damage resulting from 
 such opposite characters : and it was this which they were indistinctly 
 pointing at, when they said, that it was not the thought of what we had 
 gained or suffered which prompted our applause or indignation, but the 
 conception or imagination of what we might gain or suffer if we were to 
 act in society with such associates. 
 
 Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish 
 principle. When I sympathize with your sorrow or your indignation, 
 it may be pretended, indeed, that my emotion is founded in self-love, 
 because it arises from bringing your case home to myself, from putting 
 myself in your situation, and thence conceiving what I should feel in 
 the like circumstances. But though sympathy is very properly said to 
 arise from an imaginary change of situations with the person principally 
 concerned, yet this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me 
 in my own person and character, but in that of the person with whom 
 I sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your only son, 
 in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I, a person of 
 such a character and profession, should suffer, if I had a son, and if 
 that son was unfortunately to die; but I consider what I should suffer 
 if I was really you, and I not only change circumstances with you, but 
 I change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is entirely upon 
 your account, and not in the least upon my own. It is not, therefore 
 in the least selfish. How can that be regarded as a selfish passion, 
 which does not arise even from the imagination of any thing that has 
 befallen, or that relates to myself, in my own proper person and 
 character, but which is entirely occupied about what relates to you? A 
 man may sympathize with a woman in child-bed ; though it is impos- 
 sible that he should conceive himself as suffering her pains in his own 
 proper person and character. That whole account of human nature, 
 however, which deduces all sentiments and affections from self-love> 
 which has made so much noise in the world, but which, sd far as I 
 know, .has never yet been fully and distinctly explained, seems to me to 
 have arisen from some confused misapprehension of the system of 
 sympathy. 
 
 19
 
 282 CIVIL GOVERNMENT DEPENDS ON OBEDIENCE TO MAGISTRATES. 
 
 CHA?. II. Of those Systems which make Reason the Principle of 
 Approbation. 
 
 IT is well known to have been the doctrine of Mr. Hobbes, that a state 
 of nature is a state of war; and that antecedent to the institution of 
 civil government, there could be no safe or peaceable society among 
 men. To preserve society, therefore, according to him, was to support 
 civil government, and to destroy civil government was the same thing 
 as to put an end to society. But the existence of civil government 
 depends upon the obedience that is paid to the supreme magistrate. 
 The moment he loses his authority, all government is at an end. As 
 self-preservation, therefore, teaches men to applaud whatever tends to 
 promote the welfare of society, and to blame whatever is likely to hurt 
 it ; so the same principle, if they would think and speak consistently, 
 ought to teach them to applaud upon all occasions obedience to the 
 civil magistrate, and to blame all disobedience and rebellion. The very 
 ideas of laudable and blamable, ought to be the same with those of 
 obedience and disobedience. The laws of the civil magistrate, there- 
 fore, ought to be regarded as the sole ultimate standards of what was 
 just and unjust, of what was right and wrong. 
 
 It was the avowed intention of Mr. Hobbes, by propagating these 
 notions, to subject the consciences of men immediately to the civil, and 
 not to the ecclesiastical powers, whose turbulence and ambition, he had 
 been taught, by the example of his own times, to regard as the principal 
 source of the disorders of society. His doctrine, upon this account, 
 was peculiarly offensive to theologians, who accordingly did not fail to 
 vent their indignation against him with great asperity and bitterness. 
 It was likewise offensive to all sound moralists, as it supposed that 
 there was no natural distinction between right and wrong, that these 
 were mutable and changeable, and depended upon the mere arbitrary 
 will of the civil magistrate. This account of things, therefore, was 
 attacked from all quarters, and by all sorts of weapons, by sober reason 
 as well as by furious declamation. 
 
 In order to confute so odious a doctrine, it was necessary to prove, 
 that antecedent to all law or positive institution, the mind was naturally 
 endowed with a faculty, by which it distinguished in certain actions and 
 affections, the qualities of right, laudable, and virtuous, and in others 
 those of wrong, blamable, and vicious. 
 
 Law, it was justly observed by Dr. Cud worth (Immutable Morality, 
 1. i), could not be the original source of those distinctions ; since upon 
 the supppsition of such a law, it must either be right to obey it, and 
 wrong to disobey it, or indifferent whether we obeyed it or disobeyed 
 it. That law which it was indifferent whether we obeyed or disobeyed, 
 could not, it was evident, be the source of those distinctions; neither
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 283 
 
 could that which it was right to obey and wrong to disobey, since even 
 this still supposed the antecedent notions or ideas of right and wrong, 
 and that obedience to the law was conformable to the idea of right, and 
 disobedience to that of wrong. 
 
 Since the mind, therefore, had a notion of those distinctions ante- 
 cedent to all law, it seemed necessarily to follow, that it derived this 
 notion from reason, which pointed out the difference between right and 
 wrong, in the same manner in which it did that between truth and false- 
 hood : and this conclusion, which, though true in some respects, is 
 rather hasty in others, was more easily received at a time when the 
 abstract science of human nature was but in its infancy, and before the 
 distinct offices and powers of the different faculties of the human mind 
 had been carefully examined and distinguished from one another. 
 When this controversy with Mr. Hobbes was carried on with the 
 greatest warmth and keenness, no other faculty had been thought of 
 from which any such ideas could possibly be supposed to arise. It 
 became at this time, therefore, the popular doctrine, that the essence of 
 virtue and vice did not consist in the conformity or disagreement of 
 human actions with the law of a superior, but in their conformity or 
 disagreement with reason, which was thus considered as the original 
 source and principle of approbation and disapprobation. 
 
 That virtue consists in conformity to reason, is true in some respects, 
 and this faculty may very justly be considered as, in some sense, the 
 source and principle of approbation and disapprobation, and of all solid 
 judgments concerning right and wrong. It is by reason that we dis- 
 cover those general rules of justice by which we ought to regulate our 
 actions : and it is by the same faculty that we form those more vague 
 and indeterminate ideas of what is prudent, of what is decent, of what 
 is generous or noble, which we carry constantly about with us, and 
 according to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the 
 tenor of our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like 
 all other general maxims, from experience and induction. We observe 
 in a great variety of particular cases what pleases or displeases our 
 moral faculties, what these approve or disapprove of, and, by induction 
 from this experience, we establish those general rules. But induction 
 is always regarded as one of the operations of reason. From reason, 
 therefore, we are very properly said to derive all those general maxims 
 and ideas. It is by these, however, that we regulate the greater part 
 of our moral judgments, which would be extremely uncertain and pre- 
 carious if they depended altogether upon what is liable to so many 
 variations as immediate sentiment and feeling, which the different 
 states of health and humour are capable of altering so essentially. As 
 our most solid judgments, therefore, with regard to right and wrong, 
 are regulated by maxims and ideas derived from an induction of 
 reason, virtue may very properly be said to consist in a conformity to 
 
 19 *
 
 284 ALL MORAL DISTINCTIONS ARISE FROM REASON. 
 
 reason, and so far this faculty may be considered as the source and 
 principle of approbation and disapprobation. 
 
 But though reason is undoubtedly the source of the general rules of 
 morality, and of all the moral judgments which we form by means of 
 them ; it is altogether absurd and unintelligible to suppose that the first 
 perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason, even in 
 those particular cases upon the experience of which the general rules 
 are formed. These first perceptions, as well as all other experiments 
 upon which any general rules are founded, cannot be the object of 
 reason, but of immediate sense and feeling. It is by finding in a vast 
 variety of instances that one tenor of conduct constantly pleases in a 
 certain manner, and that another as constantly displeases the mind, 
 that we form the general rules of morality. But reason cannot render 
 any particular object either agreeable or disagreeable to the mind for 
 its own sake. Reason may show that this object is the means of ob- 
 taining some other which is naturally either pleasing or displeasing, 
 and in this manner may render it either agreeable or disagreeable for 
 the sake of something else. But nothing can be agreeable or disagree- 
 able for its own sake,, which is not rendered such by immediate sense 
 and feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every particular instance, neces- 
 sarily pleases for its own sake, and if vice as certainly displeases the 
 mind, it cannot be reason, but immediate sense and feeling, which 
 thus reconciles us to the one, and alienates us from the other. 
 
 Pleasure and pain are the great objects of desire and aversion : but 
 these are distinguished, not by reason, but by immediate sense and 
 feeling. If virtue, therefore, be desirable for its own sake, and if vice 
 be, in the same manner, the object of aversion, it cannot be reason 
 which originally distinguishes those different qualities, but immediate 
 sense and feeling. 
 
 As reason, however, in a certain sense, may justly be considered as 
 the principle of approbation and disapprobation, these sentiments were, 
 through inattention, long regarded as originally flowing from the opera- 
 tions of this faculty. Dr. Hutcheson had the merit of being the first 
 who distinguished with any degree of precision in what respect all 
 moral distinctions may be said to arise from reason, and in what re- 
 spect they are founded upon immediate sense and feeling. In his 
 illustrations upon the moral sense he has explained this so fully, and, 
 in my opinion, so unanswerably, that, if any controversy is still kept up 
 about this subject, I can impute it to nothing, but either to inattention 
 to what that gentleman has written, or to a superstitious attachment to 
 certain forms of expression, a weakness not very uncommon among the 
 learned, especially in subjects so deeply interesting as the present, in 
 which a man of virtue is often loath to abandon even the propriety of 
 a single phrase which he has been accustomed to.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 285 
 
 CHAP. III. Of those Systems which make Sentiment the Principle 
 of Approbation, 
 
 THOSE systems which make sentiment the principle of approbation 
 may be divided into two different classes. 
 
 I. According to some the principle of approbation is founded upon a 
 sentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of perception 
 exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or affections ; some 
 of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable and others in a disagree- 
 able manner, the former are stamped with the characters of right, 
 laudable, and virtuous ; the latter with those of wrong, blamable, and 
 vicious. This sentiment being of a peculiar nature distinct from every 
 other, and the effect of a particular power of perception, they give it a 
 particular name, and call it a moral sense. 
 
 II. According to others, in order to account for the principle of ap- 
 probation, there is no occasion for supposing any new power of per- 
 ception which had never been heard of before : Nature, they imagine 
 acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest ceconomy, and pro- 
 duces a multitude of effects from one and the same cause ; and sym- 
 pathy, a power which has always been taken notice of, and with which 
 the mind is manifestly endowed, is, they think, sufficient to account for 
 all the effects ascribed to this peculiar faculty. 
 
 I. Dr. Hutcheson (Inquiry concerning Virtue) had been at great 
 pains to prove that the principle of approbation was not founded on 
 self-love. He had demonstrated, too, that it could not arise from any 
 operation of reason. Nothing remained, he thought, but to suppose 
 it a faculty of a peculiar kind, with which Nature had endowed the 
 human mind, in order to produce this one particular and important 
 effect. When self-love and reason were both excluded, it did not occur 
 to him that there was any other known faculty of the mind which could 
 in any respect answer this purpose. 
 
 This new power of perception he called a moral sense, and supposed 
 it to be somewhat analogous to the external senses. As the bodies 
 around us, by affecting these in a certain manner, appear to possess 
 the different qualities of sound, taste, odour, colour; so the various 
 affections of the human mind, by touching this particular faculty in a 
 certain manner, appear to possess the different qualities of amiable and 
 odious, of virtuous and vicious, of right and wrong. 
 
 The various senses or powers of perception (Treatise of the Pas- 
 sions) from which the human mind derives all its simple ideas, were, 
 according to this system, of two different kinds, of which the one were 
 called the direct or antecedent, the other, the reflex or consequent 
 senses. The direct senses were those faculties from which the mind 
 derived the perception of such species of things as did not presuppose
 
 286 LOCKE ON REFLECTION, HUTCHESON ON MORAL SENSE. 
 
 the antecedent perception of any other. Thus sounds and colours were 
 objects of the direct senses. To hear a sound or to see a colour does 
 not presuppose the antecedent perception of any other quality or object. 
 The reflex or consequent senses, on the other hand, were those faculties 
 from which the mind derived the perception of such species of things 
 as presupposed the antecedent perception of some other. Thus har- 
 mony and beauty were objects of the reflex senses. In order to per- 
 ceive the harmony of a sound, or the beauty of a colour, we must first 
 perceive the sound or the colour. The moral sense was considered as 
 a faculty of this kind. That faculty, which Mr. Locke calls reflection, 
 and from which he derived the simple ideas of the different passions 
 and emotions of the human mind, was, according to Dr. Hutcheson, a 
 direct internal sense. That faculty again by which we perceived the 
 beauty or deformity, the virtue or vice, of those different passions and 
 emotions, was a reflex, internal sense. 
 
 Dr. Hutcheson endeavoured still further to support this doctrine, by 
 showing that it was agreeable to the analogy of nature, and that the 
 mind was endowed with a variety of other reflex senses exactly similar 
 to the moral sense ; such as a sense of beauty and deformity in external 
 objects ; a public sense, by which we sympathize with the happiness or 
 misery of our fellow-creatures; a sense of shame and honour, and a 
 sense of ridicule. 
 
 But notwithstanding all the pains which this ingenious philosopher 
 has taken to prove that the principle of approbation is founded in a 
 peculiar power of perception, somewhat analogous to the external 
 senses, there are some consequences, which he acknowledges to follow 
 from this doctrine, that will, perhaps, be regarded by many as a suffi- 
 cient confutation of it. The qualities, he allows,* which belong to the 
 objects of any sense, cannot, without the greatest absurdity, be ascribed 
 to the sense itself. Who ever thought of calling the sense of seeing 
 black or white, the sense of hearing loud or low, or the sense of tasting 
 sweet or Sitter ? And, according to him, it is equally absurd to call 
 our moral faculties virtuous or vicious, morally good or evil. These 
 qualities belong to the objects of those faculties, not to the faculties 
 themselves. If any man, therefore, was so absurdly constituted as to 
 approve of cruelty and injustice as the highest virtues, and to disap- 
 prove of equity and humanity as the most pitiful vices, such a constitu- 
 tion of mind might indeed be regarded as inconvenient both to the 
 individual and to the society, and likewise as strange, surprising, and 
 unnatural in itself ; but it could not, without the greatest absurdity, be 
 denominated vicious or morally evil. 
 
 Yet surely if we saw any man shouting with admiration and applause 
 at a barbarous and unmerited execution, which some insolent tyrant 
 had ordered, we should not think we were guilty of any great absurdity 
 
 * Illustrations upon the Moral Sense, sect. i. p. 237, et seq.; third edition.
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 287 
 
 in denominating this behaviour vicious and morally evil in the highest 
 degree, though it expressed nothing but depraved moral faculties, or an 
 absurd approbation of this horrid action, as of what was noble, mag- 
 nanimous, and great. Our heart, I imagine, at the sight of such a 
 spectator, would forget for a while its sympathy with the sufferer, and 
 feel nothing but horror and detestation, at the thought of so execrable 
 a wretch. We should abominate him even more than the tyrant who 
 might be goaded on by the strong passions of jealousy, fear, and 
 resentment, and upon that account be more excusable. But the senti- 
 ments of the spectator would appear altogether without cause or motive, 
 and therefore most perfectly and completely detestable. There is no 
 perversion of sentiment or affection which our heart would be more 
 averse to enter into, or which it would reject with greater hatred and 
 indignation than one of this kind ; and so far from regarding such a 
 constitution of mind as being merely something strange or inconvenient, 
 and not in any respect vicious or morally evil, we should rather con- 
 sider it as the very last and most dreadful stage of depravity. 
 
 Correct moral sentiments, on the contrary, naturally appear in some 
 degree laudable and morally good. The man, whose censure and 
 applause are upon all occasions suited with the greatest accuracy to the 
 value or unworthiness of the object, seems to deserve a degree even of 
 moral approbation. We admire the delicate precision of his moral 
 sentiments : they lead our own judgments, and, upon account of their 
 uncommon and surprising justness, they even excite our wonder and 
 applause. We cannot indeed be always sure that the conduct of such 
 a person would be in any respect correspondent to the precision and 
 accuracy of his judgment concerning the conduct of others. Virtue 
 requires habit and resolution of mind, as well as delicacy of senti- 
 ment ; and unfortunately the former qualities are sometimes wanting, 
 where the latter is in the greatest perfection. This disposition of mind, 
 however, though it may sometimes be attended with imperfections, is 
 incompatible with any thing that is grossly criminal, and is the happiest 
 foundation upon which the superstructure of perfect virtue can be 
 built. There are many men who mean very well, and seriously pur- 
 pose to do what they think their duty, who notwithstanding are dis- 
 agreeable because of the coarseness of their moral sentiments. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that though the principle of approbation is 
 not founded upon any perception that is in any respect analogous to 
 the external senses, it may still be founded upon a peculiar sentiment 
 which answers this one particular purpose and no other. Approbation 
 and disapprobation, it may be pretended, are certain feelings or emo- 
 tions which arise in the mind upon the view of different characters 
 and actions ; and as resentment might be called a sense of injuries, or 
 gratitude a sense of benefits, so these may very properly receive the 
 name of a sense of right and wrong, or of a moral sense.
 
 288 APPROBATION AND DISAPPROBATION DIFFERENT EMOTIONS. 
 
 But this account of things, though it may not be liable to the same 
 objections with the foregoing, is exposed to others which may be 
 equally unanswerable. 
 
 First of all, whatever variations any particular emotion may undergo, 
 it still preserves the general features which distinguish it to be an 
 emotion of such a kind, and these general features are always more 
 striking and remarkable than any variation which it may undergo in 
 particular cases. Thus anger is an emotion of a particular kind : and 
 accordingly its general features are always more distinguishable than 
 all the variations it undergoes in particular cases. Anger against a 
 man is, no doubt, somewhat different from anger against a woman, and 
 that again from anger against a child. In each of those three cases, 
 the general passion of anger receives a different modification from the 
 particular character of its object, as may easily be observed by the 
 attentive. But still the general features of the passion predominate in 
 all these cases. To distinguish these, requires no nice observation : a 
 very delicate attention, on the contrary, is necessary to discover their 
 variations : every body takes notice of the former ; scarce any body 
 observes the latter. If approbation and disapprobation, therefore, 
 were, like gratitude and resentment, emotions of a particular kind, 
 distinct from every other, we should expect that in all the variations 
 which either of them might undergo, it would still retain the general 
 features which mark it to be an emotion of such a particular kind, clear, 
 plain and easily distinguishable. But in fact it happens quite other- 
 wise. If we attend to what we really feel when upon different occa- 
 sions we either approve or disapprove, we shall find that our emotion 
 in one case is often totally different from that in another, and that no 
 common features can possibly be discovered between them. Thus the 
 approbation with which we view a tender, delicate, and humane senti- 
 ment, is quite different from that with which we are struck by one that 
 appears great, daring, and magnanimous. Our approbation of both 
 may, upon different occasions, be perfect and entire ; but we are softened 
 by the one, and we are elevated by the other, and there is no sort of re- 
 semblance between the emotions which they excite in us. But, accord- 
 ing to that system which I have been endeavouring to establish, this 
 must necessarily be the case. As the emotions of the person whom we 
 approve of, are, in those two cases, quite opposite to one another, and 
 as our approbation arises from sympathy with those opposite emotions, 
 what we feel upon the one occasion, can have no sort of resemblance 
 to what we feel upon the other. But this could not happen if approba- 
 tion consisted in a peculiar emotion which had nothing in common with 
 the sentiments we approved of, but which arose at the view of those 
 sentiments, like any other passion at the view of its proper object. 
 The same thing holds true with regard to disapprobation. Our horror 
 for cruelty has no sort of resemblance to our contempt for mean-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 289 
 
 spiritedness. It is quite a different species of discord which we feel at 
 the view of those two different vices, between our own minds and those 
 of the person whose sentiments and behaviour we consider. 
 
 Secondly, I have already observed, that not only the different 
 passions or affections of the human mind which are approved or dis- 
 approved of, appear morally good or evil, but that proper and improper 
 approbation appear, to our natural sentiments, to be stamped with the 
 same characters. I would ask, therefore, how it is, that, according to 
 this system, we approve or disapprove of proper or improper approba- 
 tion ? To this question there is, I imagine, but one reasonable answer 
 which can possibly be given. It must be said, that when the approba- 
 tion with which our neighbour regards the conduct of a third person 
 coincides with our own, we approve of his approbation, and consider it 
 as, in some measure, morally good ; and that, on the contrary, when it 
 does not coincide with our own sentiments, we disapprove of it, and 
 consider it as, in some measure, morally evil. It must be allowed, 
 therefore, that, at least in this one case, the coincidence or opposition 
 of sentiment, between the observer and the person observed, constitutes 
 moral approbation or disapprobation. And if it does so in this one 
 case, I would ask, why not in every other ? to what purpose imagine a 
 new power of perception in order to account for those sentiments ? 
 
 Against every account of the principle of approbation, which makes 
 it depend upon a peculiar sentiment, distinct from every other, I would 
 object that it is strange that this sentiment, which Providence un- 
 doubtedly intended to be the governing principle of human nature, 
 should hitherto have been so little taken notice of, as not to have got a 
 name in any language. The word Moral Sense is of very late forma- 
 tion, and cannot yet be considered as making part of the English 
 tongue. The word Approbation has but within these few years been 
 appropriated to denote peculiarly any thing of this kind. In propriety 
 of language we approve of whatever is entirely to our satisfaction, of 
 the form of a building, of the contrivance of a machine, of the flavour 
 of a dish of meat. The word Conscience does not immediately denote 
 any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove. Conscience 
 supposes, indeed, the existence of some such faculty, and properly sig- 
 nifies our consciousness of having acted agreeably or contrary to its 
 directions. When love, hatred, joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, 
 with so many other passions which are all supposed to be the subjects 
 of this principle, have made themselves considerable enough to get 
 titles to know them by, is it not surprising that the sovereign of them 
 all should hitherto have been so little heeded, that, a few philosophers 
 excepted, nobody has yet thought it worth while to bestow a name 
 upon that principle. 
 
 When we approve of any character or action, the sentiments which 
 we feel, are, according to the foregoing system, derived from four
 
 2QO VIRTUE APPEARS TO DERIVE BEAUTY FROM ITS UTILITY. 
 
 sources, which are in some respects different from one another. First, 
 we sympathize with the motives of the agent ; secondly, we enter into 
 the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions ; thirdly, 
 we observe that his conduct has been agreeable to the general rules by 
 which those two sympathies generally act ; and, last of all, when we 
 consider such actions as making a part of a system of behaviour which 
 tends to promote the happiness either of the individual or of the 
 society, they appear to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike that 
 which we ascribe to any well-contrived machine. After deducting, in 
 any one particular case, all that must be acknowledged to proceed from 
 some one or other of these four principles, I should be glad to know 
 what remains, a"rid I shall freely allow this overplus to be ascribed to a 
 moral sense, or to any other peculiar faculty, provided any body will 
 ascertain precisely what this overplus is. It might be expected, per- 
 haps, that if there was any such peculiar principle, such as this moral 
 sense is supposed to be, we should feel it, in some particular cases, 
 separated and detached from every other, as we often feel joy, sorrow, 
 hope, and fear, pure and unmixed with any other emotion. This, how- 
 ever, I imagine, cannot even be pretended. I have never heard any 
 instance alleged in which this principle could be said to exert itself 
 alone and unmixed with sympathy or antipathy, with gratitude or 
 resentment, with the perception of the agreement or disagreement of 
 any action to an established rule, or last of all, with that general taste 
 for beauty and order which is excited by inanimated as well as by 
 animated objects. 
 
 II. There is another system which attempts to account for the origin 
 of our moral sentiments from sympathy, distinct from that which I 
 have been endeavouring to establish. It is that which places virtue in 
 utility, and accounts for the pleasure with which the spectator surveys 
 the utility of any quality from sympathy with the happiness of those 
 who are affected by it. This sympathy is different both from that by 
 which we enter into the motives of the agent, and from that by which 
 we go along with the gratitude of the persons who are benefited by his 
 actions. It is the same principle with that by which we approve of a 
 well-contrived machine. But no machine can be the object of either 
 of those two last-mentioned sympathies. I have already, in the fourth 
 part of this discourse, given some account of this system. 
 
 SEC. IV. OF THE MANNER IN WHICH DIFFERENT AUTHORS HAVE 
 
 TREATED OF THE PRACTICAL RULES OF MORALITY. 
 
 IT was observed in the third part of this discourse, that the rules of 
 justice are the only rules of morality which are precise and accurate ; 
 that those of all the other virtues are loose, vague, and indeterminate ;
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 291 
 
 that the first may be compared to the rules of grammar ; the others to 
 those which critics lay down for the attainment of what is sublime and 
 elegant in composition, and which present us rather with a general idea 
 of the perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and 
 infallible directions for acquiring it. 
 
 As the different rules of morality admit such different degrees of 
 accuracy, those authors who have endeavoured to collect and digest 
 them into systems have done it in two different manners ; and one set 
 has followed through the whole that loose method to which they were 
 naturally directed by the consideration of one species of virtues ; while 
 another has as universally endeavoured to introduce into their precepts 
 that sort of accuracy of which only some of them are susceptible. The 
 first have written like critics, the second like grammarians. 
 
 I. The first, among whom we may count all the ancient moralists, 
 have contented themselves with describing in a general manner the 
 different vices and virtues, and with pointing out the deformity and 
 misery of the one disposition, as well as the propriety and happiness of 
 the other, but have not affected to lay down many precise rules that 
 are to hold good unexceptionally in all particular cases. They have 
 only endeavoured to ascertain, as far as language is capable of ascer- 
 taining, first, wherein consists the sentiment of the heart, upon which 
 each particular virtue is founded, what sort of internal feeling or 
 emotion it is which constitutes the essence of friendship, of humanity, 
 of generosity, of justice, of magnanimity, and of all the other virtues, 
 as well as of the vices which are opposed to them : and, secondly, 
 what is the general way of acting, the ordinary tone and tenor of con- 
 duct to which each of those sentiments would direct us, or how it is 
 that a friendly, a generous, a brave, a just, and a humane man, would 
 upon ordinary occasions, choose to act. 
 
 To characterize the sentiment of the heart, upon which each particu- 
 lar virtue is founded, though it requires both a delicate and an accurate 
 pencil, is a task, however, which may be executed with some degree of 
 exactness. It is impossible, indeed, to express all the variations which 
 each sentiment either does or .ought to undergo, according to every 
 possible variation of circumstances. They are endless, and language 
 wants names to mark them by. The sentiment of friendship, for 
 example, which we feel for an old man is different from that which we 
 feel for a young : that which we entertain for an austere man different 
 from that which we feel for one of softer and gentler manners : and 
 that again from what we feel for one of gay vivacity and spirit. The 
 friendship which we conceive for a man is different from that with 
 which a woman affects us, even where there is no mixture of any 
 grosser passion. What author could enumerate and ascertain these 
 and all the other infinite varieties which this sentiment is capable of 
 undergoing ? But still the general sentiment of friendship and familiar
 
 292 IN WHAT THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS CONSISTS. 
 
 attachment which is common to them all, may be ascertained with a 
 sufficient degree of accuracy. The picture which is drawn of it, though 
 it will always be in many respects incomplete, may, however, have such 
 a resemblance as to make us know the original when we meet with it, 
 and even distinguish it from other sentiments to which it has a con- 
 siderable resemblance, such as good-will, respect, admiration. 
 
 To describe, in a general manner, what is the ordinary way of acting 
 to which each virtue would prompt us, is still more easy. It is, indeed, 
 scarce possible to describe the internal sentiment or emotion upon 
 which it is founded, without doing something of this kind. It is 
 impossible by language to express, if I may say so, the invisible features 
 of all the different modifications of passion as they show themselves 
 within. There is no other way of marking and distinguishing them from 
 one another, but by describing the effects which they produce without, 
 the alterations which they occasion in the countenance, in the air and 
 external behaviour, the resolutions they suggest, the actions they prompt 
 to. It is thus that Cicero, in the first book of his Offices, endeavours 
 to direct us to the practice of the four cardinal virtues, and that Aris- 
 totle in the practical parts of his Ethics, points out to us the different 
 habits by which he would have us regulate our behaviour, such as liber- 
 ality, magnificence, magnanimity, and even jocularity and good humour, 
 qualities which that indulgent philosopher has thought worthy of a place 
 in the catalogue of the virtues, though the lightness of that approbation 
 which we naturally bestow upon them, should not seem to entitle them 
 to so venerable a name. 
 
 Such works present us with agreeable and lively pictures of manners. 
 By the vivacity of their descriptions they inflame our natural love of 
 virtue, and increase our abhorrence of vice : by the justness as well as 
 delicacy of their observations they may often help both to correct and 
 to ascertain our natural sentiments with regard to the propriety of con- 
 duct, and suggesting many nice and delicate attentions, form us to a 
 more exact justness of behaviour, than what, without such instruction, 
 we should have been apt to think of. In treating of the rules of 
 morality, in this manner, consists the science which is properly called 
 Ethics, a science which, though like criticism, it does not admit of the 
 most accurate precision, is, however, both highly useful and agreeable. 
 It is of all others the most susceptible of the embellishments of elo- 
 quence, and by means of them of bestowing, if that be possible, a new 
 importance upon the smallest rules of duty. Its precepts, when thus 
 dressed and adorned, are capable of producing upon the flexibility of 
 youth, the noblest and most lasting impressions, and as they fall in with 
 the natural magnanimity of that generous age, they are able to inspire, 
 for a time at least, the most heroic resolutions, and thus tend both to 
 establish and confirm the best and most useful habits of which the mind 
 of man is susceptible. Whatever precept and exhortation can do to
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 293 
 
 animate us to the practice of virtue, is done by this science delivered in 
 this manner. 
 
 II. The second set of moralists, among whom we may count all the 
 casuists of the middle and latter ages of the Christian church, as well 
 as all those who in this and in the preceding century have treated of 
 what is called natural jurisprudence, do not content themselves with 
 characterizing in this general manner that tenor of conduct which they 
 would recommend to us, but endeavour to lay down exact and precise 
 rules for the direction of every circumstance of our behaviour. As 
 justice is the only virtue with regard to which such exact rules can pro- 
 perly be given ; it is this virtue, that has chiefly fallen under the con- 
 sideration of those two different sets of writers. They treat of it, 
 however, in a very different manner. 
 
 Those who write upon the principles of jurisprudence, consider only 
 what the person to whom the obligation is due, ought to think himself 
 entitled to exact by force ; what every impartial spectator would approve 
 of him for exacting, or what a judge or arbiter, to whom he had sub- 
 mitted his case, and who had undertaken to do him justice, ought to 
 oblige the other person to suffer or to perform. The casuists, on the 
 other hand, do not so much examine what it is, that might properly be 
 exacted by force, as what it is, that the person who owes the obligation 
 ought to think himself bound to perform from the most sacred and 
 scrupulous regard to the general rules of justice, and from the most 
 conscientious dread, either of wronging his neighbour, or of violating 
 the integrity of his own character. It is the end of jurisprudence to 
 prescribe rules for the decisions of judges and arbiters. It is the end 
 of casuistry to prescribe rules for the conduct of a good man. By 
 observing all the rules of jurisprudence, supposing them ever so perfect, 
 we should deserve nothing but to be free from external punishment. 
 By observing those of casuistry, supposing them such as they ought to 
 be, we should be entitled to consideraole praise by the exact and 
 scrupulous delicacy of our behaviour. 
 
 It may frequently happen that a good man ought to think himself 
 bound, from a sacred and conscientious regard to the general rules of 
 justice, to perform many things which it would be the highest injustice 
 to extort from him, or for any judge or arbiter to impose upon him by 
 force. To give a trite example ; a highwayman, by the fear of death, 
 obliges a traveller to promise him a certain sum money. Whether 
 such a promise, extorted in this manner by force, ought to be regarded 
 as obligatory, is a question that has been much debated. 
 
 If we consider it merely as a question of jurisprudence,, the decision 
 can admit of no doubt. It would be absurd to suppose that the high- 
 wayman can be entitled to use force to constrain the other to perform. 
 To extort the promise was a crime which deserved the highest punish- 
 ment, and to extort the performance would only be adding a new crime
 
 294 A QUESTION FOR CASUISTS AS TO KEEPING OF PROMISES. 
 
 to the former. He can complain of no injury who has been only 
 deceived by the person by whom he might justly have been killed. To 
 suppose that a judge ought to enforce the obligation of such promises, 
 or that the magistrate ought to allow them to sustain action at law, 
 would be the most ridiculous of all absurdities. If we consider this 
 question, therefore, as a question of jurisprudence, we can be at no loss 
 about the decision. 
 
 But if we consider it as a question of casuistry, it will not be so easily 
 determined. Whether a good man, from a conscientious regard to that 
 most sacred rule of justice, which commands the observance of all 
 serious promises, would not think himself bound to perform, is at least 
 much more doubtful. That no regard is due to the disappointment of 
 the wretch who brings him into this situation, that no injury is done to 
 the robber, and consequently that nothing can be extorted by force, 
 will admit of no sort of dispute. But whether some regard is not, in 
 this case, due to his own dignity and honour, to the inviolable sacred- 
 ness of that part of his character which makes him reverence the law 
 of truth and abhor every thing that approaches to treachery and false- 
 hood, may, perhaps, more reasonably be made a question. The casuists 
 accordingly are greatly divided about it. One party, with whom we 
 may count Cicero among the ancients, among the moderns, Puffendorf, 
 Barbeyrac his commentator, and above all the late Dr. Hutcheson, one 
 who in most cases was by no means a loose casuist, determine, without 
 any hesitation, that no sort of regard is due to any such promise, and 
 that to think otherwise is mere weakness and superstition. Another 
 party, among whom we may reckon (St. Augustine, La Placette) some 
 of the ancient fathers of the church, as well as some very eminent 
 modern casuists, have been of another opinion, and have judged all 
 such promises obligatory. 
 
 If we consider the matter according to the common sentiments of 
 mankind, we shall find that some regard would be thought due even to 
 a promise of this kind; but that it is impossible to determine how 
 much, by any general rule that will apply to all cases without exception. 
 The man who was quite frank and easy in making promises of this 
 kind, and who violated them with as little ceremony, we should not 
 choose for our friend and companion. A gentleman who should pro- 
 mise a highwayman five pounds and not perform, would incur some 
 blame. If the sum promised, however, was very great, it might be 
 more doubtful what was proper to be done. If it was such, for ex- 
 ample, that the payment of it would entirely ruin the family of the 
 promiser, if it was so great as to be sufficient for promoting the most 
 useful purposes, it would appear in some measure criminal, at least 
 extremely improper, to throw it for the sake of a punctilio into such 
 worthless hands. The man who should beggar himself, or who should 
 throw away an hundred thousand pounds, though he could afford that
 
 SMITHS THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 295 
 
 vast sum, for the sake of observing such a parole with a thief, would 
 appear to the common sense of mankind, absurd and extravagant in 
 the highest degree. Such profusion would seem inconsistent with 
 his duty, with what he owed both to himself and others, and what, 
 therefore, regard to a promise extorted in this manner, could by no 
 means authorise. To fix, however, by any precise rule, what degree of 
 regard ought to be paid to it, or what might be the greatest sum which 
 could be due from it, is evidently impossible. This would vary accord- 
 ing to the characters of the persons, according to their circumstances, 
 according to the solemnity of the promise, and even according to the 
 incidents of the rencounter : and if the promiser had been treated with 
 a great deal of that sort of gallantry, which is sometimes to be met 
 with in persons of the most abandoned characters, more would seem 
 due than upon other occasions. It may be said in general, that exact 
 propriety requires the observance of all such promises, wherever it is 
 not inconsistent with some other duties that are more sacred ; such as 
 regard to the public interest, to those whom gratitude, whom natural 
 affection, or whom the laws of proper beneficence should prompt us to 
 provide for. But, as was formerly taken notice of, we have no precise 
 rules to determine what external actions are due from a regard to such 
 motives, nor, consequently, when it is that those virtues are inconsistent 
 with the observance of such promises. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that whenever such promises are 
 violated, though for the most necessary reasons, it is always with some 
 degree of dishonour to the person who made them. After they are 
 made, we may be convinced of the impropriety of observing them. 
 But still there is some fault in having made them. It is at least a 
 departure from the highest and noblest maxims of magnanimity and 
 honour. A brave man ought to die, rather than make a promise which 
 he can neither keep without folly, nor violate without ignominy. For 
 some degree of ignominy always attends a situation of this kind. 
 Treachery and falsehood are vices so dangerous, so dreadful, and, at 
 the same time, such as may so easily, and, upon many occasions, so 
 safely be indulged, that we are more jealous of them than of almost 
 any other. Our imagination therefore attaches the idea of shame to 
 all violations of faith, in every circumstance and in every situation. 
 They resemble, in this respect, the violations of chastity in the fair sex, 
 a virtue of which, for the like reasons, we are excessively jealous ; and 
 our sentiments are not more delicate with regard to the one, than with 
 regard to the other. Breach of chastity dishonours irretrievably. No 
 circumstances, no solicitation can excuse it ; no sorrow, no repentance 
 atone for it. We are so nice in this respect that even a rape dis- 
 honours, and the innocence of the mind cannot, in our imagination, 
 wash out the pollution of the body. It is the same case with the 
 violation of faith, when it has been solemnly pledged, even to the most
 
 296 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CASUISTRY AND JURISPRUDENCE. 
 
 worthless of mankind. Fidelity is so necessary a virtue, that we ap- 
 prehend it in general to be due even to those to whom nothing else is 
 due, and whom we think it lawful to kill and destroy. It is to no pur- 
 pose that the person who has been guilty of the breach of it, urges that 
 he promised in order to save his life, and that he broke his promise 
 because it was inconsistent with some other respectable duty to keep 
 it. These circumstances may alleviate, but cannot entirely wipe out 
 his dishonour. He appears to have been guilty of an action with 
 which, in the imaginations of men, some degree of shame is inseparably 
 connected. He has broken a promise which he had solemnly averred 
 he would maintain ; and his character, if not irretrievably stained and 
 polluted, has at least a ridicule affixed to it, which it will be very diffi- 
 cult entirely to efface ; and no man, I imagine, who had gone through 
 an adventure of this kind would be fond of telling the story. 
 
 This instance may serve to show wherein consists the difference be- 
 tween casuistry and jurisprudence, even when both of them consider 
 the obligations of the general rules of justice. 
 
 But though this difference be real and essential, though those two 
 sciences propose quite different ends, the sameness of the subject has 
 made such a similarity between them, that the greater part of authors 
 whose professed design was to treat of jurisprudence, have determined 
 the different questions they examine, sometimes according to the prin- 
 ciples of that science, and sometimes according to those of casuistry, 
 without distinguishing, and, perhaps, without being themselves aware, 
 when they did the one, and when the other. 
 
 The doctrine of the casuists, however, is by no means confined to 
 the consideration of what a conscientious regard to the general rules of 
 justice would demand of us. It embraces many other parts of Christian 
 and moral duty. What seems principally to have given occasion to the 
 cultivation of this species of science was the custom of auricular con- 
 fession, introduced by the Roman Catholic superstition, in times of 
 barbarism and ignorance. By that institution, the most secret actions, 
 and even the thoughts of every person, which could be suspected of 
 receding in the smallest degree from the rules of Christian purity, were 
 to be revealed to the confessor. The confessor informed his penitents 
 whether, and in what respect, they had violated their duty, and what 
 penance it behoved them to undergo, before he could absolve them in 
 the name of the offended Deity. 
 
 The consciousness, or even the suspicion of having done wrong, is a 
 load upon every mind, and is accompanied with anxiety and terror in 
 all those who are not hardened by long habits of iniquity. Men, in this, 
 as in all other distresses, are naturally eager to disburthen themselves 
 of the oppression which they feel upon their thoughts, by unbosoming 
 the agony of their mind to some person whose secrecy and discretion 
 they can confide in. The shame, which they suffer from this acknow-
 
 SMITHS THEORY OP MORAL SENTIMENTS. 2 97 
 
 lodgment, is fully compensated by that alleviation of their uneasiness 
 \vhich the sympathy of their confidence seldom fails to occasion. It re- 
 lieves them to find that they are not altogether unworthy of regard, and 
 that however their past conduct may be censured, their present dispo- 
 sition is at least approved of, and is perhaps sufficient to compensate 
 the other, at least to maintain them in some degree of esteem with their 
 friend. A numerous and artful clergy had, in those times of superstition, 
 insinuated themselves into the confidence of almost every private 
 family. They possessed all the little learning which the times could 
 afford, and their manners, though in many respects rude and disorderly, 
 were polished and regular compared with those of the age they lived in. 
 They were regarded, therefore, not only as the great directors of all 
 religious, but of all moral duties. Their familiarity gave reputation to 
 whoever was so happy as to possess it, and every mark of their dis- 
 approbation stamped the deepest ignominy upon all who had the mis- 
 fortune to fall under it. Being considered as the great judges of right 
 and wrong, they were naturally consulted about all scruples that oc- 
 curred, and it was reputable for any person to have it known that he 
 made those holy men the confidants of all such secrets, and took no im- 
 portant or delicate step in his conduct without their advice and appro- 
 bation. It was not difficult for the clergy-, therefore, to get it established 
 as a general rule, that they should be entrusted with what it had already 
 become fashionable to entrust them, and with what they generally 
 would have been entrusted, though no such rule had been established. 
 To qualify themselves for confessors became thus a necessary part of 
 the study of churchmen and divines, and they were thence led to collect 
 what are called cases of conscience, nice and delicate situations in 
 which it is hard to determine whereabouts the propriety of conduct 
 may lie. Such works, 'they imagined, might be of use both to the 
 directors of consciences and to those who were to be directed ; and 
 hence the origin of books of casuistry. 
 
 The moral duties which fell under the consideration of the casuists 
 were chiefly those which can, in some measure at least, be circum- 
 scribed within general rules, and of which the violation is naturally 
 attended with some degree of remorse and some dread of suffering 
 punishment. The design of that institution which gave occasion to 
 their works, was to appease those terrors of conscience which attend 
 upon the infringement of such duties. But it is not every virtue of 
 which the defect is accompanied with any very severe compunctions of 
 this kind, and no man applies to his confessor for absolution, because 
 he did not perform the most generous, the most friendly, or the most 
 magnanimous action which, in his circumstances, it was possible to 
 perform. In failures of this kind, the rule that is violated is commonly 
 not very determinate, and is generally of such a nature too, that though 
 the observance of it might entitle to honour and reward, the violation 
 
 20
 
 298 THE MAN SCARCE LIVES WHO IS NOT OVER-CREDULOUS. 
 
 seems to expose to no positive blame, censure, or punishment. The 
 exercise of such virtues the casuists seem to have regarded as a sort of 
 works of supererogation, which could not be very strictly exacted, and 
 which it was therefore unnecessary for them to treat of. 
 
 The breaches of moral duty, therefore, which came before the tribu- 
 nal of the confessor, and upon that account fell under the cognisance 
 of the casuists, were chiefly of three different kinds. 
 
 First and principally, breaches of the rules of justice. The rules here 
 are all express and positive, and the violation of them is naturally 
 attended with the consciousness of deserving, and the dread of suffer- 
 ing punishment both from God and man. 
 
 Secondly, breaches of the rules of chastity. These in all grosser in- 
 stances are real breaches of the rules of justice, and no person can be 
 guilty of them without doing the most unpardonable injury to some 
 other. In smaller instances, when they amount only to a violation of 
 those exact decorums which ought to be observed in the conversation 
 of the two sexes, they cannot indeed justly be considered as violations 
 of the rules of justice. They are generally, however, violations of a 
 pretty plain rule, and, at least in one of the sexes, tend to bring igno- 
 miny upon the person who has been guilty of them, and consequently 
 to be attended in the scrupulous with some degree of shame and con- 
 trition of mind. 
 
 Thirdly, breaches of the -rules of veracity. The violation of truth, it 
 is to be observed, is not always a breach of justice, though it is so upon 
 many occasions, and consequently cannot always expose to any ex- 
 ternal punishment. The vice of common lying, though a most misera- 
 ble meanness, may frequently do hurt to nobody, and in this case no 
 claim of vengeance or satisfaction can be due either to the persons im- 
 posed upon, or to others. But though the violation of truth is not 
 always a breach of justice, it is always a breach of a very plain rule, 
 and what does naturally tend to cover with shame the person who has 
 been guilty of it. 
 
 There seems to be in young children an instinctive disposition to be- 
 lieve whatever they are told. Nature seems to have judged it necessary 
 for their preservation that they should, for some time at least, put im- 
 plicit confidence in those to whom the care of their childhodd, and of 
 the earliest and most necessary parts of their education, is intrusted. 
 Their credulity, accordingly, is excessive, and it requires long and much 
 experience of the falsehood of mankind to reduce them to a reasonable 
 degree of diffidence and distrust. In grown-up people the degrees of 
 credulity are, no doubt, very different. The wisest and most expe- 
 rienced are generally the least credulous. But the man scarce lives 
 who is not more credulous than he ought to be, and who does not, upon 
 many occasions, give credit to tales, which not only turn out to be per- 
 fectly false, but which a very moderate degree of reflection and atten-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 299 
 
 tion might have taught him could not well be true. The natural dispo- 
 sition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only 
 that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The 
 wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories 
 which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he 
 could possibly think of believing. 
 
 The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning 
 which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him 
 with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring 
 other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves ; so from being 
 led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves 
 leaders and directors. And as we cannot always be satisfied merely 
 with being admired, unless we can at the same time persuade ourselves 
 that ve are in some degree really worthy of admiration ; so we cannot 
 always be satisfied merely with being believed, unless we are at the 
 same time conscious that we are really worthy of belief. As the desire 
 of praise and that of praise-worthiness, though very much akin, are 
 yet distinct and separate desires ; so the desire of being believed and 
 that of being worthy of belief, though very much akin too, are equally 
 distinct and separate desires. 
 
 The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading 
 and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our 
 natural desires. It is, perhaps, the instinct upon which is founded the 
 faculty of speech, the characteristical faculty of human nature. No 
 other animal possesses this faculty, and we cannot discover in any other 
 animal any desire to lead and direct the judgment and conduct of its 
 fellows. Great ambition, the desire of real, superiority, of leading and 
 directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the 
 great instrument of ambition, of real superiority, of leading and direct- 
 ing the judgments and conduct of other people. 
 
 It is always mortifying not to be believed, and it is doubly so when 
 we suspect that it is because we are supposed to be unworthy of 'belief 
 and capable of seriously and wilfully deceiving. To tell a man that he 
 lies, is of all affronts the most mortal. But whoever seriously and wil- 
 fully deceives is necessarily conscious to himself that he merits this 
 affront, that he does not deserve to be believed, and that he forfeits all 
 title to that sort of credit from which alone he can derive any sort of 
 ease, comfort, or satisfaction in the society of his equals. The man 
 who had the misfortune to imagine that nobody believed a single word 
 he said, would feel himself the outcast of human society, would dread 
 the very thought of going into it, or of presenting himself before it, 
 and could scarce fail, I think, to die of despair. It is probable, how- 
 ever, that no man ever had just reason to entertain this humiliating 
 opinion of himself. The most notorious liar, I am disposed to believe, 
 tells the fair truth at least twenty times for once that he seriously and 
 
 20 *
 
 300 WE TRUST THOSE WHO SEEM WILLING TO TRUST US. 
 
 deliberately lies ; and, as in the most cautious the disposition to believe 
 is apt to prevail over that to doubt and distrust ; so in those who are 
 the most regardless of truth, the natural disposition to tell it prevails 
 upon most occasions over that to deceive, or in any respect to alter or 
 to disguise it. 
 
 We are mortified when we happen to deceive other people, though 
 unintentionally, and from having been ourselves deceived. Though 
 this involuntary falsehood may frequently be no mark of any want of 
 veracity, of any want of the most perfect love of truth, it is always in 
 some degree a mark of want of judgment, of want of memory, of im- 
 proper credulity, of some degree of precipitancy and rashness. It 
 always diminishes our authority to persuade, and always brings some 
 degree of suspicion upon our fitness to lead and direct. The man who 
 sometimes misleads from mistake, however, is widely different from 
 him who is capable of wilfully deceiving. The former may be trusted 
 upon many occasions ; .the latter very seldom upon any. 
 
 Frankness and openness conciliate confidence. We trust the man, 
 who seems willing to trust us. We see clearly, we think, the road by 
 which he means to conduct us, and we abandon ourselves with pleasure 
 to his guidance and direction. Reserve and concealment, on the con- 
 trary, call forth diffidence. We are afraid to follow the man who is 
 going we do not know where. The great pleasure of conversation and 
 society, besides, arises from a certain correspondence of sentiments 
 and opinions, from a certain harmony of minds, which like so many 
 musical instruments coincide and keep time with one another. But 
 this most delightful harmony cannot be obtained unless there is a free 
 communication of sentiments and opinions. We all desire, upon this 
 account, to feel how each other is affected, to penetrate into each 
 other's bosoms, and to observe the sentiments and affections which 
 really subsist there. The man who indulges us in this natural passion, 
 who invites us into his heart, who, as it were, sets open the gates of his 
 breast to us, seems to exercise a spscies of hospitality more delightful 
 than any other. No man, who is in ordinary good temper, can fail of 
 pleasing, if he has the courage to utter his real sentiments as he feels 
 them, and because he feels them. It is this unreserved sincerity 
 which renders even the prattle of a child agreeable. How weak and 
 imperfect soever the views of the open-hearted, we take pleasure to 
 enter into them, and endeavour, as much as we can, to bring down pur 
 own understanding to the level of their capacities, and to regard every 
 subject in the particular light in which they appear to have considered 
 it. This passion to discover the real sentiments of others is naturally 
 so strong, that it often degenerates into a troublesome and impertinent 
 curiosity to pry into those secrets of our neighbours which they have 
 very justifiable reasons for concealing ; and, upon many occasions, it 
 requires prudence and a strong sense of propriety to govern this, as
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. . 301 
 
 well as all the other passions of human nature, and to reduce it to that 
 pitch which any impartial spectator can approve of. To disappoint 
 this curiosity, however, when it is kept within proper bounds, and aims 
 at nothing which there can be any just reason for concealing, is equally 
 disagreeable in its turn. The man who eludes our most innocent 
 questions, who gives no satisfaction to our most inoffensive inquiries, 
 who plainly wraps himself up in impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it 
 were, to build a wall about his breast. We run forward to get within 
 it, with all the eagerness of harmless curiosity ; and feel ourselves all 
 at once pushed back with rude and offensive violence. 
 
 The man of reserve and concealment, though seldom a very amiable 
 character, is not disrespected or despised. He seems to feel coldly 
 towards us, and we feel as coldly towards him. He is not much praised 
 or beloved, but he is as little hated or blamed. He very seldom, how- 
 ever, has occasion to repent of his caution, and is generally disposed 
 rather to value himself upon the prudence of his reserve. Though his 
 conduct, therefore, may have been very faulty, and sometimes even 
 hurtful, he can very seldom be disposed to lay his case before the 
 casuists, or to fancy that he has any occasion for their acquittal or 
 for their approbation. 
 
 It is not always so with the man, who, from false information, from 
 inadvertency, from precipitancy and rashness, has involuntarily deceived- 
 Though it should be in a matter of little consequence, in telling a piece 
 of common news, for example, if he is a real lover of truth, he is 
 ashamed of his own carelessness, and never fails to embrace the first 
 opportunity of making the fullest acknowledgments. If it is in a matter 
 of some consequence, his contrition is still greater; and if any unlucky 
 or fatal consequence has followed from his misinformation, he can 
 scarce ever forgive himself. Though not guilty, he feels himself to be 
 in the highest degree, what the ancients called, piacular, and is anxious 
 and eager to make every sort of atonement in his power. Such a person 
 might frequently be disposed to lay his case before the casuists, who 
 have in general been very favourable to him, and though they have 
 sometimes justly condemned him for rashness, they have universally 
 acquitted him of the ignominy of falsehood. 
 
 But the man who had the most frequent occasion to consult them, 
 was the man of equivocation and mental reservation, the man who 
 seriously and deliberately meant to deceive, but who, at the same time, 
 wished to flatter himself that he had really told the truth. With him 
 they have dealt variously. When they approved very much of the 
 motives of his deceit, they have sometimes acquitted him, though, to 
 do the casuists justice, they have in general and much more fre- 
 quently condemned him. 
 
 The chief subjects of the works of the casuists, therefore, were the 
 conscientious regard that is due to the rules of justice; how far we
 
 302 BOOKS OF CASUISTRY ARE ALIKE USELESS AND TIRESOME. 
 
 ought to respect the life and property of our neighbour ; the duty of 
 restitution; the laws of chastity and modesty, and wherein consisted 
 what, in the language of the casuists, were called the sins of concupi- 
 scence; the rules of veracity, and the obligation of oaths, promises, 
 and contracts of all kinds. 
 
 It may be said in general of the works of the casuists that they 
 attempted, to no purpose, to direct by precise rules what it belongs to 
 feeling and sentiment only to judge of. How is it possible to ascertain 
 by rules the exact point at which, in every case, a delicate sense of 
 justice begins to run into a frivolous and weak scrupulosity of con- 
 science? When is it that secrecy and reserve begin to grow into dis- 
 simulation? How far may an agreeable irony be carried, and at what 
 precise point it begins to degenerate into a detestable lie? What is 
 the highest pitch of freedom and ease of behaviour which can be 
 regarded as graceful and becoming, and when is it that it first begins 
 to run into a negligent and thoughtless licentiousness? With regard 
 to all such matters, what would hold good in any one case would scarce 
 do so exactly in any other, and what constitutes the propriety and 
 happiness of behaviour varies in every case with the smallest variety of 
 situation. Books of casuistry, therefore, are generally as useless as 
 they are commonly tiresome. They could be of little use to one who 
 should consult them upon occasion, even supposing their decisions to 
 be just ; because, notwithstanding the multitude of cases collected in 
 them, yet upon account of the still greater variety of possible circum- 
 stances, it is a chance, if among all those cases there be found one 
 exactly parallel to that under consideration. One, who is really anxious 
 to do his duty, must be very weak, if he can imagine that he has much 
 occasion for them ; and with regard to one who is negligent of it, the 
 very style of those writings is not such as is likely to awaken him to 
 more attention. None of them tend to animate us to what is generous 
 and noble. None of them do tend to soften us to what is gentle and 
 humane. Many of them, on the contrary, tend rather to teach us to 
 chicane with our own consciences, and by their vain subtilties serve to 
 authorise innumerable evasive refinements with regard to the most 
 essential articles of our duty. That frivolous accuracy which they 
 attempted to introduce into subjects which do not admit of it, almost 
 necessarily betrayed them into those dangerous errors, and at the same 
 time rendered their works dry and disagreeable, abounding in abstruse 
 and metaphysical distinctions, but incapable of exciting in the heart 
 any of those emotions which it is the principal use of books of morality 
 to excite in the readers. 
 
 The two useful parts of moral philosophy, therefore, are Ethics and 
 Jurisprudence: casuistry ought to be rejected altogether; and the 
 ancient moralists appear to have judged much better, who, in treating 
 of the same subjects, did not affect any such nice exactness, but con-
 
 SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 303 
 
 tented themselves with describing, in a general manner, what is the 
 sentiment upon which justice, modesty, and veracity are founded, and 
 what is the ordinary way of acting to which those great virtues would 
 commonly prompt us. 
 
 Something indeed, not unlike the doctrine of the casuists, seems to 
 have been attempted by several philosophers. There is something of 
 this kind in the third book of Cicero's Offices, where he endeavours 
 like a casuist, to give rules for our conduct in many nice cases, in which 
 it is difficult to determine whereabouts the point of propriety may lie. 
 It appears too, from many passages in the same book, that several 
 other philosophers had attempted something of the same kind before 
 him. Neither he nor they, however, appear to have aimed at giving a 
 complete system of this sort, but only meant to show how situations 
 may occur, in which it is doubtful, whether the highest propriety of 
 conduct consists in observing or in receding from what, in ordinary 
 cases, are the rules pf our duty. 
 
 Every system of positive law may be regarded as a more or less 
 imperfect attempt towards a system of natural jurisprudence, or towards 
 an enumeration of the particular rules of justice. As the violation of 
 justice is what men will never submit to from one another, the public 
 magistrate is under a necessity of employing the power of the common- 
 wealth to enforce the practice of this virtue. Without this precaution, 
 civil society would become a scene of bloodshed and disorder, every 
 man revenging himself at his own hand whenever he fancied he was 
 injured. To prevent the confusion which would attend upon every 
 man's doing justice to himself, the magistrate, in all governments that 
 have acquired any considerable authority, undertakes to do justice to 
 all, and promises to hear and to redress every complaint of injury. In 
 all well-governed states, too, not only judges are appointed for deter- 
 mining the controversies of individuals, but rules are prescribed for 
 regulating the decisions of those judges ; and 'these rules are, in gene- 
 ral, intended to coincide with those of natural justice. It does not, 
 indeed, always happen that they do so in every instance. Sometimes 
 what is called the constitution of the state, that is, the interest of the 
 government ; sometimes the interest of particular orders of men who 
 tyrannize the government, warp the positive laws of the country from 
 what natural justice would prescribe. In some countries, the rudeness 
 and barbarism of the people hinder the natural sentiments of justice 
 from arriving at that accuracy and precision which, in more civilized 
 nations, they naturally attain to. Their laws are, like their manners, 
 gross and rude and undistinguishing. In other countries the unfor- 
 tunate constitution of their courts of judicature hinders any regular 
 system of jurisprudence from ever establishing itself among them, 
 though the improved manners of the people may be such as would 
 admit of the most accurate. In no country do the decisions of positive
 
 304 TREATISE OF GROTIUS ON TIMES OF PEACE AND WAR. 
 
 law coincide exactly, in every case, \yith the rules which the natural 
 sense of justice would dictate. Systems of positive law, therefore, 
 though they deserve the greatest authority, as the records of the senti- 
 ments of mankind in different ages and nations, yet can never be 
 regarded as accurate systems of the rules of natural justice. 
 
 It might have been expected that the reasonings of lawyers, upon 
 the different imperfections and improvements of the laws of different 
 countries, should have given occasion to an inquiry into what were the 
 natural rules of justice independent of all positive institution. It might 
 have been expected that these reasonings should have led them to aim 
 at establishing a system of what might properly be called natural juris- 
 prudence, or a theory of the general principles which ought to run 
 through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations. But though 
 the reasonings of lawyers did produce something of this kind, and 
 though no man has treated systematically of the laws of any particular 
 country, without intermixing in his work many .observations of this 
 sort ; it was very late in the world before any such general system was 
 thought of, or before the philosophy of law was treated of by itself, and 
 without regard to the particular institutions of any one nation. In 
 none of the ancient moralists, do we find any attempt towards a par- 
 ticular enumeration of the rules of justice. Cicero in his Offices, and 
 Aristotle in his Ethics, treat of justice in the same general manner in 
 which they treat of all the other virtues. In the laws of Cicero and 
 Plato, where we might naturally have expected some attempts towards 
 an enumeration of those rules of natural equity, which ought to be 
 enforced by the positive laws of every country, there is, however, 
 nothing of this kind. Their laws are laws of police, not of justice. 
 Grotius seems to have been the first w r ho attempted to give the world 
 any thing like a system of those principles which ought to run through, 
 and be the foundation of the laws of all nations ; and his treatise of the 
 laws of war and peace, with all its imperfections, is perhaps at this day 
 the most complete work that has yet been given upon this subject. I 
 shall in another discourse endeavour to give an account of the general 
 principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they 
 have undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in 
 what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, 
 and whatever else is the object of law. I shall not, therefore, at 
 present, enter into any further detail concerning the history of juris- 
 prudence.
 
 CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 CONCERNING THE FIRST 
 
 FORMATION OF LANGUAGES, ETC., ETC. 
 
 THE assignation of particular names to denote particular objects, that 
 is, the institution of nouns substantive, would, probably be one of the 
 first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages, who had 
 never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the 
 societies of men, would naturally begin to form that language by which 
 they would endeavour to make their mutual wants intelligible to each 
 other, by uttering certain sounds, whenever they meant to denote cer- 
 tain objects. Those objects only which were most familiar to them, 
 and which they had most frequent occasion to mention would have 
 particular names assigned to them. The particular cave whose cover- 
 ing sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit 
 relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed their 
 thirst, would first be denominated by the words cave, tree, fountain, or 
 by whatever other appellations they might think proper, in that primi- 
 tive jargon, to mark them. Afterwards, when the more enlarged ex- 
 perience of these savages had led them to observe, and their necessary 
 occasions obliged them to make mention of other caves, and other trees, 
 and other fountains, they would naturally bestow, upon each of those 
 new objects, the same name, by which they had been accustomed to 
 express the similar objects they were first acquainted with. The new 
 objects had none of them any name of its own, but each of them exactly 
 resembled another object, which had such an appellation. It was im- 
 possible that those savages could behold the new objects, without re- 
 collecting the old ones ; and the name of the old ones, to which the 
 new bore so close a resemblance. When they had occasion, therefore, 
 to mention or to point out to each other, any of the new objects, they 
 would naturally utter the name of the correspondent old one, of which 
 the idea could not fail, at that instant, to present itself to their memory 
 in the strongest and liveliest manner. And thus, those words, which 
 were originally the proper names of individuals, would each of them 
 insensibly become the common name of a multitude. A child that is 
 just learning to speak, calls every person who comes to the house its 
 papa or its mamma ; and thus bestows upon the whole species those 
 names which it had been taught to apply f o two individuals. I have
 
 306 ANTONOMASIA. WHAT CONSTITUTES A SPECIES. 
 
 known a clown, who did not know the proper name of the river which 
 ran by his own door. It was the river, he said, and he never heard any 
 other name for it. His experience, it seems, had not led him to observe 
 any other river. The general word river, therefore, was, it is evident, 
 in his acceptance of it, a proper name, signifying an individual object. 
 If this person had been carried to another river, would he not readily 
 have called it a river ? Could we suppose any person living on the 
 banks of the Thames so ignorant as not to know the general word river 
 but to be acquainted only with the particular word Thames, if he was 
 brought to any other river, would he not readily call it a Thames ? 
 This, in reality, is no more than what they, who are well acquainted 
 with the general word, are very apt to do. An Englishman, describing 
 any great river which he may have seen in some foreign country, na- 
 turally says, that it is another Thames. The Spaniards, when they first 
 arrived upon the coast of Mexico, and observed the wealth, populous- 
 ness, and habitations of that fine country, so much superior to the 
 savage nations which they had been visiting for some time before, cried 
 out, that it was another Spain. Hence it was called New Spain ; and 
 this name has stuck to that unfortunate country ever since. We say, 
 in the same manner, of a hero, that he is an Alexander ; of an orator, 
 that he is a Cicero ; of a philosopher, that he is a Newton. This way 
 of speaking, which the grammarians call an Antonomasia, and which is 
 still extremely common, though now not at all necessary, demonstrates 
 how mankind are disposed to give to one object the name of any other, 
 which nearly resembles it, and thus to denominate a multitude, by 
 what originally was intended to express an individual. 
 
 It is this application of the name of an individual to a great multitude 
 of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the idea of that indivi- 
 dual, and of the name which expresses it, that seems originally to have 
 given occasion to the formation of those classes and assortments, which, 
 in the schools, are called genera and species, and of which the ingeni- 
 ous and eloquent M. Rousseau of Geneva finds himself so much at a 
 loss to account for the origin. What constitutes a species is merely a 
 number of objects, bearing a certain degree of resemblance to one 
 another, and on that account denominated by a single appellation, 
 which may be applied to express any one of them. 
 
 When the greater part of objects had thus been arranged under their 
 proper classes and assortments, distinguished by such general names, 
 it was impossible that the greater part of that almost infinite number of 
 individuals, comprehended under each particular assortment or species, 
 could have any peculiar or proper names of their own, distinct from 
 the general name of the species. When there was occasion, therefore, 
 to mention any particular object, it often became necessary to dis- 
 tinguish it from the other objects comprehended under the same general 
 name, either, first, by its peculiar qualities ; or. secondly, by the pecu-
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 307 
 
 liar relation which it stood in to some other things. Hence the neces- 
 sary origin of two other sets of words, of which the one should express 
 quality ; the other, relation. 
 
 Nouns adjective are the words which express quality considered as 
 qualifying, or, as the schoolmen say, in concrete with, some particular 
 subject. Thus the word green expresses a certain quality considered 
 as qualifying, or as in concrete with, the particular subject to which it 
 may be applied. Words of this kind, it is evident, may serve to dis- 
 tinguish particular objects from others comprehended under the same 
 general appellation. The words green tree, for example, might serve 
 to distinguish a particular tree from others that were withered or that 
 were blasted. 
 
 Prepositions are the words which express relation considered, in the 
 same manner, in concrete with the co-relative object. Thus the pre- 
 positions of, to, for, with, by, above, below, &c., denote some relation 
 subsisting between the objects expressed by the words between which 
 the prepositions are placed ; and they denote that this relation is con- 
 sidered in concrete with the co-relative object. Words of this kind 
 serve to distinguish particular objects from others of the same species, 
 when those particular objects cannot be so properly marked out by any 
 peculiar qualities of their own. When we say, the green tree of the 
 meadow, for example, we distinguish a particular tree, not only by the 
 quality which belongs to it, but by the relation which it stands in to 
 another object. 
 
 As neither quality nor relation can exist in abstract, it is natural to 
 suppose that the words which denote them considered in concrete, the 
 way in which we always see them subsist, would be of much earlier in- 
 vention than those which express them considered in abstract, the way 
 in which we never see them subsist. The words green and blue would, 
 in all probability, be sooner invented than the wo/ds greenness and bhte- 
 ness ; the words above and below, than the words' superiority and in- 
 feriority. To invent words of the latter kind requires a much greater 
 effort of abstraction than to invent those of the former. It is probable 
 therefore, that such abstract terms would be of much later institution. 
 Accordingly, their etymologies generally show that they are so, they 
 being generally derived from others that are concrete. 
 
 But though the invention of nouns adjective be much more natural 
 than that of the abstract nouns substantive derived from them, it would 
 still, however, require a considerable degree of abstraction and gene- 
 ralization. Those, for example, who first invented the words green, 
 blue, red, and the other names of colours, must have observed and 
 compared together a great number of objects, must have remarked 
 their resemblances and dissimilitudes in respect of the quality of 
 colour, and must have arranged them, in their own minds, into different 
 classes and assortments, according to those resemblances and dissimili-
 
 308 NOUNS ADJECTIVE NOT WORDS OF EARLIEST INVENTION. 
 
 tudes. An adjective is by nature a general, and in some measure an 
 abstract word, and necessarily pre-supposes the idea of a certain 
 species or assortment of things, to all of which it is equally applicable. 
 The word green could not, as we were supposing might be the case of 
 the word cave, have been originally the name .of an individual, and 
 afterwards have become, by what grammarians call an Antonomasia, 
 the name of a species. The word green denoting, not the name of a 
 substance, but the peculiar quality of a substance, must from the very 
 first have been a general word, and considered as equally applicable to 
 any other substance possessed of the same quality. The man who 
 first distinguished a particular object by the epithet of green, must 
 have observed other objects that were not green, from which he meant 
 to separate it by this appellation. The institution of this name, there- 
 fore, supposes comparison. It likewise supposes some degree of ab- 
 straction. The person who first invented this appellation must have 
 distinguished the quality from the object to which it belonged, and 
 must have conceived the object as capable of subsisting without the 
 quality. The invention, therefore, even of the simplest nouns adjective 
 must have required more metaphysics than we are apt to be aware of. 
 The different mental operations, of arrangement or classing, of com- 
 parison, and of abstraction, must all have been employed, before even 
 the names of the different colours, the least metaphysical of all nouns 
 adjective, could be instituted. From all which I infer, that when 
 languages were beginning to be formed, nouns adjective would by no 
 means be the words of the earliest invention. 
 
 There is nothing expedient for denoting the different qualities of 
 different substance, which as it requires no abstraction, nor any con- 
 ceived separation of the quality from the subject, seems more natural 
 than the invention of nouns adjective, and which, upon this account, 
 could hardly fail, in the first formation of language, to be thought of 
 before them. This expedient is to make some variation upon the noun 
 substantive itself, according to the different qualities which it is en- 
 dowed with. Thus in many languages, the qualities both of sex and 
 of the want of sex. are expressed by different terminations in the nouns 
 substantive, which denote objects so qualified. In Latin, for example, 
 lupus, lupaj equus, equa; juvenc2is,juvenca; Julius, Julia; Lucre- 
 tius, Lucretia, &c., denote the qualities of male and female in the 
 animals and persons to whom such appellations belong, without need- 
 ing the addition of any adjective for this purpose. On the other hand, 
 the \VQ\&5,forum,pratum,plaustrum, denote by their peculiar termina- 
 tion the total absence of sex in the different substances which they 
 stand for. Both sex, and the want of all sex, being naturally considered 
 as qualities modifying and inseparable from the particular substances 
 to which they belong, it was natural to express them rather by a modi- 
 fication in the noun substantive, than by any general and abstract word
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 309 
 
 expressive of this particular species of quality. The expression bears, 
 it is evident, in this way, a much more exact analogy to the idea or 
 object which it denotes than in the other. The quality appears, in 
 nature, as a modification of the substance, and as it is thus expressed in 
 language, by a modification of the noun substantive, which denotes that 
 substance, the quality and the subject are, in this case, blended to- 
 gether, if I may say so, in the expression, in the same manner as they 
 appear to be in the object and in the idea. Hence the origin of the 
 masculine, feminine, and neutral genders, in all the ancient languages. 
 By means of these, the most important of all distinctions, that of sub- 
 stances into animated and inanimated, and that of animals into male 
 and female, seem to have been sufficiently marked without the assist- 
 ance of adjectives, or of any general names denoting this most exten- 
 sive species of qualifications. 
 
 There are no more than these three genders in any of the languages 
 with which I am acquainted ; that is to say, the formation of nouns 
 substantive can, by itself, and without the accompaniment of adjectives, 
 express no other qualities but those three above mentioned, the qualities 
 of male, of female, of neither male nor female. I should not, however, 
 be surprised, if, in other languages with which I am unacquainted, the 
 different formations of nouns substantive should be capable of express- 
 ing many other different qualities. The different diminutives of the 
 Italian, and of some other languages, do, in reality, sometimes express 
 a great variety of different modifications in the substances denoted by 
 those nouns which undergo such variations. 
 
 It was impossible, however, that nouns substantive could, without 
 losing altogether their original form, undergo so great a number of 
 variations, as would be sufficient to express that almost infinite variety 
 of qualities, by which it might, upon different occasions, be necessary 
 to specify and distinguish them. Though the different formation of 
 nouns substantive, therefore, might, for some time, forestall the neces- 
 sity of inventing nouns adjective, it was impossible that this necessity 
 could be forestalled altogether. When nouns adjective came to be in- 
 vented, it was natural that they should be formed with some similarity to 
 the substantives to which they were to serve as epithets or qualifica- 
 tions. Men would naturally give them the same terminations with the 
 substantives to which they were first applied, and from that love of 
 similarity of sound, from that delight in the returns of the same syl- 
 lables, which is the foundation of analogy in all languages, they would 
 be apt to vary the termination of the same adjective, according as they 
 had occasion to apply it to a masculine, to a feminine, or to a neutral 
 substantive. They would say, magnus lupus, magna htpa, magnum 
 pratum, when they meant to express a great he wolf, a great she wolf, 
 or a great meadow. 
 
 This variation, in the termination of the noun adjective, according to
 
 310 QUALITIES, OBJECTS OF OUR SENSES] RELATIONS NEVER. 
 
 the gender of the substantive, which takes place in all the ancient 
 languages, seems to have been introduced chiefly for the sake of a 
 certain similarity of sound, of a certain species of rhyme, which is 
 naturally so very agreeable to the human ear. Gender, it is to observed, 
 cannot properly belong to a noun adjective, the signification of which 
 is always precisely the same, to whatever species of substantives it is 
 applied. When we say, a great man, a great woman, the word great 
 has precisely the same meaning in both cases, and the difference of the 
 sex in the subjects to which it may be applied, makes no sort of differ- 
 ence in its signification. Magnus, magnet, magnum, in the same 
 manner, are words which express precisely the same quality, and the 
 change of the termination is accompanied with no sort of variation in 
 the meaning. Sex and gender are qualities which belong to substances, 
 but cannot belong to the qualities of substances. In general, no quality, 
 when considered in concrete, or as qualifying some particular subject, 
 can itself be conceived as the subject of any other quality ; though 
 when considered in abstract it may. No adjective therefore can qualify 
 any other adjective. A great good man, means a man who is both 
 great and good. Both the adjectives qualify the substantive ; they do 
 not qualify one another. On the other hand, when we say, the great 
 goodness of the man, the word goodness denoting a quality considered 
 in abstract, which may itself be the subject of other qualities, is upon 
 that account capable of being qualified by the word great. 
 
 If the original invention of nouns adjective would be attended with 
 so much difficulty, that of prepositions would be accompanied with yet 
 more. Every preposition, as I have already observed, denotes some 
 relation considered in concrete with the co-relative object. The pre- 
 position above, for example, denotes the relation of superiority, not in 
 abstract, as it is expressed by the word superiority, but in concrete 
 with some co-relative object. In this phrase, for example, the tree 
 above the cave, the word above expresses a certain relation between the 
 tree and the cave, and it expresses this relation in concrete with the co- 
 relative object, the cave. A preposition always requires, in order to 
 complete the sense, some other word to come after it ; as may be ob- 
 served in this particular instance. Now, I say, the original invention 
 of such words would require a yet greater effort of abstraction and 
 generalization, than that of nouns adjective. First of all, the relation 
 is, in itself, a more metaphysical object than a quality. Nobody can 
 be at a loss to explain what is meant by a quality ; but few people will 
 find themselves able to express, very distinctly, what is understood by 
 a relation. Qualities are almost always the. objects of our external 
 senses; relations never are. No wonder therefore, that the one set of 
 objects should be so much more comprehensible than the other. 
 Secondly, though prepositions always express the relation which they 
 stand for, in concrete with the co-relative object, they could not have
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 31! 
 
 originally been formed without a considerable effort of abstraction. ' A 
 preposition denotes a relation, and nothing but a relation. But before 
 men could institute a word, which signified a relation, and nothing but 
 a relation, they must have been able, in some measure, to consider this 
 relation abstractedly from the related objects ; since the idea of those 
 objects does not, in any respect, enter into the signification of the pre- 
 position. The invention of such a word, therefore, must have required 
 a considerable degree of abstraction. Thirdly, a preposition is from 
 its nature a general word, which, from its very first institution, must 
 have been considered as equally applicable to denote any other similar 
 relation. The man who first invented the word above, must not only 
 have distinguished, in some measure, the relation of superiority from 
 the objects which were so related, but he must also have distinguished 
 this relation from other relations, such as, from the relation of inferi- 
 ority denoted by the word below, from the relation of juxta-posiiion, 
 expressed by the word beside, and the like. He must have conceived 
 this word, therefore, as expressive of a particular sort or species of 
 relation distinct from every other, which could not be done without a 
 considerable effort of comparison and generalization. 
 
 Whatever were the difficulties, therefore, which embarrassed the first 
 invention of nouns adjective, the same, and many more, must have 
 embarrassed that of prepositions. If mankind, therefore, in the first 
 formation of languages, seem to have, for some time, evaded the neces- 
 sity of nouns adjective, by varying the termination of the names of 
 substances, according as these varied in some of their most important 
 qualities, they would much more find themselves under the necessity 
 of evading, by some similar contrivance, the yet more difficult invention 
 of prepositions. The different cases in the ancient languages is a con- 
 trivance of precisely the same kind. The genitive and dative cases, in 
 Greek and Latin, evidently supply the place of the prepositions ; and 
 by a variation in the noun substantive, which stands for the co-relative 
 term, express the relation which subsists between what is denoted by 
 that noun substantive, and what is expressed by some other word in 
 the sentence. In these expressions, for example, fructus arboris, the 
 fruit of the tree; sacer Herculi, sacred to Hercules; the variations made 
 in the co-relative words, arbor and Hercules, express the same relations 
 which are expressed in English by the prepositions of and to. 
 
 To express a relation in this manner, did not require any effort of 
 abstraction. It was not here expressed by a peculiar word denoting 
 relation and nothing but relation, but by a variation upon the co- 
 relative term. It was expressed here, as it appears in nature, not as 
 something separated and detached, but as thoroughly mixed and 
 blended with the co-relative object. 
 
 To express relation in this manner, did not require any effort of 
 generalization. The words arboris and Herculi, while they involve in
 
 312 NUMBER OF CASES IS DIFFERENT IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. 
 
 their signification the same relation expressed by the English preposi- 
 tions of and to, are not, like those prepositions, general words, which 
 can be applied to express the same relation between whatever other 
 objects it might be observed to subsist. 
 
 To express relation in this manner did not require any effort of 
 comparison. The words arboris and Herculi are not general words 
 intended to denote a particular species of relations which the inventors 
 of those expressions meant, in consequence of some sort of comparison, 
 to separate and distinguish from every other sort of relation. The 
 example, indeed, of this contrivance would soon probably be followed, 
 and whoever had occasion to express a similar relation between any 
 other objects would be very apt to do it by making a similar variation 
 on the name of the co-relative object. This, I say, would probably, or 
 rather certainly happen ; but it would happen without any intention or 
 foresight in those who first set the example, and who never meant to 
 establish any general rule. The general rule would establish itself 
 insensibly, and by slow degrees, in consequence of that love of analogy 
 and similarity of sound, which is the foundation of by far the greater 
 part of the rules of grammar. 
 
 To express relation, therefore, by a variation in the name of the co- 
 relative object, requiring neither abstraction, nor generalization, nor 
 comparison of any kind, would, at first, be much more natural and 
 easy, than to express it by those general words called prepositions, of 
 of which the first invention must have demanded some degree of all 
 those operations. 
 
 The number of cases is different in different languages. There are 
 five in the Greek, six in the Latin, and there are said to be ten in the 
 Armenian language. It must have naturally happened that there 
 should be a greater or a smaller number of cases, according as in the 
 terminations of nouns substantive the first formers of any language 
 happened to have established a greater or a smaller number of varia- 
 tions, in order to express the different relations they had occasion to 
 take notice of, before the invention of those more general and abstract 
 prepositions which could supply their place. 
 
 It is, perhaps, worth while to observe that those prepositions, which 
 in modern languages hold the place of the ancient cases, are, of all 
 others, the most general, and abstract, and metaphysical ; and of con- 
 sequence, would probably be the last invented. Ask any man of com- 
 mon acuteness, What relation is expressed by the preposition above ? 
 He will readily answer, that of superiority. By the preposition below? 
 He will as quickly reply that of inferiority. But ask him, what relation 
 is expressed by the preposition of, and, if he has not beforehand em- 
 ployed his thoughts a good deal upon these subjects, you may safely 
 allow him a week to consider of his answer. The prepositions above and 
 below do not denote any of the relations expressed by the cases in the
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 313 
 
 ancient languages. But the preposition of, denotes the same relation, 
 which is in them expressed by the genitive case ; and which, it is easy 
 to observe, is of a very metaphysical nature. The preposition of, de- 
 notes relation in general, considered in concrete with the co-relative 
 object. It marks that the noun substantive which goes before it, is 
 somehow or other related to that which comes after it, but without in 
 any respect ascertaining, as is done by the preposition above, what is 
 the peculiar nature of that relation. We often apply it, therefore, to 
 express the most opposite relations ; because, the most opposite rela- 
 tions agree so far that each of them comprehends in it the general idea 
 or nature of a relation. We say, the father of the son, and the son oj 
 tJie father; the fir-trees of the forest, and Deforest of the fir-trees. The 
 relation in which the father stands to the son is, it is evident, a quite 
 opposite relation to that in which the son stands to the father ; that in 
 which the parts stand to the whole, is quite opposite to that in which 
 the whole stands to the parts. The word of, however, serves very well 
 to denote all those relations, because in itself it denotes no particular 
 relation, but only relation in general ; and so far as any particular 
 relation is collected from such expressions, it is inferred by the mind, 
 not from the preposition itself, but from the nature and arrangement of 
 the substantives, between which the preposition is placed. 
 
 What I have said concerning the preposition of, may in some mea- 
 sure be applied to the prepositions to, for, with, by, and to whatever 
 other prepositions are made use of in modern languages, to supply the 
 place of the ancient cases. They all of them express very abstract and 
 metaphysical relations, which any man, who takes the trouble to try it, 
 will find it extremely difficult to express by nouns substantive, in the 
 same manner as we may express the relation denoted by the preposi- 
 tion above, by the noun substantive superiority. They all of them, 
 however, express some specific relation, and are, consequently, none of 
 them so abstract as the preposition of, which may be regarded as by 
 far the most metaphysical of all prepositions. The prepositions, there- 
 fore, which are capable of supplying the place of the ancient cases, 
 being more abstract than the other prepositions, would naturally be of 
 more difficult invention. The relations at the same time which those 
 prepositions express, are, of all others, those which we have most 
 frequent occasion to mention. The prepositions above, below, near, 
 within, without, against, &c., are much more rarely made use of, in 
 modern languages, than the prepositions of, to, for, with, from, by. A 
 preposition of the former kind will not occur twice in a page ; we can 
 scarce compose a single sentence without the assistance of one or two 
 of the latter. If these latter prepositions, therefore, which supply the 
 place of the cases, would be of such difficult invention on account of 
 their abstractedness, some expedient to supply their place must have 
 been of indispensable necessity, on account of the frequent occasion 
 
 21
 
 314 PRIMITIVE LANGUAGES HAVE DUAL AND PLURAL NUMBERS. 
 
 which men have to take notice of the relations which they denote. But 
 there is no expedient so obvious, as that of varying the termination of 
 one of the principal words. 
 
 It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe, that there are some of the 
 cases in the ancient languages, which, for particular reasons, cannot be 
 represented by any prepositions. These are the nominative, accusative, 
 and vocative cases. In those modern languages, which do not admit 
 of any such variety in the terminations of their nouns substantive, the 
 correspondent relations are expressed by the place of the words, and 
 by the order and construction of the sentence. 
 
 As men have frequently occasion to make mention of multitudes as 
 well as of single objects, it became necessary that they should have 
 some method of expressing number. Number may be expressed either 
 by a particular word, expressing number in general, such as the words 
 many, more, &c., or by some variation upon the words which express 
 the things numbered. It is this last expedient which mankind would 
 probably have recourse to, in the infancy of language. Number, con- 
 sidered in general, without relation to any particular set of objects 
 numbered, is one of the most abstract and metaphysical ideas, which 
 the mind of man is capable of forming ; and, consequently, is not an 
 idea, which would readily occur to rude mortals, who were just begin- 
 ning to form a language. They would naturally, therefore, distinguish 
 when they talked of a single, and when they talked of a multitude of 
 objects, not by any metaphysical adjectives, such as the English a, an, 
 many, but by a variation upon the termination of the word which 
 signified the objects numbered. Hence the origin of the singular and 
 plural numbers, in all the ancient languages ; and the same distinction 
 has likewise been retained in all the modern languages, at least, in the 
 greater part of the words. 
 
 All primitive and uncompounded languages seem to have a dual, as 
 well as a plural number. This is the case of the Greek, and I am told 
 of the Hebrew, of the Gothic, and of many other languages. In the 
 rude beginnings of society, one, two, and more, might possibly be all 
 the numeral distinctions which mankind would have any occasion to 
 take notice of. These they would find it more natural to express, by a 
 variation upon every particular noun substantive, than by such general 
 and abstract words as one, two, three, four, &c. These words, though 
 custom has rendered them familiar to us, express, perhaps, the most 
 subtile and refined abstractions, which the mind of man is capable of 
 forming. Let any one consider within himself, for example, what he 
 means by the word three, which signifies neither three shillings, nor 
 three pence, nor three men, nor three horses, but three in general; and 
 he will easily satisfy himself that a word, which denotes so very meta- 
 physical an abstraction, could not be either a very obvious or a very 
 early invention. I have read of some savage nations, whose language
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 315 
 
 was capable of expressing no more than the three first numeral dis- 
 tinctions. But whether it expressed those distinctions by three general 
 words, or by variations upon the nouns substantive, denoting the things 
 numbered, I do not remember to have met with any thing which could 
 clearly determine. 
 
 As all the same relations which subsist between single, may likewise 
 subsist between numerous objects, it is evident there would be occasion 
 for the same number of cases in the dual and in the plural, as in the 
 singular number. Hence the intricacy and complexness of the declen- 
 sions in all the ancient languages. In the Greek there are five cases 
 in each of the three numbers, consequently fifteen in all. 
 
 As nouns adjective, in the ancient languages, varied their terminations 
 according to the gender of the substantive to which they Avere applied, 
 so did they likewise according to the case and the number. Every 
 noun adjective in the Greek language, therefore, having three genders, 
 and three numbers, and five cases in each number, may be considered 
 as having five and forty different variations. The first formers of lan- 
 guage seem to have varied the termination of the adjective, according 
 to the case and the number of the substantive, for the same reason 
 which made them vary it according to the gender ; the love of analogy, 
 and of a certain regularity of sound. In the signification of adjectives 
 there is neither case nor number, and the meaning of such words is 
 always precisely the same, notwithstanding all the variety of termina- 
 tion under which they appear. Magnus vzr, magni mri, magnonuii 
 virormn; a great man, of a great man, of great men; in all these 
 expressions the words, magnus, magni, magnorum, as well as the word 
 great, have precisely one and the same signification, though the sub- 
 stantives to which they are applied have not. The difference of termi- 
 nation in the noun adjective is accompanied with no sort of difference 
 in the meaning. An adjective denotes the qualification of a noun sub- 
 stantive. But the different relations in which that noun substantive 
 may occasionally stand, can make no sort of difference upon its qualifi- 
 cation. If the declensions of the ancient languages are so very com- 
 plex, their conjugations are infinitely more so. And the complexness 
 of the one is founded upon the same principle with that of the other, 
 the difficulty of forming, in the beginnings of language, abstract and 
 general terms. 
 
 Verbs must necessarily have been coeval with the very first attempts 
 towards the formation of language. No affirmation can be expressed 
 without the assistance of some verb. We never speak but in order to 
 express our opinion that something either is or is not. But the word 
 denoting this event, or this matter of fact, which is the subject of our 
 affirmation, must always be a verb. 
 
 Impersonal verbs, which express in one word a complete event, 
 which preserve in, the expression that perfect simplicity and unity, 
 
 21
 
 316 IN HEBREW, THE RADICAL WORDS ARE ALL VERUS. 
 
 which there always is in the object and in the idea, and which suppose 
 no abstraction, or metaphysical division of the event into its several 
 constituent members of subject and attribute, would, in all probability, 
 be the species of verbs first invented. The verbs pluit, it rains ; ningit, 
 it snows ; tonat, it thunders; lucet, it is day; titrbattir, there is a con- 
 fusion, &c., each of them express a complete affirmation, the whole of 
 an event, with that perfect simplicity and unity with which the mind 
 conceives it in nature. On the contrary, the phrases, Alexander ambu- 
 lat, Alexander walks ; Petrus sedet, Peter sits, divide the event, as it 
 were, into two parts, the person or subject, and the attribute, or matter 
 of fact, affirmed of that subject. But in nature, the idea or conception 
 of Alexander walking, is as perfectly and completely one simple con- 
 ception, as that of Alexander not walking. The division of this event, 
 therefore, into two parts, is altogether artificial, and is the effect of the 
 imperfection of language, which, upon this, as upon many other occa- 
 sions, supplies, by a number of words, the want of one, which could 
 express at once the whole matter of fact that was meant to be affirmed. 
 Every body must observe how much more simplicity there is in the 
 natural expression, pluit, than in the more artificial expressions, imber 
 decidit, the rain falls; or tempestas est pluvia, the weather is rainy. 
 In these two last "expressions, the simple event, or matter of fact, is 
 artificially split and divided in the one, into two ; in the other, into 
 three parts. In each of them it is expressed by a sort of grammatical 
 circumlocution, of which the significancy is founded upon a certain 
 metaphysical analysis of the component parts of the idea expressed by 
 the word pluit. The first verbs, therefore, perhaps even the first words, 
 made use of in the beginnings of language, would in all probability be 
 such impersonal verbs. It is observed accordingly, I am told, by the 
 Hebrew grammarians, that the radical words of their language, from 
 which all the others are derived, are all of them verbs, and impersonal 
 verbs. 
 
 It is easy to conceive how, in the progress of language, those imper- 
 sonal verbs should become personal. Let us suppose, for example, 
 that the word venit, it comes, was originally an impersonal verb, and 
 that it denoted, not the coming of something in general, as at present, 
 but the coming of a particular object, such as the lion. The first 
 savage inventors of language, we shall suppose, when they observed 
 the approach of this terrible animal, were accustomed to cry out to one 
 another, venit } that is, the lion comes; and that this word thus expressed 
 a complete event, without the assistance of any other. Afterwards, 
 when, on the further progress of language, they had begun to give 
 names to particular substances, whenever they observed the approach 
 of any other terrible object, they would naturally join the name of that 
 object to the word -venit, and cry out, venit nrsns, vem't lupus. By 
 degrees the word venit would thus come to signify the corning of any
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 317 
 
 terrible object, and not merely the coming of the lion. It would, now, 
 therefore, express, not the coming of a particular object, but the com- 
 ing of an object of a particular kind. Having become more general in 
 its signification, it could no longer represent any particular distinct 
 event by itself, and without the assistance of a noun substantive, which 
 might serve to ascertain and determine its signification. It would 
 now, therefore, have become a personal, instead of an impersonal verb. 
 We may easily conceive how, in the further progress of society, it 
 might still grow more general in its signification, and come to signify, 
 as at present, the approach of any thing whatever, whether it were 
 good, bad, or indifferent. 
 
 It is probably in some such manner as this, that almost all verbs 
 have become personal, and that mankind have learned by degrees to 
 split and divide almost every event into a great number of metaphysical 
 parts, expressed by the different parts of speech, variously combined in 
 the different members of every phrase and sentence.* The same sort 
 of progress seems to have been made in the art of speaking as in the 
 art of writing. When mankind first began to attempt to express their 
 ideas by writing, every character represented a whole word. But the 
 number of words being almost infinite, the memory found itself quite 
 loaded and oppressed by the multitude of characters which it was 
 obliged to retain. Necessity taught them, therefore, to divide words 
 into their elements, and to invent characters which should represent, 
 not the words themselves, but the elements of which they were com- 
 posed. In consequence of this invention, every particular word came 
 to be represented, not by one character, but by a multitude of characters ; 
 and the expression of it in writing became much more intricate and 
 complex than before. But though particular words were thus repre- 
 sented by a greater number of characters, the whole language was ex- 
 pressed by a much smaller, and about four and twenty letters were found 
 capable of supplying the place of that immense multitude of characters, 
 which were requisite before. In the same manner, in the beginnings 
 of language, men seem to have attempted to express every particular 
 event, which they had occasion to take notice of, by a particular word, 
 which expressed at once the whole of that event. But as the number 
 of words must, in this case, have become really infinite in consequence 
 of the really infinite variety of events, men found themselves partly 
 compelled by necessity, and partly conducted by nature, to divide 
 
 * As the far greater part of verbs express, at present, not an event, but the attribute of an 
 event, and, consequently, require a subject, or nominative case, to complete their signification, 
 some grammarians, not having attended to this progress of nature, and being desirous to make 
 their common rules quite universal, and without any exception, have insisted that all verbs 
 required a nominative, either expressed or understood ; and have, accordingly, put themselves 
 to the torture to find some awkward nominatives to those 'few verbs which still expressing a 
 complete event, plainly admit of none. 1'liiit, for example, according to Sanctius, means 
 pluvia phiit , in English, the rain rains. See Sanctii Minerva, 1. 3. c. i.
 
 318 NO VKRB IS USED IMPERSONALLY IN OUR LANGUAGE. 
 
 every event into what may be called its metaphysical elements, and to 
 institute words, which should denote not so much the events, as the 
 elements of which they were composed. The expression of every par- 
 ticular event, became in this manner more intricate and complex, but 
 the whole system of the language became more coherent, more con- 
 nected, more easily retained and comprehended. 
 
 When verbs, from being originally impersonal, had thus, by the 
 division of the event into its metaphysical elements, become personal 
 it is natural to suppose that they would first be made use of in the third 
 person singular. No verb is ever used impersonally in our language 
 nor, so far as I know, in any other modern tongue. But in the ancient 
 languages, whenever any verb is used impersonally, it is always in the 
 third person singular. The termination of those verbs, which are still 
 always impersonal, is constantly the same with that of the third person 
 singular of personal verbs. The consideration of these circumstances, 
 joined to the naturalness of the thing itself, may therefore serve to 
 convince us that verbs first became personal in what is now called the 
 third person singular. 
 
 But as the event, or matter of fact, which is expressed by a verb, may 
 be affirmed either of the person who speaks, or of the person who is 
 spoken to, as well as of. some third person or object, it becomes neces- 
 sary to fall upon some method of expressing these two peculiar relations 
 of the event. In the English language this is commonly done, by pre- 
 fixing, what are called the personal pronouns, to the general word 
 which expresses the event affirmed. / came, you came, he or it came; 
 in these phrases the event of having come is, in the first, affirmed of 
 the speaker ; in the second, of the person spoken to ; in the third, of 
 some other person or object. The first formers of language, it may be 
 imagined, might have done the same thing, and prefixing in the same 
 manner the two first personal pronouns, to the same termination of the 
 verb, which expressed the third person singular, might have said ego 
 venit, tu venit, as well as ille or illudvenit. And I make no doubt but 
 they would have done so, if at the time when they had first occasion 
 to express these relations of the verb there had been any such words 
 as either ego or tu in their language. But in this early period of the 
 language, which we are now endeavouring to describe, it is extremely 
 improbable that any such words would be known. Though custom has 
 now rendered them familiar to us, they, both of them, express ideas 
 extremely metaphysical and abstract. The word /, for example, is a 
 word of a very particular species. Whatever speaks may denote itself 
 by this personal pronoun. The word /, therefore, is a general word, 
 capable of being predicated, as the logicians say, of an infinite variety 
 of objects. It differs, however, from all other general words rn this 
 respect ; that the object of which it may be predicated, do not form 
 any particular species of objects distinguished from all others. The
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 319 
 
 word /, does not, like the word man, denote a particular class of objects 
 separated from all others by peculiar qualities of their own. It is far 
 from being the name of a species, but, on the contrary, whenever it is 
 made use of, it always denotes a precise individual, the particular person 
 who then speaks. It may be said to be, at once, both what the logi- 
 cians call, a singular, and what they call, a common term ; and to join, 
 in its signification the seemingly opposite qualities of the most precise 
 individuality and the most extensive generalization. This word, there- 
 fore, expressing so very abstract and metaphysical an idea, would not 
 easily or readily occur to the first formers of language. What are 
 called the personal pronouns, it may be observed, are among the last 
 words of which children learn to make use. A child, speaking of itself, 
 says, Billy walks, Silly sits, insteads of / walk, I sit. As in the begin- 
 nings of language, therefore, mankind seem to have evaded the inven- 
 tion of at least the more abstract prepositions, and to have expressed 
 the same relations which these now stand for, by varying the termina- 
 tion of the co-relative term, so they likewise would naturally attempt 
 to evade the necessity of inventing those more abstract pronouns by 
 varying the termination of the verb, according as the event which it 
 expressed was intended to be affirmed of the first, second, or third 
 person. This seems, accordingly, to be the universal practice of all 
 the ancient languages. In Latin, vent, venisti, venti, sufficiently de- 
 note, without any other addition, the different events expressed by the 
 English phrases, / came, you came, he or it came. The verb would, for 
 the same reason, vary its termination, according as the event was 
 intended to be affirmed of the first, second, or third persons plural ; 
 and what is expressed by the English phrases, we came, ye came, they 
 came, would be- denoted by the Latin words, -uenimus, -uenisitis, veneunt. 
 Those primitive languages, too, which upon account of the difficulty of 
 inventing numeral names, had introduced a dual, as well as a plural 
 number, into the declension of their nouns substantive, would probably, 
 from analogy, do' the same thing in the conjugations of their verbs. 
 And thus in all original languages, we might expect to find, at least six, 
 if not eight or nine variations, in the termination of every verb, ac- 
 cording as the event which it denoted was meant to be affirmed of the 
 first, second, or third persons singular, dual, or plural. These varia- 
 tions again being repeated, along with others, through all its different 
 tenses, through all its different modes, and through all its different 
 voices, must necessarily have rendered their conjugations still more 
 intricate and complex than their declensions. 
 
 Language would probably have continued upon this footing in all 
 countries, nor would ever have grown more simple in its declensions 
 and conjugations, had it not become more complex in its composition, 
 in consequence of the mixture of several languages with one another, 
 occasioned by the mixture of different nations. As long as any Ian-
 
 320 IN EVERY LANGUAGE THERE IS A SLBSTANT1VE VERB. 
 
 guage was spoke by those only who learned it in their infancy, the intri- 
 cacy of its declensions and conjugations could occasion no great embar- 
 rassment. The far greater part of those who had occasion to speak it, 
 had acquired it at so very early a period of their lives, so insensibly 
 and by such slow degrees, that they were scarce ever sensible of the 
 difficulty. But when two nations came to be mixed with one another, 
 either by conquest or migration, the case would be very different. 
 Each nation, in order to make itself intelligible to those with whom it 
 was under the necessity of conversing, would be obliged to learn the 
 language of the other. The greater part of individuals too, learning 
 the new language, not by art, or by remounting to its rudiments and 
 first principle, but by rote, and by what they commonly heard in con- 
 versation, would be extremely perplexed by the intricacy of its declen- 
 sions and conjugations. They would endeavour, therefore, to supply 
 their ignorance of these, by whatever shift the language could afford 
 them. Their ignorance of the declensions they would naturally supply 
 by the use of prepositions ; and a Lombard, who was attempting to 
 speak Latin, and wanted to express that such a person was a citizen of 
 Rome, or a benefactor to Rome, if he happened not to be acquainted 
 with the genitive and dative cases of the word Roma, would naturally 
 express himself by prefixing the prepositions ad and de to the nomina- 
 tive ; and instead of Romce, would say, ad Roma, and de Roma. A I 
 Roma and di Roma, accordingly, is the manner in which the present 
 Italians, the descendants of the ancient Lombards and Romans, ex- 
 press this and all other similar relations. And in this manner preposi- 
 tions seem to have been introduced, in the room of the ancient declen- 
 sions. The same alteration has, I am informed, been produced upon 
 the Greek language, since the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. 
 The words are, in a great measure, the same as before ; but the gram- 
 mar is entirely lost, prepositions having come in the place of the old 
 declensions. This change is undoubtedly a simplification of the lan- 
 guage, in point of rudiments and principle. It introduces, instead of a 
 great variety of declensions, one universal declension, which is the same 
 in eyery word, of whatever gender, number, or termination. 
 
 A similar expedient enables men, in the situation above mentioned, 
 to get rid of almost the whole intricacy of their conjugations. There 
 is in every language a verb, known by the name of the substantive 
 verb ; in Latin, sum; in English, / am. This verb denotes not the 
 existence of any particular event, but existence in general. It is, upon 
 that account, the most abstract and metaphysical of all verbs ; and, 
 consequently, could by no means be a word of early invention. When 
 it came to be invented, however, as it had all the tenses and modes of 
 any other verb, by being joined with the passive participle, it was 
 capable of supplying the place of the whole passive voice, and of 
 rendering this part of their conjugations as simple and uniform as the
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. . 32! 
 
 use of prepositions had rendered their declensions. A Lombard, who 
 wanted to say, I am loved, but could not recollect the word amor, 
 naturally endeavoured to supply his ignorance, by saying ego sum 
 amatus. lo sono amato, is at this day the Italian expression, which 
 corresponds to the English phrase above mentioned. 
 
 There is another verb, which, in the same [manner, runs through all 
 languages, and which is distinguished by the name of the possessive 
 verb ; in Latin, habeoj in English, / have. This verb, likewise, denotes 
 an event of an extremely abstract and metaphysical nature, and, con- 
 sequently, cannot be supposed to have been a word of the earliest 
 invention. When it came to be invented, however, by being applied 
 to the passive participle, it was capable of supplying a great part of the 
 active voice, as the substantive verb had supplied the whole of the 
 passive. A Lombard, who wanted to say, / had loved, but could not 
 recollect the word amaveram, would endeavour to supply the place of it, 
 by saying either ego habebam ainatum or ego habui amatum. lo avevd 
 amato, or lo ebbi amato, are the correspondent Italian expressions at this 
 day. And thus upon the intermixture of different nations with one ano- 
 ther, the conjugations, by means of different auxiliary verbs, were made 
 to approach the simplicity and uniformity of the declensions. 
 
 In general it may be laid down for a maxim, that the more simple 
 any language is in its composition, the more complex it must be in its 
 declensions and its conjugations; and on the contrary, the more simple 
 it is in its declensions and its conjugations, the more complex it must 
 be in its composition. 
 
 The Greek seems to be, in a great measure, a simple, uncompounded 
 language, formed from the primitive jargon of those wandering savages, 
 the ancient Hellenians and Pelasgians, from whom the Greek nation is 
 said to have been descended. All the words in the Greek language are 
 derived from about three hundred primitives, a plain evidence that the 
 Greeks formed their language almost entirely among themselves, and 
 that when they had occasion for a new word, they were not accustomed, 
 as we are, to borrow it from some foreign language, but to form it, 
 either by composition or derivation, from some other word or words, 
 in their own. The declensions and conjugations, therefore, of the 
 Greek are much more complex than those of any other European lan- 
 guage with which I am acquainted. 
 
 The Latin is a composition of the Greek and of the ancient Tuscan 
 languages. Its declensions and conjugations accordingly are much less 
 complex than those of the Greek ; it has dropped the dual number in both. 
 Its verbs have no optative mood distinguished by any peculiar termi- 
 nation. They have but one future. They have no aorist distinct from 
 the preterit-perfect; they have no middle voice; and even many of 
 their tenses in the passive voice are eked out, in the same manner as 
 in the modern languages, by the help of the substantive verb joined to
 
 322 ENGLISH, THOUGH COMPLEX, IS SIMPLE IN DECLENSIONS. 
 
 the passive participle. In both the voices, the number of infinitives 
 and participles is much smaller in the Latin than in the Greek. 
 
 The French and Italian languages are each of them compounded, 
 the one of the Latin and the language of the ancient Franks, the other 
 of the same Latin and the language of the ancient Lombards. As 
 they are both of them, therefore, more complex in their composition 
 than the Latin, so are they likewise more simple in their declensions 
 and conjugations. With regard to their declensions, they have both of 
 them lost their cases altogether ; and with regard to their conjugations, 
 they have both of them lost the whole of the passive, and some part of 
 the active voices of their verbs. The want of the passive voice they 
 supply entirely by the substantive verb joined to the passive participle; 
 and they make out part of the active, in the same manner, by the help 
 of the possessive verb and the same passive participle. 
 
 The English is compounded of the French and the ancient Saxon 
 languages. The French was introduced into Britain by the Norman 
 conquest, and continued, till the time of Edward III. to be the sole 
 language of the law as well as the principal language of the court. The 
 English, which came to be spoken aftenvards, and which continues to 
 be spoken now, is a mixture of the ancient Saxon and this Norman 
 French. As the English language, therefore, is more complex in its 
 composition than either the French or the Italian, so is it likewise more 
 simple in its declensions and conjugations. Those two languages re- 
 tain, at least, a part of the distinction of genders, and their adjectives 
 vary their termination according as they are applied to a masculine or 
 to a feminine substantive. But there is no such distinction in the 
 English language, whose adjectives admit ofno variety of termination. 
 The French and Italian languages have, both of them, the remains of 
 a conjugation ; and all those tenses of the active voice, which cannot 
 be expressed by the possessive verb joined to the passive participle, as 
 well as many of those which can, are, in those languages, marked by 
 varying the termination of the principal verb. But almost all those 
 other tenses are in the English eked out by other auxiliary verbs, so 
 that there is in this language scarce even the remains of a conjugation. 
 / love, I loved, loving, are all the varieties of termination which the 
 greater part of the English verbs admit of. All the different modifica- 
 tions of meaning, which cannot be expressed by any of those three 
 terminations, must be made out by different auxiliary verbs joined to 
 some one or other of them. Two auxiliary verbs supply all the defi- 
 ciencies of the French and Italian conjugations; it requires more than 
 half a dozen to supply those of the English, which, besides the sub- 
 stantive and possessive verbs, makes use of do, did; will, would; shall, 
 should; can, could; may, might. 
 
 It is in this manner that language becomes more simple in its rudi- 
 ments and principles, just in proportion as it grows more complex in
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 323 
 
 its composition, and the same thing has happened in it, which com- 
 monly happens with regard to mechanical engines. All machines are 
 generally, when first invented, extremely complex in their principles, 
 and there is often a particular principle of motion for every particular 
 movement which it is intended they should perform. Succeeding im- 
 provers observe, that one principle may be so applied as to produce 
 several of those movements ; and thus the machine becomes gradually 
 more and more simple, and produces its effects with fewer wheels, and 
 fewer principles of motion. In language, in the same manner, every 
 case of every noun, and every tense of every verb, was originally ex- 
 pressed by a particular distinct word, which served for this purpose 
 and for no other. But succeeding observations discovered, that one 
 set of words was capable of supplying the place of all that infinite 
 number, and that four or five prepositions, and half a. dozen auxiliary 
 verbs, were capable of answering the end of all the declensions, and of 
 all the conjugations in the ancient languages. 
 
 But this simplification of languages, though it arises, perhaps, from 
 similar causes, has by no means similar effects with the correspondent 
 simplification of machines. The simplification of machines renders 
 them more and more perfect, but this simplification of the rudiments of 
 languages renders them more and more imperfect, and less proper for 
 many of the purposes of language ; and this for the following reasons. 
 
 First of all, languages are by this simplification rendered more 
 prolix, several words having become necessary to express what could 
 have been expressed by a single word before. Thus the words, Dei 
 and Deo, in the Latin, sufficiently show, without any addition, what 
 relation the object signified is understood to stand in to the objects 
 expressed by the other words in the sentence. But to express the same 
 relation in English, and in all other modern languages, we must make 
 use of, at least, two words, and say, of God, to God. So far as the declen- 
 sions are concerned, therefore, the modern languages are much more 
 prolix than the ancient. The difference is still greater with regard to the 
 conjugations. What a Roman expressed by the single word amavissem, 
 an Englishman is obliged to express by four different words, / should 
 have loved. It is unnecessary to take any pains to show how much this 
 prolixness must enervate the eloquence of all modern languages. How 
 much the beauty of any expression depends upon its conciseness, is 
 well known to those who have any experience in composition. 
 
 Secondly, this simplification of the principles of languages renders 
 them less agreeable to the ear. The variety of termination in the 
 Greek and Latin, occasioned by their declensions and conjugations, 
 gives a sweetness to their language altogether unknown to ours, and a 
 variety unknown to any other modern language. In point of sweet- 
 ness, the Italian, perhaps, may surpass the Latin, and almost equal the 
 Greek ; but in point of variety, it is greatly inferior to both.
 
 324 ANCIENT AND MODERN CONSTRUCTION CONTRASTED. 
 
 Thirdly, this simplification, not only renders the sounds of our lan- 
 guage less agreeable to the ear, but it also restrains us from disposing 
 such sounds as we have, in the manner that might be most agreeable. 
 It ties down many words to a particular situation, though they might 
 often be placed in another with much more beauty. In the Greek and 
 Latin, though the adjective and substantive were separated from one 
 another, the correspondence of their terminations still showed their 
 mutual reference, and the separation did not necessarily occasion any 
 sort of confusion. Thus in the first line of Virgil, 
 
 Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi ; 
 
 we easily see that tu refers to recubans, a.n& painte to fagi; though the 
 related words are separated from one another by the intervention of 
 several others ; because the terminations, showing the correspondence 
 of their cases, determine their mutual reference. But if we were to 
 translate this line literally into English, and say, Tityrus, thou of 
 spreading reclining under the shade beech, CEdipus himself could not 
 make sense of it ; because there is here no difference of termination, 
 to determine which substantive each adjective belongs to. It is the 
 same case with regard to verbs. In Latin the verb may often be 
 placed, without any inconveniency or ambiguity, in any part of the 
 sentence. But in English its place is almost always precisely deter- 
 mined. It must follow the subjective and precede the objective mem- 
 ber of the phrase in almost all cases. Thus in Latin whether you say, 
 Joannem 'verberavit Robertas, or Robertas verberavit Joannem, the 
 meaning is precisely the same, and the termination fixes John to be 
 the sufferer in both cases. But in English Jo/tn beat Robert, and 
 Robert beat John, have by no means the same signification. The place 
 therefore of the three principal members of the phrase is in the Eng- 
 lish, and for the same reason in the French and Italian languages, 
 almost always precisely determined ; whereas in the ancient languages 
 a greater latitude is allowed, and the place of those members is often, 
 in a great measure, indifferent. We must have recourse to Horace, in 
 order to interpret some parts of Milton's literal translation ; 
 
 Who now enjoys thee credulous all gold, 
 Who always vacant, always amiable 
 Hopes thee ; of flattering gales 
 Unmindful 
 
 are verses which it is impossible to interpret by any rules of our lan- 
 guage. There are no rules in our language, by which any man could 
 discover, that, in the first line, credulous referred to who, and not to 
 thee; or that all gold referred to any thing ; or, that in the fourth line, 
 unmindful, referred to who, in the second, and not to thee in the third ; 
 or, on the contrary, that, in the second line, always vacant, always 
 amiable, referred to thee in the third, and not to who in the same line 
 with it. In the Latin, indeed, all this is abundantly plain.
 
 SMITH ON THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 325 
 
 Qui mine te fruitur crcdulus aurea, 
 Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem 
 Sperat te ; nescius aurae fallacis. 
 
 Because the terminations in the Latin determine the reference of each 
 adjective to its proper substantive, which it is impossible for any thing 
 in the English to do. How much this power of transposing the order 
 of their words must have facilitated the compositions of the ancients, 
 both in verse and prose, can hardly be imagined. That it must greatly 
 have facilitated their versification it is needless to observe ; and in 
 prose, whatever beauty depends upon the arrangement and construc- 
 tion of the several members of the period, must to them have been 
 acquirable with much more ease, and to much greater perfection than 
 it can be to those whose expression is constantly confined by the pro- 
 lixness, constraint, and monotony of modern languages. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRIES; 
 
 AS ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 
 
 WONDER, surprise, and admiration, are words which, though often con- 
 founded, denote, in our language, sentiments that are indeed allied, but 
 that are in some respects different also, and distinct from one another. 
 What is new and singular, excites that sentiment which, in strict pro- 
 priety, is called Wonder ; what is unexpected, Surprise ; and what is 
 great or beautiful, Admiration. 
 
 We wonder at all extraordinary and uncommon objects, at all the 
 rarer phenomena of nature, at meteors, comets, eclipses, at singular 
 plants and animals, and at every thing, in short, with which we have 
 before been either little or not at all acquainted ; and we still wonder, 
 though forewarned of what we are to see. 
 
 We are surprised at those things which we have seen often, but 
 which we least of all expected to meet with in the place where we find 
 them ; we are surprised at the sudden appearance of a friend, whom 
 we have seen a thousand times, but whom we did not at all imagine 
 we were to see then. 
 
 We admire the beauty of a plain or the greatness of a mountain,
 
 326 THE SENTIMENTS OF WONDER, ADMIRATION, SURPRISE. 
 
 though we have seen both often before, and though nothing appears to 
 us in either, but what we had expected with certainty to see. 
 
 Whether this criticism upon the precise meaning of these words be 
 just, is of little importance. I imagine it is just, though I acknowledge, 
 that the best writers in our language have not always made use of 
 them, according to it. Milton, upon the appearance of Death to Satan, 
 says, that 
 
 The Fiend what this might be admir'd, 
 Admir'd, not fear'd. 
 
 But if this criticism be just, the proper expression should have been 
 wonder* d. Dryden, upon the discovery of Iphigenia sleeping, says that 
 
 The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes, 
 And gaping mouth, that testified surprise. 
 
 But what Cimon must have felt upon this occasion could not so much 
 be Surprise, as Wonder and Admiration. All that I contend for is, 
 that the sentiments excited by what is new, by what is unexpected, and 
 by what is great and beautiful are really different, however the words 
 made use of to express them may sometimes be confounded. Even 
 the admiration which is excited by beauty, is quite different (as will 
 appear more fully hereafter) from that which is inspired by greatness, 
 though we have but one word to denote them. 
 
 These sentiments, like all others when inspired by one and the same 
 object, mutually support and enliven one another : an object with which 
 we are quite familiar, and which we see every day, produces, though 
 both great and beautiful, but a small effect upon us ; because our 
 admiration is not supported either by Wonder or by Surprise : and if 
 we have heard a very accurate description of a monster, our Wonder 
 M'ill be the less when we see it ; because our previous knowledge of it 
 will in a great measure prevent our Surprise. 
 
 It is the design of this essay to consider particularly the nature and 
 causes of each of these sentiments, whose influence is of far wider 
 extent than we should be apt upon a careless view to imagine. I shall 
 begin with Surprise. 
 
 SEC. I. Of the Effect of Unexpectedness, or of Surprise. 
 
 WHEN an object of any kind, which has been for some time expected 
 and foreseen, presents itself, whatever be the emotion which it is by 
 nature fitted to excite, the mind must have been prepared for it, and 
 must even in some measure have conceived it before-hand ; because 
 the idea of the object having been so long present to it, must have 
 before-hand excited some degree of the same emotion which the object 
 itself would excite : the change, therefore, which its presence produces 
 comes thus to be less considerable, and the emotion or passion which 
 it excites glides gradually and easily into the heart, without violence, 
 pain or difficulty.
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 327 
 
 But the contrary of all this happens when the object is unexpected ; 
 the passion is then poured in all at once upon the heart, which is 
 thrown, if it is a strong passion, into the most violent and convulsive 
 emotions, such as sometimes cause immediate death ; sometimes, by 
 the suddenness of the ecstacy, so entirely disjoint the whole frame of 
 the imagination, that it never after returns to its former tone and com- 
 posure, but falls either into a frenzy or habitual lunacy ; and such as 
 almost always occasion a momentary loss of reason, or of that attention 
 to other things which our situation or our duty requires. 
 
 How much we dread the effects of the more violent passions, when 
 they come suddenly upon the mind, appears from those preparations 
 which all men think necessary when going to inform any one of what 
 is capable of exciting them. Who would choose all at once to inform 
 his friend of an extraordinary calamity that had befallen him, without 
 taking care before-hand, by alarming him with an uncertain fear, to 
 announce, if one may say so, his misfortune, and thereby prepare and 
 dispose him for receiving the tidings ? 
 
 Those panic terrors which sometimes seize armies in the field, or 
 great cities, when an enemy is in the neighbourhood, and which 
 deprive for a time the most determined of all deliberate judgments, 
 are never excited but by the sudden apprehension of unexpected 
 danger. Such violent consternations, which at once confound whole 
 multitudes, benumb their understandings, and agitate their hearts, with 
 all the agony of extravagant fear, can never be produced by any fore- 
 seen danger, how great soever. Fear, though naturally a very strong 
 passion, never rises to such excesses, unless exasperated both by won- 
 der, from the uncertain nature of the danger, and by surprise, from the 
 suddenness of the apprehension. 
 
 Surprise, therefore, is not to be regarded as an original emotion of a 
 species distinct from all others. The violent and sudden change pro- 
 duced upon the mind, when an emotion of any kind is brought sud- 
 denly upon it, constitutes the whole nature of Surprise. 
 
 But when not only a passion and a great passion comes all at once 
 upon the mind, but when it comes upon it while the mind is in the 
 mood most unfit for conceiving it, the Surprise is then the greatest. 
 Surprises of joy when the mind is sunk into grief, or of grief when it is 
 elated with joy, are therefore the most unsupportable. The change is 
 in this case the greatest possible. Not only a strong passion is con- 
 ceived all at once, but a strong passion the direct opposite of that 
 which was before in possession of the soul. When a load of sorrow 
 comes down upon the heart that is expanded and elated with gaiety 
 and joy, it seems not only to damp and oppress it, but almost to crush 
 and bruise it, as a real weight would crush and bruise the body. On 
 the contrary, when from an unexpected change of fortune, a tide of 
 gladness seems, if I may say so, to spring up all at once within it, when
 
 328 SURPRISE IS NOT REGARDED AS AN ORIGINAL EMOTION. 
 
 depressed and contracted with grief and sorrow, it feels as if suddenly 
 extended and heaved up with violent and irresistible force, and is torn 
 with pangs of all others most exquisite, and which almost always occa- 
 sion faintings, deliriums, and sometimes instant death. For it may be 
 worth while to observe, that though grief be a more violent passion than 
 joy, as indeed all uneasy sensations seem naturally more pungent than 
 the opposite agreeable ones, yet of the two, Surprises of joy are still 
 more insupportable than Surprises of grief. We are told that after the 
 battle of Thrasimenus, while a Roman lady, who had been informed 
 that her son was slain in the action, was sitting alone bemoaning her 
 misfortunes, the young man who escaped came suddenly into the room 
 to her, and that she cried out and expired instantly in a transport of 
 joy. Let us suppose the contrary of this to have happened, and that 
 in the midst of domestic festivity and mirth, he had suddenly fallen 
 down dead at her feet, is it likely that the effects would have been 
 equally violent ? I imagine not. The heart springs to joy with a sort 
 of natural elasticity, it abandons itself to so agreeable an emotion, as 
 soon as the object is presented ; it seems to pant and leap forward to 
 meet it, and the passion in its full force takes at once entire and com- 
 plete possession of the soul. But it is otherwise with grief ; the heart 
 recoils from, and resists the first approaches of that disagreeable pas- 
 sion, and it requires some time before the melancholy object can pro- 
 duce its full effect. Grief comes on slowly and gradually, nor ever rises 
 at once to that height of agony to which it is increased after a little 
 time. But joy comes rushing upon us all at once like a torrent The 
 change produced, therefore, by a surprise of joy is more sudden, and 
 upon that account more violent and apt to have more fatal effects, 
 than that which is occasioned by a surprise of grief ; there seems, too, 
 to be something in the nature of surprise, which makes it unite more 
 easily with the brisk and quick motion of joy, than with the slower 
 and heavier movement of grief. Most men who can take the trouble 
 to recollect, will find that they have heard of more people who died or 
 became distracted with sudden joy, than with sudden grief. Yet from 
 the nature of human affairs, the latter must be much more frequent 
 than the former. A man may break his leg, or lose his son, though he 
 has had no warning of either of these events, but he can hardly meet 
 with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, without having had some 
 foresight of what was to happen. 
 
 Not only grief and joy, but all the other passions, are more violent, 
 when opposite extremes succeed each other. Is any resentment so 
 keen as what follows the quarrels of lovers, or any love so passionate 
 as what attends their reconcilement ? 
 
 Even the objects of the external senses affect us in a more lively 
 manner, when opposite extremes succeed to or are placed beside each 
 other. Moderate warmth seems intolerable heat if felt after extreme
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 329 
 
 cold. What is bitter will seem more so when tasted after what is very 
 sweet ; a dirty white will seem bright and pure when placed by a jet 
 black. The vivacity in short of every sensation, as well as of every 
 sentiment, seems to be greater or less in proportion to the change 
 made by the impression of either upon the situation of the mind or 
 organ ; but this change must necessarily be the greatest when opposite 
 sentiments and sensations are contrasted, or succeed immediately to 
 one another. Both sentiments and sensations are then the liveliest ; 
 and this superior vivacity proceeds from nothing but their being 
 brought upon the mind or organ when in a state most unfit for con- 
 ceiving them. 
 
 As the opposition of contrasted sentiments heightens their vivacity, 
 so the resemblance of those which immediately succeed each other 
 renders them more faint and languid. A parent who has lost several 
 children immediately after one another, will be less affected with the 
 death of the last than with that of the first, though the loss in itself be, 
 in this case, undoubtedly greater ; but his mind being already sunk into 
 sorrow, the new misfortune seems to produce no other effect than a 
 continuance of the same melancholy, and is by no means apt to occa- 
 sion such transports of grief as are ordinarily excited by the first cala- 
 mity of the kind ; he receives it, though with great dejection, yet with 
 some degree of calmness and composure, and without anything of that 
 anguish and agitation of mind which the novelty of the misfortune is 
 apt to occasion. Those who have been unfortunate through the whole 
 course of their lives are often indeed habitually melancholy, and some- 
 times peevish and splenetic, yet upon any fresh disappointment, though 
 they are vexed and complain a little, they seldom fly out into any more 
 violent passion, and never fall into those transports of rage or grief 
 which often, upon like occasions, distract the fortunate and successful. 
 
 Upon this are founded, in a great measure, some of the effects of 
 habit and custom. It is well known that custom deadens the vivacity 
 of both pain and pleasure, abates the grief we should feel for the one, 
 and weakens the joy we should derive from the other. The pain is 
 supported without agony, and the pleasure enjoyed without rapture : 
 because custom and the frequent repetition of any object comes at last 
 to form and bend the mind or organ to that habitual mood and dis- 
 position which fits them to receive its impression, without undergoing 
 any very violent change. 
 
 SEC. II. Of Wonder, or of the Effects of Novelty. 
 IT is evident that the mind takes pleasure in observing the resem- 
 blances that are discoverable betwixt different objects. It is by means 
 of such observations that it endeavours to arrange and methodise all 
 its ideas, and to reduce them into proper classes and assortments. 
 Where it can observe but one single quality that is common to a great 
 
 22
 
 33 THE MIND ENDEAVOURS TO METHODISE ITS IDEAS. 
 
 variety of otherwise widely different objects, that single circumstance 
 will be sufficient for it to connect them all together, to reduce them to 
 one common class, and to call them by one general name. It is thus 
 that all things endowed with a power of self-motion, beasts, birds, 
 fishes, insects, are classed under the general name of Animal ; and that 
 these again, along with those which want that power, are arranged 
 under the still more general word, Substance : and this is the origin of 
 those assortments of objects and ideas which in the schools are called 
 Genera and Species, and of those abstract and general names, which 
 in all languages are made use of to express them. 
 
 The further we advance in knowledge and experience, the greater 
 number of divisions and subdivisions of those Genera and Species we 
 are both inclined and obliged to make. We observe a greater variety 
 of particularities amongst those things which have a gross resemblance ; 
 and having made new divisions of them, according to those newly- 
 observed particularities, we are then no longer to be satisfied with 
 being able to refer an object to a remote genus, or very general class 
 of things, to many of which it has but a loose and imperfect resem- 
 blance. A person, indeed, unacquainted with botany may expect to 
 satisfy your curiosity, by telling you, that such a vegetable is a weed, 
 or, perhaps in still more general terms, that it is a plant. But a botanist 
 will neither give nor accept of such an answer. He has broke and 
 divided that great class of objects into a number of inferior assort- 
 ments, accord to those varieties which his experience has discovered 
 among them ; and he wants to refer each individual plant to some tribe 
 of vegetables, with all of which it may have a more exact resemblance, 
 than with many things comprehended under the extensive genus of 
 plants. A child imagines that it gives a satisfactory answer when it 
 tells you, that an object whose name it knows not is a thing, and 
 fancies that it informs you of something, when it thus ascertains to 
 which of the two most obvious and comprehensive classes of objects a 
 particular impression ought to be referred ; to the class of realities or 
 solid substances which it calls things, or to that of appearances which 
 it calls nothings. 
 
 Whatever, in short, occurs to us we are fond of referring to some- 
 species or class of things, with all of which it has a nearly exact resem- 
 blance : and though we often know no more about them than about it, 
 yet we are apt to fancy that by being able to do so, we show ourselves 
 to be better acquainted with it, and to have a more thorough insight 
 into its nature. But when something quite new and singular is pre- 
 sented, we feel ourselves incapable of doing this. The memory cannot, 
 from all its stores, cast up any image that nearly resembles this strange 
 appearance. If by some of its qualities it seems to resemble, and to 
 be connected with a species which we have before been acquainted 
 with, it is by others separated and detached from that, and from all the
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 331 
 
 other assortments of things we have hitherto been able to make. It 
 stands alone and by itself in the imagination, and refuses to be grouped 
 or confounded with any set of objects whatever. The imagination and 
 memory exert themselves to no purpose, and in vain look around all 
 their classes of ideas in order to find one under which it may be 
 arranged. They fluctuate to no purpose from thought to thought, and 
 we remain still uncertain and undetermined where to place it, or what 
 to think of it. It is this fluctuation and vain recollection, together with 
 the emotion or movement of the spirits that they excite, which consti- 
 tute the sentiment properly called Wonder, and which occasion that 
 staring, and sometimes that rolling of the eyes, that suspension of the 
 breath, and that swelling of the heart, which we may all observe, both 
 in ourselves and others, when wondering at some new object, and which 
 are the natural symptoms of uncertain and undetermined thought. 
 What sort of a thing can that be? What is that like? are the questions 
 which, upon such an occasion, we are ail naturally disposed to ask If 
 we can recollect many such objects which exactly resemble this new 
 appearance, and which present themselves to the imagination naturally, 
 and as it were of their own accord, our Wonder is entirely at an end. 
 If we can recollect but a few, and which it requires too some trouble to 
 be able to call up, our Wonder is indeed diminished, but not quite des- 
 troyed. If we can recollect none, but are quite at a loss, it is the 
 greatest possible. 
 
 With what curious attention does a naturalist examine a singular 
 plant, or a singular fossil, that is presented to him? He is at no loss 
 to refer it to the general genus of plants or fossils ; but this does not 
 satisfy him, and when he considers all the different tribes or species of 
 either with which he has hitherto been acquainted, they all, he thinks, 
 refuse to admit the new object among them. It stands alone in his 
 imagination, and as it were detached from all the other species of -that 
 genus to which it belongs. He labours, however, to connect it with 
 some one or other of them. Sometimes he thinks it may be placed in 
 this, and sometimes in that other assortment ; nor is he ever satisfied, 
 till he has fallen upon one which, in most of its qualities, it resembles. 
 When he cannot do this, rather than it should stand quite by itself, he 
 will enlarge the precincts, if I may say so, of some species, in order to 
 make room for it ; or he will create a new species on purpose to receive 
 it, and call it a Play- of Nature, or give it some other appellation, under 
 which he arranges all the oddities that he knows not what else to do 
 with. But to some class or other of known objects he must refer it, 
 and betwixt it and them he must find out some resemblance or ether, 
 before he can get rid of that Wonder, that uncertainty and anxious 
 curiosity excited by its singular appearance, and by its dissimilitude 
 with all the objects he had hitherto observed. 
 
 As single and individual objects thus excite our Wonder when, by 
 
 22 *
 
 332 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS BECOMES STRICTER AND STRICTER. 
 
 their uncommon qualities and singular appearance, they make us un- 
 certain to what species of things we ought to refer them ; so a succes- 
 sion of objects which follow one another in an uncommon train or 
 order, will produce the same effect, though there be nothing particular 
 in any one of them taken by itself. 
 
 When one accustomed object appears after another, which it does 
 not usually follow, it first excites, by its unexpectedness, the sentiment 
 properly called Surprise, and afterwards, by the singularity of the suc- 
 cession, or order of its appearance, the sentiment properly called 
 Wonder. We start and are surprised at seeing it there, and then 
 wonder how it came there. The motion of a small piece of iron along 
 a plain table is in itself no extraordinary object, yet the person who 
 first saw it begin, without any visible impulse, in consequence of the 
 motion of a loadstone at some little distance from it, could not behold 
 it without the most extreme Surprise; and when that momentary 
 emotion was over, he would still wonder how it came to be conjoined 
 to an event with which, according to the ordinary train of things, he 
 could have so little suspected it to have any connection. 
 
 When two objects, however unlike, have often been observed to follow 
 each other, and have constantly presented themselves to the senses in 
 that order, they come to be connected together in the fancy, that the 
 idea of the one seems, of its own accord, to call up and introduce that 
 of the other. If the objects are still observed to succeed each other as 
 before, this connection, or, as it has been called, this association of 
 their ideas, becomes stricter and stricter, and the habit of the imagina- 
 tion to pass from the conception of the one to that of the other, grows 
 more and more rivetted and confirmed. As its ideas move more rapidly 
 than external objects, it is continually running before them, and there- 
 fore anticipates, before it happens, every event which falls out accord- 
 ing to this ordinary course of things. When objects succeed each other 
 in the same train in which the ideas of the imagination have thus been 
 accustomed to move, and in which, though not conducted by that chain 
 of events presented to the senses, they have acquired a tendency to go 
 on of their own accord, such objects appear all closely connected with 
 one another, and the thought glides easily along them, without effort 
 and without interruption. They fall in with the natural career of the 
 imagination ; and as the ideas which represented such a train of things 
 would seem all mutually to introduce each other, every last thought to 
 be called up by the foregoing, and to call up the succeeding ; so when 
 the objects themselves occur, every last event seems, in the same man- 
 ner, to be introduced by the foregoing, and to introduce the succeeding. 
 There is no break, no stop, no gap, no interval. The ideas excited by 
 so coherent a chain of things seem, as it were, to float through the 
 mind of their own accord, without obliging it to exert itself, or to make 
 any effort in order to pass from one of them to another.
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 333 
 
 But if this customary connection be interrupted, if one or more 
 objects appear in an order quite different from that to which the ima- 
 gination has been accustomed, and for which it is prepared, the contrary 
 of all this happens. We are at first surprised by the unexpectedness of 
 the new appearance, and when that momentary emotion is over, we still 
 wonder how it came to occur in that place. The imagination no longer 
 feels the usual facility of passing from the event which goes before to 
 that which comes after. It is an order or law of succession to which it 
 has not been accustomed, and which it therefore finds some difficulty 
 in following, or in attending to. The fancy is stopped and interrupted 
 in that natural movement or career, according to which it was proceed- 
 ing. Those two events seem to stand at a distance from each other ; 
 it endeavours to bring them together, but they refuse to unite ; and it 
 feels, or imagines it feels, something like a gap or interval betwixt 
 them. It naturally hesitates, and, as it were, pauses upon the brink of 
 this interval ; it endeavours to find out something which may fill up the 
 gap, which, like a bridge, may so far at least unite those seemingly 
 distant objects, as to render the passage of the thought betwixt them 
 smooth, and natural, and easy. The supposition of a chain of inter- 
 mediate, though invisible, events, which succeed each other in a train 
 similar to that in which the imagination has been accustomed to move, 
 and which links together those two disjointed appearances, is the only 
 means by which the imagination can fill up this interval, is the only 
 bridge which, if one may say so, can smooth its passage from the one 
 object to the other. Thus, when we observe the motion of the iron, in 
 consequence of that of the loadstone, we gaze and hesitate, and feel a 
 want of connection betwixt two events which follow one another in so 
 unusual a train. But when, with Des Cartes, we imagine certain invisi- 
 ble effluvia to circulate round one of them, and by their repeated 
 impulses to impel the other, both to move towards it, and to follow its 
 motion, we fill up the interval betwixt them, we join them together by 
 a sort of bridge, and thus take off that hesitation and difficulty which 
 the imagination felt in passing from the one to the other. That the 
 iron should move after the loadstone seems, upon this hypothesis, in 
 some measure according to the ordinary course of things. Motion 
 after impulse is an order of succession with which of all things we are 
 the most familiar. Two objects which are so connected seem, to our 
 mind, no longer to be disjointed, and the imagination flows smoothly 
 and easily along them. 
 
 Such is the nature of this second species of Wonder, which arises 
 from an unusual succession of things. The stop which is thereby given 
 to the career of the imagination, the difficulty which it finds in passing 
 along such disjointed objects, and the feeling of something like a gap 
 or interval betwixt them, constitute the whole essence of this emotion. 
 Upon the clear discovery of a connecting chain of intermediate events,
 
 334 DES CARTES ON ATTRACTION OF THE LOADSTONE. 
 
 it vanishes altogether. What obstructed the movement of the imagina- 
 tion is then removed. Who wonders at the machinery of the opera- 
 house who has once been admitted behind the scenes ? In the wonders 
 of nature, however, it rarely happens that we can discover so clearly 
 this connecting chain. With regard to a few even of them, indeed, we 
 seem to have been really admitted behind the scenes, and our wonder 
 accordingly is entirely at an end. Thus the eclipses of the sun and 
 moon, which once, more than all the other appearances in the heavens, 
 excited the terror and amazement of mankind, seem now no longer to 
 be wonderful, since the connecting chain has been found .out which 
 joins them to the ordinary course of things. Nay, in those cases in 
 which we have been less successful, even the vague hypothesis of 
 Des Cartes, and the yet more indetermined notions of Aristotle, have, 
 with their followers, contributed to give some coherence to the appear- 
 ances of nature, and might diminish, though they could not destroy, 
 their wonder. If they did not completely fill up the interval betwixt 
 the two disjointed objects, they bestowed upon them, however, some 
 sort of loose connection which they wanted before. 
 
 That the imagination feels a real difficulty in passing along two 
 events which follow one another in an uncommon order, may be con- 
 firmed by many obvious observations. If it attempts to attend beyond 
 a certain time to a long series of this kind, the continual efforts it is 
 obliged to make, in order to pass from one object to another, and thus 
 follow the progress of the succession, soon fatigue it, and if repeated 
 too often, disorder and disjoint its whole frame. It is thus that too 
 severe an application to study sometimes brings on lunacy and frenzy, 
 in those especially who are somewhat advanced in life, but whose 
 imaginations, from being too late in applying, have not got those habits 
 which dispose them to follow easily the reasonings in the abstract 
 sciences. Every step of a demonstration, which to an old practitioner 
 is quite natural and easy, requires from them the most intense applica- 
 tion of thought. 
 
 Spurred on, however, either by ambition or by admiration for the sub- 
 ject, they still continue till they become, first cpnfused, then giddy, and 
 at last distracted. Could we conceive a person of the soundest judg- 
 ment, who had grown up to maturity, and whose imagination had 
 acquired those habits, and that mould, which the constitution of things 
 in this world necessarily impresses upon it, to be all at once transported 
 alive to some other planet, where nature was governed by laws quite 
 different from those which take place here ; as he would be continually 
 obliged to attend to events, which must to him appear in the highest 
 degree jarring, irregular, and discordant, he would soon feel the same 
 confusion and giddiness begin to come upon him, which would at 
 last end" in the same manner, in lunacy and distraction. Neither, to 
 produce this effect, is it necessary that the objects should be either
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 335 
 
 great or interesting, or even uncommon, in themselves. It is sufficient 
 that they follow one another in an uncommon order. Let any one 
 attempt to look over even a game of cards, and to attend particularly 
 to every single stroke, and if he is unacquainted with the nature and 
 rules of the games ; that is, with the laws which regulate the succession 
 of the cards ; he will soon feel the same confusion and giddiness begin 
 to come upon him, which, were it to be continued for days and months, 
 would end in the same manner, in lunacy and distraction. But if the 
 mind be thus thrown into the most violent disorder, when it attends to 
 a long series of events which follow one another in an uncommon train, 
 it must feel some degree of the same disorder, when it observes even a 
 single event fall out in this unusual manner : for the violent disorder 
 can arise from nothing but the too frequent repetition of this smaller 
 uneasiness. 
 
 That it is the unusualness alone of the succession which occasions 
 this stop and interruption in the progress of the imagination as well as 
 the notion of an interval betwixt the two immediately succeeding 
 objects, to be filled up by some chain of intermediate events, is not 
 less evident. The same orders of succession, which to one set of men 
 seem quite according to the natural course of things, and such as 
 require no intermediate events to join them, shall to another appear 
 altogether incoherent and disjointed, unless some such events be sup- 
 posed : and this for no other reason, but because such orders of suc- 
 cession are familiar to the one, and strange to the other. When we 
 enter the work-houses of the most common artizans ; such as dyers, 
 brewers, distillers ; we observe a number of appearances, which pre- 
 sent themselves in an order that seems to us very strange and wonder- 
 ful. Our thought cannot easily follow it, we feel an interval betwixt 
 every two of them, and require some chain of intermediate events, to 
 fill it up, and link them together. But the artizan himself, who has 
 been for many years familiar with the consequences of all the opera- 
 tions of his art, feels no such interval. They fall in with what custom 
 has made the natural movement of his imagination : they no longer 
 excite his Wonder, and if he is not a genius superior to his profession, 
 so as to be capable of making the very easy reflection, that those 
 things, though familiar to him, may be strange to us, he will be dis- 
 disposed rather to laugh at, than sympathize with our Wonder. He 
 cannot conceive what occasion there is for any connecting events to 
 unite those appearances, which seem to him to succeed each other 
 very naturally. It is their nature, he tells us, to follow one another in 
 this order, and that accordingly they always do so. In the same man- 
 ner bread has, since the world begun been the common nourishment 
 of the human body, and men have so long seen it, every day, converted 
 into flesh and bones, substances in- all respects so unlike it, that they 
 have seldom had the curiosity to inquire by what process of interme-
 
 336 THE MIND CONFUSED BY CONTEMPLATING STRANGE EVENTS 
 
 diate events this change is brought about. Because the passage of the 
 thought from the one object to the other is by custom become quite 
 smooth and easy, almost without the supposition of any such process. 
 Philosophers, indeed, who often look for a chain of invisible objects to 
 join together two events that occur in an order familiar to all the world, 
 have endeavoured to find out a chain of this kind betwixt the two 
 events I have just now mentioned ; in the same manner as they have 
 endeavoured, by a like intermediate chain, to connect the gravity, the 
 elasticity, and even the cohesion of natural bodies, with some of their 
 other qualities. These, however, are all of them such combinations of 
 events as give no stop to the imaginations of the bulk of mankind, as 
 excite no Wonder, nor any apprehension that there is wanting the 
 strictest connection between them. But as in those sounds, which to 
 the greater part of men seem perfectly agreeable to measure and har- 
 mony, the nicer ear of a musician will discover a want, both of the most 
 exact time, and of the most perfect coincidence ; so the more practised 
 thought of a philosopher, who has spent his whole life in the study of 
 the connecting principles of nature, will often feel an interval betwixt 
 two objects, which, to more careless observers, seem very strictly con- 
 joined. By long attention to all the connections which have ever been 
 presented to his observation, by having often compared them with one 
 another, he has, like the musician, acquired, if one may so, a nicer ear, 
 and a more delicate feeling with regard to things of this nature. A.nd 
 as to the one, that music seems dissonance which falls short of the 
 most perfect harmony ; so to the other, those events seem altogether 
 separated and disjoined, which may fall short of the strictest and 
 most perfect connection. 
 
 Philosophy is the science of the connecting principles of nature 
 Nature, after the largest experience that common observation can 
 acquire, seems to abound with events which appear solitary and inco- 
 herent with all that go before them, which therefore disturb the easy 
 movement of the imagination ; which makes its ideas succeed each 
 other, if one may say so, by irregular starts and sallies; and which 
 thus tend, in some measure, to introduce those confusions and dis- 
 tractions we formerly mentioned. Philosophy, by representing the 
 invisible chains which bind together all these disjointed objects, en- 
 deavours to introduce order into this chaos of jarring and discordant 
 appearances, to allay this tumult of the imagination, and to restore it, 
 when it surveys the great revolutions of the universe, to that tone.of 
 tranquillity and composure, which is both most agreeable in itself, and 
 most suitable to its nature. Philosophy, therefore, may be regarded as 
 one of those arts which address themselves to the imagination ; and 
 whose theory and history, upon that account, fall properly within the 
 circumference of our subject. Let us endeavour to trace it, from its 
 first origin., up to that summit of perfection to which it is at present
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 337 
 
 supposed to have arrived, and to which, indeed, it has equally been 
 supposed to have arrived in almost all former times. It is the most 
 sublime of all the agreeable arts, and its revolutions have been the 
 greatest, the most frequent, and the most distinguished of all those 
 that have happened in the literary world. Its history, therefore, must, 
 upon all accounts, be the most entertaining and the most instructive. 
 Let us examine, therefore, all the different systems of nature, which, in 
 these western parts of the world, the only parts of whose history we 
 know anything, have successively been adopted by the learned and 
 ingenious; and, without regarding their absurdity or probability, their 
 agreement or inconsistency with truth and reality, let us consider them 
 only in that particular point of view which belongs to our subject ; and 
 content ourselves with inquiring how far each of them was fitted to 
 soothe the imagination, and to render the theatre of nature a more co- 
 herent, and therefore a more magnificent spectacle, than otherwise it 
 would have appeared to be. According as they have failed or succeeded 
 in this, they have constantly failed or succeeded in gaining reputation 
 and renown to their authors ; and this will be found to be the clue that 
 is most capable of conducting us through all the labyrinths of philoso- 
 phical history : for in the mean time, it will serve to confirm what has 
 gone before, and to throw light upon what is to come after, that we 
 observe, in general, that no system, how well soever in other respects 
 supported, has ever been able to gain any general credit on the world, 
 whose connecting principles were not such as were familiar to all man- 
 kind. Why has the chemical philosophy in all ages crept along in ob- 
 scurity, and been so disregarded by the generality of mankind, while 
 other systems, less useful, and not more agreeable to experience, have 
 possessed universal admiration for whole centuries together? The 
 connecting principles of the chemical philosophy are such as the gene- 
 rality of mankind know nothing about, have rarely seen, and have 
 never been acquainted with ; and which to them, therefore, are in- 
 capable of smoothing the passage of the imagination betwixt any two 
 seemingly disjointed objects. Salts, sulphurs, and mercuries, acids 
 and alkalis, are principles which can smooth things to those only who 
 live about the furnace; but whose most common operations seem, to 
 the bulk of mankind, as disjointed as any two events which the che- 
 mists would connect together by them. Those artists, however, natu- 
 rally explained things to themselves by principles that were familiar to 
 themselves. As Aristotle observes, that the early Pythagoreans, who 
 first studied arithmetic, explained all things by the properties of num- 
 bers; and Cicero tells us, that Aristoxenus, the musician, found the 
 nature of the soul to consist in harmony. In the same manner, a 
 learned physician lately gave a system of moral philosophy upon the 
 principles of his own art, in which wisdom and virtue were the health- 
 ful state of the soul ; the different vices and follies, the different diseases
 
 338 ARISTOTLE AND CICERO ON PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 to which it was subject ; in which the causes and symptoms of those 
 diseases were ascertained ; and, in the same medical strain, a proper 
 method of cure prescribed. In the same manner also, others have 
 written parallels of painting and poetry, of poetry and music, of music 
 and architecture, of beauty and virtue, of all the fine arts; systems 
 which have universally owed their origin to the lucubrations of those 
 who were acquainted with the one art, but ignorant of the other ; who 
 therefore explained to themselves the phenomena, in that which was 
 strange to them, by those in that which was familiar ; and with whom, 
 upon that account, the analogy, which in other writers gives occasion 
 to a few ingenious similitudes, became the great hinge upon which 
 every thing turned. 
 
 SECT. III. Of the Origin of Philosophy. 
 
 MANKIND, in the first ages of society, before the establishment of law, 
 order, and security, have little curiosity to find out those hidden chains 
 of events which bind together the seemingly disjointed appearances of 
 nature. A savage, whose subsistence is precarious, whose life is every 
 day exposed to the rudest dangers, has no inclination to amuse himself 
 with searching out what, when discovered, seems to serve no other 
 purpose than to render the theatre of nature a more connected spec- 
 tacle to his imagination. Many of these smaller incoherences, which 
 in the course of things perplex philosophers, entirely escape his atten- 
 tion. Those more magnificent irregularities, whose grandeur he cannot 
 overlook, call forth his amazement. Comets, eclipses, thunder, light- 
 ning, and other meteors, by their greatness, naturally overawe him, and 
 he views them with a reverence that approaches to fear. His inexpe- 
 rience and uncertainty with regard to every thing about them, how they 
 came, how they are to go, what went before, what is to come after them, 
 exasperate his sentiment into terror and consternation. But our pas- 
 sions, as Father Malbranche observes, all justify themselves ; that is, 
 suggest to us opinions which justify them. As those appearances 
 terrify him, therefore, he is disposed to believe every thing about them 
 which can render them still more the objects of his terror. That they 
 proceed from some intelligent, though invisible causes, of whose ven- 
 geance and displeasure they are either the signs or the effects, is the 
 notion of all others most capable of enhancing this passion, and is 
 that, therefore, which he is most apt to entertain. To this, too, that 
 cowardice and pusillanimity, so natural to man in his uncivilized state, 
 still more disposes him; unprotected by the laws of society, exposed, 
 defenceless, he feels his weakness upon all occasions ; his strength and 
 security upon none. 
 
 But all the irregularities of nature are not of this awful or terrible 
 kind. Some of them are perfectly beautiful and agreeable. These,
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 339 
 
 therefore, from the same impotence of mind, would be beheld with love 
 and complacency, and even with transports of gratitude ; for whatever 
 is the cause of pleasure naturally excites our gratitude. A child 
 caresses the fruit that is agreeable to it, as it beats the stone that hurts 
 it. The notions of a savage are not very different. The ancient Athe- 
 nians, who solemnly punished the axe which had accidentally been the 
 cause of the death of a man, erected altars, and offered sacrifices to the 
 rainbow. Sentiments not unlike these, may sometimes, upon such 
 occasions, begin to be felt even in the breasts of the most civilized, but 
 are presently checked by the reflection, that the things are not their 
 proper objects. But a savage, whose notions are guided altogether by 
 wild nature and passion, waits for no other proof that a thing is the 
 proper object of any sentiment, than that it excites it. The reverence 
 and gratitude, with which some of the appearances of nature inspire 
 him, convince him that they are the proper objects of reverence and 
 gratitude, and therefore proceed from some intelligent beings, who take 
 pleasure in the expressions of those sentiments. With him, therefore, 
 every object of nature, which by its beauty or greatness, its utility or 
 hurtfulness, is considerable enough to attract his attention, and whose 
 operations are not perfectly regular, is supposed to act by the direction 
 of some invisible and designing power. The sea is spread out into a 
 calm, or heaved into a storm, according to the good pleasure of Nep- 
 tune. Does the earth pour forth an exuberant harvest ? It is owing 
 to the indulgence of Ceres. Does the vine yield a plentiful ' vintage ? 
 It flows from the bounty of Bacchus. Do either refuse their presents? 
 It is ascribed to the displeasure of those offended deities. The tree 
 which now flourishes and now decays, is inhabited by a Dryad, upon 
 whose health or sickness its various appearances depend. The fountain, 
 which sometimes flows in a copious, and sometimes in a scanty stream, 
 which appears sometimes clear and limpid, and at other times muddy 
 and disturbed, is affected in all its changes by the Naiad who dwells 
 within it. Hence the origin of Polytheism, and of that vulgar super- 
 stition which ascribes all the irregular events of nature to the favour or 
 displeasure of intelligent, though invisible beings, to gods, demons, 
 witches, genii, fairies. For it may be observed, that in all polytheistic 
 religions, among savages, as well as in the early ages of heathen anti- 
 quity, it is the irregular events of nature only that are ascribed to the 
 agency and power of their gods. Fire burns, and water refreshes ; 
 heavy bodies descend, and lighter substances fly upwards, by the neces- 
 sity of their own nature ; nor was the invisible hand of Jupiter ever 
 apprehended to be employed in those matters. But thunder and 
 lightning, storms and sunshine, those more irregular events, were 
 ascribed to his favour, or his anger. Man, the only designing power 
 with which they were acquainted, never acts but either to stop or to 
 alter the course which natural events would take, if left to themselves.
 
 34 THE DRYAD, NYMPH, AND ORIGIN OF POLYTHEISM. 
 
 Those other intelligent beings, whom they imagined, but knew not, 
 were naturally supposed to act in the same manner ; not to employ 
 themselves in supporting the ordinary course of things, which went on 
 of its own accord, but to stop, to thwart, and to disturb it. And thus, 
 in the first ages of the world, the lowest and most pusillanimous super- 
 stition supplied the place of philosophy. 
 
 But when law has established order and security, and subsistence 
 ceases to be precarious, the curiosity of mankind is increased, and their 
 fears are diminished. The leisure which they then enjoy renders them 
 more attentive to the appearances of nature, more observant of her 
 smallest irregularities, and more desirous to know what is the chain 
 which links them together. That some such chain subsists betwixt all 
 her seemingly disjointed phenomena, they are necessarily led to con- 
 ceive; and that magnanimity and cheerfulness which all generous 
 natures acquire who are bred in civilized societies, where they have so 
 few occasions to feel their weakness, and so many to be conscious of 
 their strength and security, renders them less disposed to employ, for 
 this connecting chain, those invisible beings whom the fear and igno- 
 rance of their rude forefathers had engendered. Those of liberal 
 fortunes, whose attention is not much occupied either with business or 
 with pleasure, can fill up the void of their imagination, which is thus 
 disengaged from the ordinary affairs of life, no other way than by 
 attending to that train of events which passes around them. While 
 the great objects of nature thus pass in review before them, many things 
 occur in an order to which they have not been accustomed. Their 
 imagination, which accompanies with ease and delight the regular pro- 
 gress of nature, is stopped and embarrassed by those seeming inco- 
 herences ; they excite their wonder, and seem to require some chain of 
 intermediate events, which, by connecting them with something that 
 has gone before, may thus render the whole course of the universe con- 
 sistent and of a piece. Wonder, therefore, and not any expectation of 
 advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts 
 mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to 
 lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances 
 of nature ; and they pursue this study for its own sake, as an original 
 pleasure or good in itself, without regarding its tendency to procure 
 them the means of many other pleasures. 
 
 Greece, and the Greek colonies in Sicily, Italy, and the Lesser Asia, 
 were the first countries which, in these western parts of the world, 
 arrived at a state of civilized society. It was in them, therefore, that 
 the first philosophers, of whose doctrine we have any distinct account, 
 appeared. Law and order seem indeed to have been established in the 
 great monarchies of Asia and Egypt, long before they had any footing 
 in Greece : yet, after all that has been said concerning the learning of 
 the Chaldeans and Egyptians, whether there ever was in those nations
 
 SMITHS ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 341 
 
 any thing which deserved the name of science, or whether that des- 
 potism which is more destructive of security and leisure than anarchy 
 itself, and which prevailed over all the East, prevented the growth of 
 Philosophy, is a question which, for want of monuments, cannot be 
 determined with any degree of precision. 
 
 The Greek colonies having been settled amid nations either alto- 
 gether barbarous, or altogether unwarlike, over whom, therefore, they 
 soon acquired a very great authority, seem, upon that account, to have 
 arrived at a considerable degree of empire and opulence before any 
 state in the parent country had surmounted that extreme poverty, 
 which, by leaving no room for any evident distinction of ranks, is 
 necessarily attended with the confusion and misrule which flows from 
 a want of all regular subordination. The Greek islands being secure 
 from the invasion of land armies, or from naval forces, which were in 
 those days but little known, seem, upon that account too, to have got 
 before the continent in all sorts of civility and improvement. The first 
 philosophers, therefore, as well as the first poets, seem all to have been 
 natives, either of their colonies, or of their islands. It was from thence 
 that Homer, Archilochus, Stefichorus, Simonides, Sappho, Anacreon, 
 derived their birth. Thales and Pythagoras, the founders of the two 
 earliest sects of philosophy, arose, the one in an Asiatic colony, the 
 other in an island ; and neither of them established his school in the 
 mother country. 
 
 What was the particular system of either of those two philosophers, 
 or whether their doctrine was so methodized as to deserve the name of 
 a system, the imperfection, as well as the uncertainty of all the tradi- 
 tions that have come down to us concerning them, make it impossible 
 to determine. The school of Pythagoras, however, seems to have ad- 
 vanced further in the study of the connecting principles of nature, than 
 that of the Ionian philosopher. The accounts which are given of 
 Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, the successors of 
 Thales, represent the doctrines of those sages as full of the most inex- 
 tricable confusion. Something, however, that approaches to a com- 
 posed and orderly system, may be traced in what is delivered down to 
 us concerning the doctrine of Empedocles, of Archytas, of Timaeus, 
 and of Ocellus the Lucanian, the most renowned philosophers of the 
 Italian school. The opinions of the two last coincide pretty much; 
 the one, with those of Plato ; the other, with those of Aristotle ; nor do 
 those of the two first seem to have been very different, of whom the 
 one was the author of the doctrine of the Four Elements, the other the 
 inventor of the Categories; who, therefore, may be regarded as the 
 founders, the one, of the ancient Physics ; the other, of the ancient 
 Dialectic ; and, how closely these were connected will appear hereafter. 
 It was in the school of Socrates, however, from Plato and Aristotle, 
 that Philosophy first received that form, which introduced her, if one
 
 342 THE POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS NATIVES OF THE ISLANDS. 
 
 may say so, to the general acquaintance of the world. It is from them, 
 therefore, that we shall begin to give her history in any detail. What- 
 ever was valuable in the former systems, which was at all consistent 
 with their general principles, they seem to have consolidated into their 
 own. From the Ionian philosophy, I have not been able to discover 
 that they derived anything. From the Pythagorean school, both Plato 
 and Aristotle seem to have derived the fundamental principles of 
 almost all their doctrines. Plato, too, appears to have borrowed some- 
 thing from two other sects of philosophers, whose extreme obscurity 
 seems to have prevented them from acquiring themselves any extensive 
 reputation; the one was that of Cratylus and Heraclitus; the other was 
 Xenophanes, Parmenides, Melissus, and Zeno. To pretend to rescue 
 the system of any of those ante-Socratic sages, from that oblivion which 
 at present covers them all, would be a vain and useless attempt. What 
 seems, however, to have been borrowed from them, shall sometimes be 
 marked as we go along. 
 
 There was still another school of philosophy, earlier than Plato, from 
 which, however, he was so far from borrowing any thing, that he seems 
 to have bent the whole force of his reason to discredit and expose its 
 principles. This was the philosophy of Leucippus, Democratus, and 
 Protagoras, which accordingly seems to have submitted to his elo- 
 quence, to have lain dormant, and to have been almost forgotten for 
 some generations, till it was afterwards more successfully revived by 
 Epicurus. 
 
 SEC. IV. The History of Astronomy, 
 
 OF all the phenomena of nature, the celestial appearances are, by 
 their greatness and beauty, the most universal objects of the curiosity 
 of mankind. Those who surveyed the heavens with the most careless 
 attention, necessarily distinguished in them three different sorts of ob- 
 jects ; the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. These last, appearing always 
 in the same situation, and at the same distance with regard to one 
 another, and seeming to revolve every day round the earth in parallel 
 circles, which widened gradually from the poles to the equator, were 
 naturally thought to have all the marks of being fixed, like so many 
 gems, in the concave side of the firmament, and of being carried round 
 by the diurnal revolutions of that solid body: for the azure sky, in 
 which the stars seem to float, was readily apprehended, upon account 
 of the uniformity of their apparent motions, to be a solid body, the roof 
 or outer wall of the universe, to whose inside all those little sparkling 
 objects were attached. 
 
 The Sun and Moon, often changing their distance and situation, in 
 regard to the other heavenly bodies, could not be apprehended to be 
 attached to the same sphere with them. They assigned, therefore, to
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 343 
 
 each of them, a sphere of its own ; that is, supposed each of them to be 
 attached to the concave side of a solid and transparent body, by whose 
 revolutions they were carried round the earth. There was not, indeed, 
 in this case, the same ground for the supposition of such sphere as in 
 that of the Fixed Stars ; for neither the Sun nor the Moon appear to 
 keep always at the same distance with regard to any one of the other 
 heavenly bodies. But as the motion of the Stars had been accounted 
 for by an hypothesis of this kind, it rendered the theory of the heavens 
 more uniform, to account for that of the Sun and Moon in the same 
 manner. The sphere of the sun they placed above that of the Moon ; 
 as the Moon was evidently seen in eclipses to pass betwixt the Sun 
 and the Earth. Each of them was supposed to revolve by a motion of 
 its own, and at the same time to be affected by the motion of the Fixed 
 Stars. Thus, the Sun was carried round from east to west by the com- 
 municated movement of this outer sphere, which produced his diurnal 
 revolutions, and the vicissitudes of day and night ; but at the same time 
 he had a motion*of his own, contrary to this, from west to east, which 
 occasioned his annual revolution, and the continual shifting of his 
 place with regard to the Fixed Stars. This motion was more easy, they 
 thought, when carried on edgeways, and not in direct opposition to the 
 motion of the outer sphere, which occasioned the inclination of the axis 
 of the sphere of the Sun, to that of the sphere of the Fixed Stars ; this 
 again produced the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the consequent changes 
 of the seasons. The moon, being placed below the sphere of the Sun, 
 had both a shorter course to finish, and was less obstructed by the 
 contrary movement of the sphere of the Fixed Stars, from which she 
 was farther removed. She finished her period, therefore, in a shorter 
 time, and required but a month, instead of a year, to complete it. 
 
 The Stars, when more attentively surveyed, were some of them ob- 
 served to be less constant and uniform in their motions than the rest, 
 and to change their situations with regard to the other heavenly bodies ; 
 moving generally eastward, yet appearing sometimes to stand still, and 
 sometimes even, to move westwards. These, to the number of five, 
 were distinguished by the name of Planets, or Wandering Stars, and 
 marked with the particular appellations of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, yenus, 
 and Mercury. As, like the Sun and Moon, they seem to accompany 
 the motion of the Fixed Stars from east to west, but at the same time 
 to have a motion of their own, which is generally from west to east ; 
 they were each of them, as well as those two great lamps of heaven, 
 apprehended to be attached to the inside of a solid concave and trans- 
 parent sphere, which had a revolution of its own, that was almost 
 directly contrary to the revolution of the outer heaven, but which, at 
 the same time, was hurried along by the superior violence and greater 
 rapidity of this last. 
 
 This is the system of concentric Spheres, the first regular system of
 
 344 THE SUN > MOON, STARS, AND PLANETS. 
 
 Astronomy, which the world beheld, as it was taught in the Italian 
 school before Aristotle, and his two contemporary philosophers, 
 Eudoxus and Callippus, had given it all the perfection which it is 
 capable of receiving. Though rude and inartificial, it is capable of 
 connecting together, in the imagination, the grandest and the most 
 seemingly disjointed appearances in the heavens. The motions of the 
 most remarkable objects in the celestial regions, the Sun, the Moon, the 
 Fixed Stars, are sufficiently connected with one another by this hypo- 
 thesis. The eclipses of these two great luminaries are, though not so 
 easily calculated, as easily explained, upon this ancient, as upon the 
 modern system. When these early philosophers explained to their 
 disciples the very simple causes of those dreadful phenomena, it was 
 under the seal of the most sacred secrecy, that they might avoid the 
 fury of the people, and not incur the imputation of impiety, when they 
 thus took from the gods the direction of those events, which were 
 apprehended to be the most terrible tokens of their impending ven- 
 geance. The obliquity of the ecliptic, the consequent changes of the 
 seasons, the vicissitudes of day and night, and the different lengths of 
 both days and nights in the different seasons, correspond too, pretty 
 exactly, with this ancient doctrine. And if there had been no other 
 bodies discoverable in the heavens, besides the Sun, the Moon, and 
 the Fixed Stars, this hypothesis might have stood the examinations of 
 all ages and gone down triumphant to the remotest posterity. 
 
 If it gained the belief of mankind by its plausibility, it attracted 
 their wonder and admiration ; sentiments that still more confirmed 
 their belief, by the novelty and beauty of that view of nature which it 
 presented to the imagination. Before this system was taught in the 
 world, the earth was regarded as, what it appears to the eye, a vast, 
 rough, and irregular plain, the basis and foundation of the universe, 
 surrounded on all sides by the ocean, and whose roots extended them- 
 selves through the whole of that infinite depth which is below it. The 
 sky was considered as a solid hemisphere, which covered the earth, 
 and united with the ocean at the extremity of the horizon. The Sun, 
 the Moon, and all the heavenly bodies rose out of the eastern, climbed 
 up the convex side of the heavens, and descended again into the 
 western ocean, and from thence, by some subterraneous passages, 
 returned to their first chambers in the east. Nor was this notion con- 
 fined to the people, or to the poets who painted the opinions of the 
 people ; it was held by Xenophanes, founder of the Eleatic philosophy, 
 after that of the Ionian and Italian schools, the earliest that appeared 
 in Greece. Thales of Miletus too, who, according to Aristotle, repre- 
 sented the Earth as floating upon an immense ocean of water, may 
 have been nearly of the same opinion ; notwithstanding what we are 
 told by Plutarch and Apuleius concerning his astronomical discoveries, 
 all of which must plainly have been of a much later date. To those
 
 SMITH S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 345 
 
 who had no other idea of nature, besides what they derived from so 
 confused an account of things, how agreeable must that system have 
 appeared, which represented the Earth as distinguished into land and 
 water, self-balanced and suspended in the centre of the universe, sur- 
 rounded by the elements of Air and Ether, and covered by eight 
 polished and crystalline Spheres, each of which was distinguished by 
 one or more beautiful and luminous bodies, and all of which revolved 
 round their common centre, by varied, but by equable and proportion- 
 able motions. It seems to have been the beauty of this system that 
 gave Plato the notion of something like an harmonic proportion, to be 
 discovered in the motions and distances of the heavenly bodies ; and 
 which suggested to the earlier Pythagoreans, the celebrated fancy of 
 the Music of the Spheres ; a wild and romantic idea, yet such as does 
 not ill correspond with that admiration, which so beautiful a system, 
 recommended too by the graces of novelty, is apt to inspire. 
 
 Whatever are the defects which this account of things labours under, 
 they are such, as to the first observers of the heavens could not readily 
 occur. If all the motions of the Five Planets cannot, the greater part 
 of them may, be easily connected by it ; they and all their motions are 
 the least remarkable objects in the heavens ; the greater part of man- 
 kind take no notice of them at all ; and a system, whose only defect 
 lies in the account which it gives of them, cannot thereby be much dis- 
 graced in their opinion. If some of the appearances too of the Sun 
 and Moon, the sometimes accelerated and again retarded motions of 
 those luminaries but ill correspond with it ; these, too, are such as 
 cannot be discovered but by the most attentive observation, and such 
 as we cannot wonder that the imaginations of the first enquirers should 
 slur over, if one may say so, and take little notice of. 
 
 It was, however, to remedy those defects, that Eudoxus, the friend 
 and auditor of Plato, found it necessary to increase the number of the 
 Celestial Spheres. Each Planet is sometimes observed to advance 
 forward in that eastern course which is peculiar to itself, sometimes to 
 retire backwards, and sometimes again to stand still. To suppose that 
 the sphere of the planet should by its own motion, if one may say so, 
 sometimes roll forwards, sometimes roll backwards, and sometimes do 
 neither the one nor the other, is contrary to all the natural propensities 
 of the imagination, which accompanies with ease and delight any 
 regular and orderly motion, but feels itself perpetually stopped and 
 interrupted, when it endeavours to attend to one so desultory and 
 uncertain. It would pursue, naturally and of its own accord, the direct 
 or progressive movement of the Sphere, but is every now and then 
 shocked, if one may say so, and turned violently out of its natural 
 career by the retrograde and stationary appearances of the Planet, 
 betwixt which and its more usual motion, the fancy feels a want of con- 
 nection, a gap or interval, which it cannot fill up, but by supposing 
 
 23
 
 346 THE FIVE PLANETS | THE CELESTIAL SPHERES. 
 
 some chain of intermediate events to join them. The hypothesis of a 
 number of other spheres revolving in the heavens, besides those in 
 which the luminous bodies themselves were infixed, was the chain with 
 which Eudoxus endeavoured to supply it. He bestowed four of these 
 Spheres upon each of the five Planets ; one in which the luminous 
 body itself revolved, and three others above it. Each of these had a 
 regular and constant, but a peculiar movement of its own, which it 
 communicated to what was properly the Sphere of the Planet, and 
 thus occasioned that diversity of motions observable in those bodies. 
 One of these Spheres, for example, had an oscillatory motion, like the 
 circular pendulum of a watch. As when you turn round a watch, like 
 a Sphere upon its axis, the pendulum will, while turned round along 
 with it, still continue to oscillate, and communicate to whatever body 
 is comprehended within it, both its own oscillations and the circular 
 motion of the watch ; so this oscillating Sphere, being itself turned 
 round by the motion of the Sphere above it, communicated to the 
 Sphere below it, that circular, as well as its own oscillatory motions ; 
 produced by the one, the daily revolutions : by the other, the direct, 
 stationary, and retrograde appearances of the Planet, which derived 
 from a third Sphere that revolution by which it performed its annual 
 period. The motions of all these Spheres were in themselves constant 
 and equable, such as the imagination could easily attend to and pursue, 
 and which connected together that otherwise incoherent diversity of 
 movements observable in the Sphere of the Planet. The motions of 
 the Sun and Moon being more regular than those of the Five Planets, 
 by assigning three Spheres to each of them, Eudoxus imagined he 
 could connect together all the diversity of movements discoverable in 
 either. The motion of the Fixed Stars being perfectly regular, one 
 Sphere he judged sufficient for them all. So that, according to this 
 account, the whole number of Celestial Spheres amounted to twenty- 
 seven. Callippus, though somewhat younger, the contemporary of 
 Eudoxus, found that even this number was not enough to connect 
 together the vast variety of movements which he discovered in those 
 bodies, and therefore increased it to thirty-four. Aristotle, upon a yet 
 more attentive observation, found that even all these Spheres would 
 not be sufficient, and therefore added twenty-two more, which increased 
 their number to fifty-six. Later observers discovered still new motions, 
 and new inequalities, in the heavens. New Spheres were therefore 
 still to be added to the system, and some of them to be placed even 
 above that of the Fixed Stars. So that in the sixteenth century, when 
 Fracostorio, smit with the eloquence of Plato and Aristotle, and with 
 the regularity and harmony of their system, in itself perfectly beautiful, 
 though it corresponds but inaccurately with the phenomena, endea- 
 voured to revive this ancient Astronomy, which had long given place 
 to that of Ptolemy and Hipparchus, he found it necessary to multiply
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE' HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 347 
 
 the number of Celestial Spheres to seventy-two ; neither were all these 
 found to be enough. 
 
 This system had now become as intricate and complex as those 
 appearances themselves, which it had been invented to render uniform 
 and coherent. The imagination, therefore, found itself but little re- 
 lieved from that embarrassment, into which those appearances had 
 thrown it, by so perplexed an account of things. Another system, for 
 this reason, not long after the days of Aristotle, was invented by Apol- 
 lonius, which was afterwards perfected by Hipparchus, and has since 
 been delivered down to us by Ptolemy, the more artificial system of 
 Eccentric Spheres and Epicycles. 
 
 In this system, they first distinguished between the real and apparent 
 motion of the heavenly bodies. These, they observed, upon account of 
 their immense distance, must necessarily appear to revolve in circles 
 concentric with the globe of the Earth, and with one another : but that 
 we cannot, therefore, be certain that they really revolve in such circles, 
 since, though they did not, they would still have the same appearance. 
 By supposing, therefore, that the Sun and the other Planets revolved 
 in circles, whose centres were very distant from the centre of the 
 Earth ; that consequently, in the progress of their revolution, they 
 must sometimes approach nearer, and sometimes recede further from 
 it, and must to its inhabitants appear to move faster in the one case, 
 and slower in the other, those philosophers imagined they could ac- 
 count for the apparently unequal velocities of all those bodies. 
 
 By supposing, that in the solidity of the Sphere of each of the Five 
 Planets there was formed another little Sphere, called an Epicycle, 
 which revolved round its own centre, at the same time that it was 
 carried round the centre of the Earth by the revolution of the great 
 Sphere, betwixt whose concave and convex sides it was inclosed ; in the 
 same manner as we might suppose a little wheel inclosed within the 
 outer circle of a great wheel, and which whirled about several times 
 upon its own axis, while its centre was carried round the axis of the 
 great wheel, they imagined they could account for the retrograde and 
 stationary appearances of those most irregular objects in the heavens. 
 The Planet, they supposed, was attached to the circumference, and 
 whirled round the centre of this little Sphere, at the same time that it 
 was carried round the earth by the movement of the great Sphere. 
 The revolution of this little Sphere, or Epicycle, was such, that the 
 Planet, when in the upper part of it ; that is, when furthest off and least 
 sensible to the eye ; was carried round in the same direction with the 
 centre of the Epicycle, or with the Sphere in which the Epicycle was 
 inclosed : but when in the lower part, that is, when nearest and most 
 sensible to the eye ; it was carried round a direction contrary to that of 
 the centre of the Epicycle : in the same manner as every point in the 
 upper part of the outer circle of a coach-wheel revolves forward in the 
 
 23 *
 
 348 THEORY OF THE EPICYCLES THE LITTLE SPHERES. 
 
 same direction with the axis, while every point, in the lower part, 
 revolves backwards in a contrary direction to the axis. The motions 
 of the Planet, therefore, surveyed from the Earth, appeared direct, when 
 in the upper part of the Epicycle, and retrograde, when in the lower. 
 When again it either descended from the upper part to the lower, or 
 ascended from the lower to the upper, it appeared stationary. 
 
 But, though, by the eccentricity of the great Sphere, they were thus 
 able, in some measure, to connect together the unequal velocities of the 
 heavenly bodies, and by the revolutions of the little Sphere, the direct, 
 stationary, and retrograde appearances of the Planets, there was another 
 difficulty that still remained. Neither the Moon, nor the three superior 
 Planets, appear always in the same part of the heavens, when at their 
 periods of most retarded motion, or when they are supposed to be at 
 the greatest distance from the Earth. The apogeum therefore, or the 
 point of greatest distance from the Earth, in the Spheres of each of 
 those bodies, must have a movement of its own, which may carry it 
 successively through all the different points of the Ecliptic. They sup- 
 posed, therefore, that while the great eccentric Sphere revolved east- 
 wards round its centre, that its centre too revolved westwards in a 
 circle of its own, round the centre of the Earth, and thus carried its 
 apogeum through all the different points of the Ecliptic. 
 
 But with all those combined and perplexed circles ; though the 
 patrons of this system were able to give some degree of uniformity to 
 the real directions of the Planets, they found it impossible so to adjust 
 the velocities of those supposed Spheres to the phenomena, as that the 
 revolution of any one of them, when surveyed from its own centre, 
 should appear perfectly equable and uniform. From that point, the 
 only point in which the velocity of what moves in a circle can be truly 
 judged of, they would still appear irregular and inconstant, and such as 
 tended to embarrass and confound the imagination. They invented, 
 therefore, for each of them, a new Circle, called the Equalizing Circle, 
 from whose centre they should all appear perfectly equable : that is, 
 they so adjusted the velocities of these Spheres, as that, though the 
 revolution of each of them would appear irregular when surveyed from 
 its own centre, there should, however, be a point comprehended within 
 its circumference, from whence its motions should appear to cut off, in 
 equal times, equal portions of the Circle, of which that point was sup- 
 posed to be the centre. 
 
 Nothing can more evidently show how much the repose and tran- 
 quillity of the imagination is the ultimate end of philosophy, than the 
 invention of this Equalizing Circle. The motions of the heavenly 
 bodies had appeared inconstant and irregular, both in their velocities 
 and in their directions. They were such, therefore, as tended to em- 
 barrass and confound the imagination, whenever it attempted to trace 
 them. The invention of Eccentric Spheres, of Epicycles, and of the
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 349 
 
 revolution of the centres of the Eccentric Spheres, tended to allay this 
 confusion, to connect together those disjointed appearances, and to 
 introduce harmony and order into the mind's conception of the move- 
 ments of those bodies. It did this, however, but imperfectly ; it intro- 
 duced uniformity and coherence into their real directions. But their 
 velocities, when surveyed from the only point in which the velocity of 
 what moves in a Circle can be truly judged of, the centre of that Circle, 
 still remained, in some measure, inconstant as before ; and still, there- 
 fore, embarrassed the imagination. The mind found itself somewhat 
 relieved from this embarrassment, when it conceived, that how irregular 
 soever the motions of each of those Circles might appear, when sur- 
 veyed from its own centre, there was, however, in each of them, a point, 
 from whence its revolution would appear perfectly equable and uniform, 
 and such as the imagination could easily follow. Those philosophers 
 transported themselves, in fancy, to the centres of these imaginary 
 Circles, and took pleasure in surveying from thence, all those fan- 
 tastical motions, arranged, according to that harmony and order, which 
 it had been the end of all their researches to bestow upon them. Here, 
 at last, they enjoyed that tranquillity and repose which they had pur- 
 sued through all the mazes of this intricate hypothesis ; and here they 
 beheld this, the most beautiful and magnificent part of the great theatre 
 of nature, so disposed and constructed, that they could attend, with 
 delight, to all the revolutions and changes that occurred in it. 
 
 These, the System of Concentric, and that of Eccentric Spheres, 
 seem to have been the two Systems of Astronomy, that had most credit 
 and reputation with that part of the ancient world, who applied them- 
 selves particularly to the study of the heavens. Cleanthes, however, 
 and the other philosophers of the Stoical sect who came after him, 
 appear to have had a system of their own, quite different from either. 
 But though justly renowned for their skill in dialectic, and for the 
 security and sublimity of their moral doctrines, those sages seem never 
 to have had any high reputation for their knowledge of the heavens ; 
 neither is the name of any one of them ever counted in the catalogue 
 of the great astronomers, and studious observers of the Stars among 
 the ancients. They rejected the doctrine of the Solid Spheres ; and 
 maintained, that the celestial regions were filled with a fluid ether, of 
 too yielding a nature to carry along with it, by any motion of its own, 
 bodies so immensely great as the Sun, Moon, and Five Planets. These, 
 therefore, as well as the Fixed Stars, did not derive their motion from 
 the circumambient body, but had each of them, in itself, and peculiar 
 to itself, a vital principle of motion, which directed it to move with its 
 own peculiar velocity, and its own peculiar direction. It was by this 
 internal principle that the Fixed Stars revolved directly from east to 
 west in circles parallel to the Equator, greater or less, according to their 
 distance or nearness to the Poles, and with velocities so proportioned,
 
 35 THE SYSTEM OF CONCENTRIC AND ECCENTRIC SPHERES. 
 
 that each of them finished its diurnal period in the same time, in some- 
 thing less than twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes. It was, by a 
 principle of the same kind, that the Sun moved westward, for they 
 allowed of no eastward motion in the heavens, but with less velocity 
 than the Fixed Stars, so as to finish his diurnal period in twenty-four 
 hours, and, consequently, to fall every day behind them, by a space of 
 the heavens nearly equal to that which he passes over in four minutes ; 
 that is, nearly equal to a degree. This revolution of the Sun, too, was 
 neither directly westwards, nor exactly circular ; but after the Summer 
 Solstice, his motion began gradually to decline a little southwards, 
 appearing in his meridian to-day, further south than yesterday ; and 
 to-morrow still further south than to-day ; and thus continuing every 
 day to describe a spiral line round the Earth, which carried him gra- 
 dually further and further southwards, till he arrived at the Winter 
 Solstice. Here this spiral line began to change its direction, and to 
 bring him gradually, every day, further and further northwards, till it 
 again restored him to the Summer Solstice. In the same manner they 
 accounted for the motion of the Moon, and that of the Five Planets, 
 by supposing that each of them revolved westwards, but with directions 
 and velocities, that were both different from one another, and continu- 
 ally varying ; generally, however, in spherical lines, and somewhat in- 
 clined to the Equator. 
 
 This system seems never to have had the vogue. The system of 
 Concentric as well as that of Eccentric Spheres gives some sort of 
 reason, both for the constancy and equability of the motion of the 
 Fixed Stars, and for the variety and uncertainty of that of the Planets. 
 Each of them bestows some sort of coherence upon those apparently 
 disjointed phenomena. But this other system seems to leave them 
 pretty much as it found them. Ask a Stoic, why all the Fixed Stars 
 perform their daily revolutions in circles parallel to each other, though 
 of very different diameters, and with velocities so proportioned that 
 they all finish their period at the same time, and through the whole 
 course of it preserve the same distance and situation with regard to one 
 another ? He can give no other answer, but that the peculiar nature, 
 or if one may say so, the caprice of each Star directs it to move in 
 that peculiar manner. His system affords him no principle of connec- 
 tion, by which he can join together, in his imagination, so great a 
 number of harmonious revolutions. But either of the other two 
 systems, by the supposition of the solid firmament, affords this easily. 
 He is equally at a loss to connect together the peculiarities that are 
 observed in the motions of the other heavenly bodies ; the spiral 
 motion of them all ; their alternate progression from north to south, 
 and from south to north ; the sometimes accelerated, and again re- 
 tarded motions of the Sun and Moon ; the direct retrograde and 
 stationary appearances of the Planets. All these have, in his system,
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 351 
 
 no bond of union, but remain as loose and incoherent in the fancy, as 
 they at first appeared to the senses, before philosophy had attempted, 
 by giving them a new arrangement, by placing them at different dis- 
 tances, by assigning to each some peculiar but regular principle of 
 motion, to methodize and dispose them into an order that should enable 
 the imagination to pass as smoothly, and with as little embarrassment, 
 along them, as along the most regular, most familiar, and most co- 
 herent appearances of nature. 
 
 Such were the systems of Astronomy that, in the ancient world, ap- 
 pear to have been adopted by any considerable party. Of all of them, 
 the system of Eccentric Spheres was that which corresponded most 
 exactly with the appearances of the heavens. It was not invented till 
 after those appearances had been observed, with some accuracy, for 
 more than a century together; and it was not completely digested by 
 Ptolemy till the reign of Antoninus, aftqr a much longer course of ob- 
 servations. We cannot wonder, therefore, that it was adapted to a 
 much greater number of the phenomena, than either of the other two 
 systems, which had been formed before those phenomena were ob- 
 served with any degree of attention, which, therefore, could connect 
 them together only while they were thus regarded in the gross, but 
 which, it could not be expected, should apply to them when they came 
 to be considered in the detail. From the time of Hipparchus, therefore, 
 this system seems to have been pretty generally received by all those 
 who attended particularly to the study of the heavens. That astro- 
 nomer first made a catalogue of the Fixed Stars ; calculated, for six 
 hundred years, the revolutions of the Sun, Moon, and Five Planets; 
 marked the places in the heavens, in which, during all that period, each 
 of those bodies should appear ; ascertained the times of the eclipses of 
 the Sun and Moon, and the particular places of the Earth in which 
 they should be visible. His calculations were founded upon this sys- 
 tem, and as the events corresponded to his predictions, with a degree 
 of accuracy which, though inferior to what Astronomy has since arrived 
 at, was greatly superior to any thing which the world had then known, 
 they ascertained, to all astronomers and mathematicians, the preference 
 of his system, above all those which had been current before. 
 
 It was, however, to astronomers and mathematicians, only, that they 
 ascertained this ; for, notwithstanding the evident superiority of this 
 system, to all those with which the world was then acquainted, it was 
 never adopted by one sect of philosophers. 
 
 Philosophers, long before the days of Hipparchus, seem to have 
 abandoned the study of nature, to employ themselves chiefly in ethical, 
 rhetorical, and dialectical questions. Each party of them too, had by 
 this time completed their peculiar system or theory of the universe, 
 and no human consideration could then have induced them to give up 
 any part of it. That supercilious and ignorant contempt too, with
 
 352 SYSTEMS IN MANY RESPECTS RESEMBLE MACHINES. 
 
 which at this time they regarded all mathematicians, among whom 
 they counted astronomers, seems even to have hindered them from 
 enquiring so far into their doctrines as to know what opinions they 
 held. Neither Cicero nor Seneca, who have so often occasion to men- 
 tion the ancient systems of Astronomy, takes any notice of that of 
 Hipparchus. His name is not to be found in the writings of Seneca. 
 It is mentioned but once in those of Cicero, in a letter to Atticus, but 
 without any note of approbation, as a geographer, and not as an astro- 
 nomer. Plutarch, when he counts up, in his second book, concerning 
 the opinions of philosophers, all the ancient systems of Astronomy, 
 never mentions this, the only tolerable one which was known in his 
 time. Those three authors, it seems, conversed only with the writings 
 of philosophers. The elder Pliny, indeed, a man whose curiosity ex- 
 tended itself equally to every part of learning, describes the system of 
 Hipparchus, and never mentions its author, which he has occasion to 
 do often, without some note of that high admiration which he had so 
 justly conceived for his merit. Such profound ignorance in those pro- 
 fessed instructors of mankind, with regard to so important a part of 
 the learning of their own times, is so very remarkable, that I thought 
 it deserved to be taken notice of, even in this short account of the 
 revolutions of the philosophy of the ancients. 
 
 Systems in many respects resemble machines. A machine is a little 
 system, created to perform, as well as to connect together, in reality, 
 those different movements and effects which the artist has occasion 
 for. A system is an imaginary machine invented to connect together 
 in the fancy those different movements and effects which are already 
 in reality performed. The machines that are first invented to perform 
 any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding 
 artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles 
 of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be 
 more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are 
 always the most complex, and a particular connecting chain, or prin- 
 ciple, is generally thought necessary to unite every two seemingly dis- 
 jointed appearances : but it often happens, that one great connecting 
 principle is afterwards found to be sufficient to bind together all the 
 discordant phenomena that occur in a whole species of things. How 
 many wheels are necessary to carry on the movements of this imagi- 
 nary machine, the system of Eccentric Spheres ! The westward diurnal 
 revolution of the Firmament, whose rapidity carries all the other 
 heavenly bodies along with it, requires one. The periodical eastward 
 revolutions of the Sun, Moon,, and Five Planets, require, for each of 
 those bodies, another. Their differently accelerated and retarded 
 motions require, that those wheels, or circles, should neither be con- 
 centric with the Firmament, nor with one another ; which, more than 
 any thing, seems to disturb the harmony of the universe. The retro-
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 353 
 
 grade and stationary appearance of the Five Planets, as well as the 
 extreme inconstancy of the Moon's motion, require, for each of them, 
 an Epicycle, another little wheel attached to the circumference of the 
 great wheel, which still more interrupts the uniformity of the system. 
 The motion of the apogeum of each of those bodies requires, in each 
 of them, still another wheel, to carry the centres of their Eccentric 
 Spheres round the centre of the Earth. And thus, this imaginary 
 machine, though, perhaps, more simple, and certainly better adapted 
 to the phenomena than the Fifty-six Planetary Spheres of Aristotle, 
 was still too intricate and complex for the imagination to rest in it with 
 complete tranquillity and satisfaction. 
 
 It maintained its authority, however, without any diminution of re- 
 putation, as long as science was at all regarded in the ancient world. 
 After the reign of Antoninus, and, indeed, after the age of Hipparchus, 
 who lived almost three hundred years before Antoninus, the great re- 
 putation which the earlier philosophers had acquired, so imposed upon 
 the imaginations of mankind, that they seem to have despaired of ever 
 equalling their renown. All human wisdom, they supposed, was com- 
 prehended in the writings of those elder sages. To abridge, to explain, 
 and to comment upon them, and thus show themselves, at least, capable 
 of understanding some of their sublime mysteries, became now the only 
 road to reputation. Proclus and Theon wrote commentaries upon the 
 system of Ptolemy; but, to have attempted to invent a new one, would 
 then have been regarded, not only as presumption, but as impiety to the 
 memory of their so much revered predecessors. 
 
 The ruin of the empire of the Romans, and, along with it, the sub- 
 version of all law and order, which happened a few centuries afterwards, 
 produced the entire neglect of that study of the connecting principles 
 of nature, to which leisure and security can alone give occasion. After 
 the fall of those great conquerors and civilizers of mankind, the empire 
 of the Caliphs seems to have been the first state under which the world 
 enjoyed that degree of tranquillity which the cultivation of the sciences 
 requires. It was under the protection of those generous and magnifi- 
 cent princes, that the ancient philosophy and astronomy of the Greeks 
 were restored and established in the East ; that tranquillity, which their 
 mild, just, and religious government diffused over their vast empire, 
 revived the curiosity of mankind, to inquire into the connecting prin- 
 ciples of nature. The same of the Greek and Roman learning, which 
 was then recent in the memories of men, made them desire to know, 
 concerning these abstruse subjects, what were the doctrines of the so 
 much renowned sages of those two nations. 
 
 They translated, therefore, into the Arabian language, and studied, 
 with great eagerness, the works of many Greek philosophers, particu- 
 larly of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. The superiority 
 which they easily discovered in them, above the rude essays which
 
 354 ASTRONOMY ZEALOUSLY CULTIVATED BY ARAB SAVANS. 
 
 their own nation had yet had time to produce, and which were such, 
 we may suppose, as arise every where in the first infancy of science, 
 necessarily determined them to embrace their systems, particularly 
 that of Astronomy : neither were they ever afterwards able to throw off 
 their authority. For, though the munificence of the Abas sides, the 
 second race of the Caliphs, is said to have supplied the Arabian astro- 
 nomers with larger and better instruments than any that were known 
 to Ptolemy and Hipparchus, the study of the sciences seems, in that 
 mighty empire, to have been either of too short, or too interrupted a 
 continuance, to allow them to make any considerable correction in the 
 doctrines of those old mathematicians. The imaginations of mankind 
 had not yet got time to grow so familiar with the ancient systems, as 
 to regard them without some degree of that astonishment which their 
 grandeur and novelty excited ; a novelty of a peculiar kind, which had 
 at once the grace of what was new, and the authority of what was 
 ancient. They were still, therefore, too much enslaved to those sys- 
 tems, to dare to depart from them, when those confusions which shook, 
 and at last overturned the peaceful throne of the Caliphs, banished the 
 study of the sciences from that empire. They had, however, before 
 this, made some considerable improvements : they had measured the 
 obliquity of the Ecliptic, with more accuracy than had been done 
 before. The tables of Ptolemy had, by the length of time, and by the 
 inaccuracy of the observations upon which they were founded, become 
 altogether wide of what was the real situation of the heavenly bodies, 
 as he himself indeed had foretold they would do. It became necessary, 
 therefore, to form new ones, which was accordingly executed by the 
 orders of the Caliph Almamon, under whom, too, was made the first 
 mensuration of the Earth that we know off, after the commencement 
 of the Christian era, by two Arabian astronomers, who, in the plain 
 of Sennaar, measured two degrees of its circumference. 
 
 The victorious arms of the Saracens carried into Spain the learning, 
 as well as the gallantry, of the East ; and along with it, the tables of 
 Almamon, and the Arabian translations of Ptolemy and Aristotle ; and 
 thus Europe received a second time, from Babylon, the rudiments of 
 the science of the heavens. The writings of Ptolemy were translated 
 from Arabic into Latin ; and the Peripatetic philosophy was studied in 
 Averroes and Avicenna with as much eagerness and as much submis- 
 sion to its doctrines in the West, as it had been in the East. 
 
 The doctrine of the Solid Spheres had, originally, been invented, in 
 order to give a physical account of the revolutions of the heavenly 
 bodies, according to the system of Concentric Circles, to which that 
 doctrine was very easily accommodated. Those mathematicians who 
 invented the doctrine of Eccentric Circles and Epicycles, contented 
 themselves with showing, how, by supposing the heavenly bodies to 
 revolve in such orbits, the phenomena might be connected together,
 
 SMITHS ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 355 
 
 and some sort of uniformity and coherence be bestowed upon their real 
 motions. The physical causes of those motions they left to the con- 
 sideration of the philosophers ; though, as appears from some passages 
 of Ptolemy, they had some general apprehension, that they were to be 
 explained by a like hypothesis. But, though the system of Hipparchus 
 was adopted by all astronomers and mathematicians, it never was 
 received, as we have already observed, by any one sect of philosophers 
 among the ancients. No attempt, therefore, seems to have been made 
 amongst them, to accommodate to it any such hypothesis. 
 
 The schoolmen, who received, at once, from the Arabians, the philo- 
 sophy of Aristotle, and the astronomy of Hipparchus, were necessarily 
 obliged to reconcile them to one another, and to connect together the 
 revolutions of the Eccentric Circles and Epicycles of the one, by the 
 solid Spheres of the other. Many different attempts of this kind 
 were made by many different philosophers : but, of them all, that of 
 Purbach, in the fifteenth century, was the happiest and the most 
 esteemed. Though his hypothesis is the simplest of any of them, it 
 would be in vain to describe it without a scheme ; neither is it easily 
 intelligible with one ; for, if the system of Eccentric Circles and 
 Epicycles was before too perplexed and intricate for the imagination to 
 rest in it with complete tranquillity and satisfaction, it became much 
 more so, when this addition had been made to it. The world, justly 
 indeed, applauded the ingenuity of that philosopher, who could unite, 
 so happily, two such seemingly inconsistent systems. His labours, 
 however, seem rather to have increased than to have diminished the 
 causes of that dissatisfaction, which the learned soon began to feel with 
 the system of Ptolemy. He, as well as all those who had worked upon 
 the same plan before, by rendering this account of things more com- 
 plex, rendered it more embarrassing than it had been before. 
 
 Neither was the complexness of this system the sole cause of the 
 dissatisfaction, which the world in general began, soon after the days 
 of Purbach, to express for it. The tables of Ptolemy having, upon 
 account of the inaccuracy of the observations on which they were 
 founded, become altogether wide of the real situation of the heavenly 
 bodies, those of Almamon, in the ninth century, were, upon the same 
 hypothesis, composed to correct their deviations. These again, a few 
 ages afterwards, became, for the same reason, equally useless. In the 
 thirteenth century, Alphonsus, the philosophical King of Castile, 
 found it necessary to give orders for the composition of those tables, 
 which bear his name. It is he, who is so well known for the whimsical 
 impiety of using to say, that,' had he been consulted at the creation of 
 the universe, he could have given good advice ; an apophthegm which 
 is supposed to have proceeded from his dislike to the intricate 
 system of Ptolemy. In the fifteenth century, the deviation of the 
 Alphonsine tables began to be as sensible, as those of Ptolemy and
 
 356 ADVENT OF THE SYSTEM OF COPERNICUS. 
 
 Almamon had been before. It appeared evident, therefore, that, though 
 the system of Ptolemy might, in the main, be true, certain corrections 
 were necessary to be made in it before it could be brought to corres- 
 pond with exact precision to the phenomena. For the revolution of 
 his Eccentric Circles and Epicycles, supposing them to exist, could not, 
 it was evident, be precisely such as he represented them ; since the 
 revolutions of the heavenly bodies deviated, in a short time, so widely 
 from what the most exact calculations, that, were founded upon his 
 hypothesis, represented them. It had plainly, therefore, become 
 necessary to correct, by more accurate observations, both the velocities 
 and directions of all the wheels and circles of which his hypothesis is 
 composed. This, accordingly, was begun by Purbach, and carried on 
 by Regiomontanus, the disciple, the continuator, and the perfector of 
 the system of Purbach ; and one, whose untimely death, amidst innu- 
 merable projects for the recovery of old, and the invention and 
 advancement of new sciences, is, even at this day, to be regretted. 
 
 When you have convinced the world, that an established system 
 ought to be corrected, it is not very difficult to persuade them that it 
 should be destroyed. Not long, therefore, after the death of Regio- 
 montanus, Copernicus began to meditate a new system, which should 
 connect together the new appearances, in a more simple as well as a 
 more accurate manner, than that of Ptolemy. 
 
 The confusion, in which the old hypothesis represented the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies, was, he tells us, what first suggested to him the 
 design of forming a new system, that these, the noblest works of 
 nature, might no longer appear devoid of that harmony and proportion 
 which discover themselves in her meanest productions. What most of 
 all dissatisfied him, was the notion of the Equalizing Circle, which, by 
 representing the revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, as equable only, 
 when surveyed from a point that was different from their centres, 
 introduced a real inequality into their motions ; contrary to that most 
 natural, and indeed fundamental idea, with which all the authors of 
 astronomical systems, Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, even Hipparchus and 
 Ptolemy themselves, had hitherto set out, that the real motions of such 
 beautiful and divine objects must necessarily be perfectly regular, and 
 go on, in a manner, as agreeable to the imagination, as the objects 
 themselves are to the senses. He began to consider, therefore, whether, 
 by supposing the heavenly bodies to be arranged in a different order 
 from that in which Aristotle and Hipparchus has placed them, this so 
 much sought for uniformity might not be bestowed upon their motions. 
 To discover this arrangement, he examined all the obscure traditions 
 delivered down to us, concerning every other hypothesis which the 
 ancients had invented, for the same purpose. He found, in Plutarch, 
 that some old Pythagoreans had represented the Earth as revolving in 
 the centre of the universe, like a wheel round its own axi-s ; and that
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 357 
 
 others, of the same sect, had removed it from the centre, and represented 
 it as revolving in the Ecliptic like a star round the central fire. By this 
 central fire, he supposed they meant the Sun ; and though in this he was 
 very widely mistaken, it was, it seems, upon this interpretation, that he 
 began to consider how such an hypothesis might be made to correspond 
 to the appearances. The supposed authority of these old philosophers, 
 if it did not originally suggest to him his system, seems, at least, to 
 have confirmed him in an opinion, which, it is not improbable, that he 
 had beforehand other reasons for embracing, notwithstanding what he 
 himself would affirm to the contrary. 
 
 It then occurred to him, that, if the Earth was supposed to revolve 
 every day round its axis, from west to east, all the heavenly bodies 
 would appear to revolve, in a contrary direction, from east to west. 
 The diurnal revolution of the heavens, upon this hypothesis, might be 
 only apparent ; the firmament, which has no other sensible motion, 
 might be perfectly at rest ; while the Sun, the Moon, and the Five 
 Planets, might have no other movement beside that eastward revolu- 
 tion, which is peculiar to themselves. That, by supposing the Earth 
 to revolve with the Planets, round the Sun, in an orbit, which compre- 
 hended within it the orbits of Venus and Mercury, but was compre- 
 hended within those of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, he could, without 
 the embarrassment of Epicycles, connect together the apparent annual 
 revolutions of the Sun, and the direct, retrograde, and stationary ap- 
 pearances of the Planets : that while the Earth really revolved round 
 the Sun on one side of the heavens, the Sun would appear to revolve 
 round the Earth on the other; that while she really advanced in her 
 annual course, he would appear to advance eastward in that movement 
 which is peculiar to himself. That, by supposing the axis of the Earth 
 to be always parallel to itself, not to be quite perpendicular, but some- 
 what inclined to the plane of her orbit, and consequently to present to 
 the Sun, the one pole when on the one side of him, and the other when 
 on the other, he would account for the obliquity of the Ecliptic ; the 
 Sun's seemingly alternate progression from north to south, and from 
 south to north, the consequent change of the seasons, and different 
 lengths of the days and nights in the different seasons. 
 
 If this new hypothesis thus connected together all these appearances 
 as happily as that of Ptolemy, there were others which it connected 
 together much better. The three superior Planets, when nearly in con- 
 junction with the Sun, appear always at the greatest distance from the 
 Earth, are smallest, and least sensible to the eye, and seem to revolve 
 forward in their direct motion with the greatest rapidity. On the con- 
 trary, when in opposition to the Sun, that is, when in their meridian 
 about midnight, they appear nearest the Earth, are largest, and most 
 sensible to the eye, and seem to revolve backwards in their retrograde 
 motion. To explain these appearances, the system of Ptolemy supposed
 
 358 ASTRONOMICAL DETAILS OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. 
 
 each of these Planets to be at the upper part of their several Epicycles, 
 in the one case ; and at the lower, in the other. But it afforded no 
 satisfactory principle of connection, which could lead the mind easily 
 to conceive how the Epicycles of those Planets, whose spheres were so 
 distant from the sphere of the Sun, should thus, if one may say so, 
 keep time to his motion. The system of Copernicus afforded this 
 easily, and like a more simple machine, without the assistance of Epi- 
 cycles, connected together, by fewer movements, the complex appear- 
 ances of the heavens. When the superior Planets appear nearly in 
 conjunction with the Sun, they are then in the side of their orbits, which 
 is almost opposite to, and most distant from the Earth, and therefore 
 appear smallest, and least sensible to the eye. But, as they then 
 revolve in a direction which is almost contrary to that of the Earth, 
 they appear to advance forward with double velocity ; as a ship, that 
 sails in a contrary direction to another, appears from that other, to sail 
 both with its own velocity, and the velocity of that from which it is 
 seen. On the contrary, when those Planets are in opposition to the 
 Sun, they are on the same side of the Sun with the Earth, are nearest 
 it, most sensible to the eye, and revolve in the same direction with it ; 
 but, as their revolutions round the Sun are slower than that of the 
 Earth, they are necessarily left behind by it, and therefore seem to 
 revolve backwards ; as a ship which sails slower than another, though 
 it sails in the same direction, appears from that other to sail backwards. 
 After the same manner, by the same annual revolution of the Earth, he 
 connected together the direct and retrograde motions of the two inferior 
 Planets, as well as the stationary appearances of all the Five. 
 
 There are some other particular phenomena of the two inferior 
 Planets, which correspond still better to this system, and still worse to 
 that of Ptolemy. Venus and Mercury seem to attend constantly upon 
 the motion of the Sun, appearing, sometimes on the one side, and 
 sometimes on the other, of that great luminary; Mercury being almost 
 always buried in his rays, and Venus never receding above forty-eight 
 degrees from him, contrary to what is observed in the other three 
 Planets, which are often seen in the opposite side of the heavens, at 
 the greatest possible distance from the Sun. The system of Ptolemy 
 accounted for this, by supposing that the centres of the Epicycles of 
 these two Planets were always in the same line with those of the Sun 
 and the Earth ; that they appeared therefore in conjunction with the 
 Sun, when either in the upper or lower part of their Epicycles, and at 
 the greatest distance from him, when in the sides of them. It assigned, 
 however, no reason why the Epicycles of these two Planets should 
 observe so different a rule from that which takes place in those of the 
 other three, nor for the enormous Epicycle of Venus, whose sides must 
 have been forty-eight degrees distant from the Sun, while its centre 
 was in conjunction with him, and whose diameter must have covered
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 359 
 
 more than a quadrant of the Great Circle. But how easily all these 
 appearances coincide with the hypothesis, which represents those two 
 inferior Planets revolving round the Sun in orbits comprehended within 
 the orbit of the Earth, is too obvious to require an explanation. 
 
 Thus far did this new account of things render the appearances of 
 the heavens more completely coherent than had been done by any of 
 the former systems. It did this, too, by a more simple and intelligible, 
 as well as more beautiful machinery. It represented the Sun, the great 
 enlightener of the universe, whose body was alone larger than all the 
 Planets taken together, as established immovable in the centre, shed- 
 ding light and heat on all the worlds that circulated around him in one 
 uniform direction, but in longer or shorter periods, according to their 
 different distances. It took away the diurnal revolution of the firma- 
 ment, whose rapidity, upon the old hypothesis, was beyond what even 
 thought could conceive. It not only delivered the imagination from 
 the embarrassment of Epicycles, but from the difficulty of conceiving 
 these two opposite motions going on at the same time, which the system 
 of Ptolemy and Aristotle bestowed upon all the Planets ; I mean, their 
 diurnal westward, and periodical eastward revolutions. The Earth's 
 revolution round its own axis took away the necessity for supposing the 
 first, and the second was easily conceived when by itself. The Five 
 Planets, which seem, upon all other systems, to be objects of a species 
 by themselves, unlike to every thing to which the imagination has been 
 accustomed, when supposed to revolve along with the Earth round the 
 Sun, were naturally apprehended to be objects of the same kind with 
 the Earth, habitable, opaque, and enlightened only by the rays of the 
 Sun. And thus this hypothesis, by classing them in the same species 
 of things, with an object that is of all others the most familiar to us, 
 took off that wonder and that uncertainty which the strangeness and 
 singularity of their appearance had excited ; and thus far, too, better 
 answered the great end of Philosophy. 
 
 Neither did the beauty and simplicity of this system alone recom- 
 mend it to the imagination ; the novelty and unexpectedness of that 
 view of nature, which it opened to the fancy, excited more wonder and 
 surprise than the strangest of those appearances, which it had been 
 invented to render natural and familiar, and these sentiments still more 
 endeared it. For, though it is the end of Philosophy, to allay that 
 wonder, which either the unusual or seemingly disjointed appearances 
 of nature excite, yet she never triumphs so much, as when, in order to 
 connect together a few, in themselves, perhaps, inconsiderable objects, 
 she has, if I may say so, created another constitution of things, more 
 natural, indeed, and such as the imagination can more easily attend to, 
 but more new, more contrary to common opinion and expectation, than 
 any of those appearances themselves. As, in the instance before us, in 
 order to connect together some seeming irregularities in the motions of
 
 360 COPEUN'ICUS DIES BEFORE PUBLICATION OF HIS SYSTEM. 
 
 the Planets, the most inconsiderable objects in the heavens, and of 
 which the greater part of mankind have no occasion to take any notice 
 .during the whole course of their lives, she has, to talk in the hyper- 
 bolical language of Tycho-Brahe, moved the Earth from its founda- 
 tions, stopped the revolution of the Firmament, made the Sun stand 
 still, and subverted the whole order of the Universe. 
 
 Such were the advantages of this new hypothesis, as they appeared 
 to its author, when he first invented it. But, though that love of para- 
 dox, so natural to the learned, and that pleasure, which they are so apt 
 to take in exciting, by the novelties of their supposed discoveries, the 
 amazement of mankind, may, notwithstanding what one of his disciples 
 tells us to the contrary, have had its weight in prompting Copernicus 
 to adopt this system ; yet, when he had completed his Treatise of 
 Revolutions, and began coolly to consider what a strange doctrine he 
 was about to offer to the world, he so much dreaded the prejudice of 
 mankind against it, that, by a species of continence, of all others the 
 most difficult to a philosopher, he detained it in his closet for thirty 
 years together. At last, in the extremity of old age, he allowed it to be 
 extorted from him, but he died as soon as it was printed, and before 
 it was published to the world. 
 
 When it appeared in the world, it was almost universally disapproved 
 of, by the learned as well as by the ignorant. The natural prejudices 
 of sense, confirmed by education, prevailed too much with both, to 
 allow them to give it a fair examination. A few disciples only, whom 
 he himself had instructed in his doctrine, received it with esteem and 
 admiration. One of them, Reinholdus, formed, upon this hypothesis, 
 larger and more accurate astronomical tables, than what accompanied 
 the Treatise of Revolutions, in which Copernicus had been guilty of 
 some errors in calculation. It soon appeared, that these Prutenic 
 Tables, as they were called, corresponded more exactly with the 
 heavens, than the Tables of Alphonsus. This ought naturally to have 
 formed a prejudice in favour of the diligence and accuracy of Coper- 
 nicus in observing the heavens. But it ought to have formed none in 
 favour of his hypothesis; since the same observations, and the result 
 of the same calculations, might have been accommodated to the system 
 of Ptolemy, without making any greater alteration in that system than 
 what Ptolemy had foreseen, and had even foretold should be made. 
 It formed, however, a prejudice in favour of both, and the learned 
 began to examine, with some attention, an hypothesis which afforded 
 the easiest methods of calculation, and upon which the most exact 
 predictions had been made. The superior degree of coherence, which 
 it bestowed upon the celestial appearances, the simplicity and uni- 
 formity which it introduced into the real directions and velocities of 
 the Planets, soon disposed many astronomers, first to favour, and at 
 last to embrace a system, which thus connected together so happily,
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 361 
 
 the most disjointed of those objects that chiefly occupied their thoughts. 
 Nor can any thing more evidently demonstrate, how easily the learned 
 give up the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the 
 ideas of their imagination, than the readiness with which this, the most 
 violent paradox in all philosophy, was adopted by many ingenious 
 astronomers, notwithstanding its inconsistency with every system of 
 physics then known in the world, and notwithstanding the great num- 
 ber of other more real objections, to which, as Copernicus left it, this 
 account of things was most justly exposed. 
 
 It was adopted, however, nor can this be wondered at, by astro- 
 nomers only. The learned in all other sciences, continued to regard it 
 with the same contempt as the vulgar. Even astronomers were divided 
 about its merit; and many of them rejected a doctrine, which not only 
 contradicted the established system of Natural Philosophy, but which, 
 considered astronomically only, seemed, to them, to labour under 
 several difficulties. 
 
 Some of the objections against the motion of the Earth, that were 
 drawn from the prejudices of sense, the patrons of this system, indeed, 
 easily enough got over. They represented, that the Earth might really 
 be in motion, though, to its inhabitants, it seemed to be at rest ; and 
 that the Sun and Fixed Stars might really be at rest, though from the 
 Earth they seemed to be in motion ; in the same manner as a ship, 
 which sails through a smooth sea, seems to those who are in it, to be 
 at rest, though really in motion; while the objects which she passes 
 along, seem to be in motion, though really at rest 
 
 But there were some other objections, which, though grounded upon 
 the same natural prejudices, they found it more difficult to get over. 
 The earth had always presented itself to the senses, not only as at rest, 
 but as inert, ponderous, and even averse to motion. The imagination 
 had always been accustomed to conceive it as such, and suffered the 
 greatest violence, when obliged to pursue, and attend it, in that rapid 
 motion which the system of Copernicus bestowed upon it. To enforce 
 their objection, the adversaries of this hypothesis were at pains to cal- 
 culate the extreme rapidity of this motion. They represented, that the 
 circumference of the Earth had been computed to be above twenty- 
 thousand miles : if the Earth, therefore, was supposed to revolve every 
 day round its axis, every point of it near the equator would pass over 
 above twenty-three thousand miles in a day; and consequently, near a 
 thousand miles in an hour, and about sixteen miles in a minute; a 
 motion more rapid than that of a cannon ball, or even than the swifter 
 progress of sound. The rapidity of its periodical revolution was yet 
 more violent than that of its diurnal rotation. How, therefore, could 
 the imagination ever conceive so ponderous a body to be naturally en- 
 dowed with so dreadful a movement ? The Peripatetic Philosophy, 
 the only philosophy then known in the world, still further confirmed
 
 362 THE OBJECTIONS URGED AGAINST THE SYSTEM OF COPERNICUS. 
 
 this prejudice. That philosophy, by a very natural, though, perhaps, 
 groundless distinction, divided all motion into Natural and Violent. 
 Natural motion was that which flowed from an innate tendency in the 
 body, as when a stone fell downwards : Violent motion, that which 
 arose from external force, and which was, in some measure, contrary 
 to the natural tendency of the body, as when a stone was thrown up- 
 wards, or horizontally. No violent motion could be lasting ; for, being 
 constantly weakened by the natural tendency of the body, it would 
 soon be destroyed. The natural motion of the Earth, as was evident in 
 all its parts, was downwards, in a straight line to the centre ; as that of 
 fire and air was upwards, in a straight line from the centre. It was the 
 heavens only that revolved naturally in a circle. Neither, therefore, 
 the supposed revolution of the Earth round its own centre, nor that 
 round the Sun, could be natural motions ; they must therefore be vio- 
 lent, and consequently could be of no long continuance. It was in vain 
 that Copernicus replied, that gravity was, probably, nothing else besides 
 a tendency in the different parts of the same Planet, to unite themselves 
 to one another ; that this tendency took place, probably, in the parts of 
 the other Planets, as well as in those of the Earth ; that it could very 
 well be united with a circular motion ; that it might be equally natural 
 to the whole body of the Planet, and to every part of it ; that his adver- 
 saries themselves allowed, that a circular motion was natural to the 
 heavens, whose diurnal revolution was infinitely more rapid than even 
 that motion which he had bestowed upon the Earth ; that though a like 
 motion was natural to the Earth, it would still appear to be at rest to 
 its inhabitants, and all the parts of it to tend in a straight line to the 
 centre, in the same manner as at present. But this answer, how satis- 
 factory soever it may appear to be now, neither did nor could appear 
 to be satisfactory then. By admitting the distinction betwixt natural 
 and violent motions, it was founded upon the same ignorance of me- 
 chanical principles with the objection. The systems of Aristotle and 
 Hipparchus supposed, indeed, the diurnal motion of the heavenly 
 bodies to be infinitely more rapid than even that dreadful movement 
 which Copernicus bestowed upon the Earth. But they supposed, at 
 the same time, that those' bodies were objects of a quite different 
 species, from any we are acquainted with, near the surface of the 
 Earth, and to which, therefore, it was less difficult to conceive that any 
 sort of motion might be natural. Those objects, besides, had never 
 presented themselves to the senses, as moving otherwise, or with less 
 rapidity, than these systems represented them. The imagination, 
 therefore, could feel no difficulty in following a representation which 
 the senses had rendered quite familiar to it. But when the Planets 
 came to be regarded as so many Earths, the case was quite altered. 
 The imagination had been accustomed to conceive such objects as 
 tending rather to rest than motion ; and this idea of their natural inert-
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 363 
 
 ness, encumbered, if one may say so, and clogged its flight whenever it 
 endeavoured to pursue them in their periodical courses, and to con- 
 ceive them as continually rushing through the celestial spaces, with 
 such violent and unremitting rapidity. 
 
 Nor were the first followers of Copernicus more fortunate in their 
 answers to some other objections, which were founded indeed in the 
 same ignorance of the laws of motion, but which, at the same time, 
 were necessarily connected with that way of conceiving things, which 
 then prevailed universally in the learned world. 
 
 If the earth, it was said, revolved so rapidly from west to east, a 
 perpetual wind would set in from east to west, more violent than what 
 blows in the greatest hurricanes ; a stone, thrown westwards would fly 
 to a much greater distance than one thrown with the same force east- 
 wards ; as what moved in a direction, contrary to the motion of the 
 Earth, would necessarily pass over a greater portion of its surface, 
 than what, with the same velocity, moved along with it. A ball, it was 
 said, dropped from the mast of a ship under sail, does not fall precisely 
 at the foot of the mast, but behind it ; and in the same manner, a 
 stone dropped from a high tower would not, upon the supposition of the 
 Earth's motion, fall precisely at the bottom of the tower, but west of 
 it, the Earth being, in the mean time, carried away eastward from 
 below it. It is amusing to observe, by what, subtile and metaphysical 
 evasions the followers of Copernicus endeavoured to elude this objec- 
 tion, which before the doctrine of the Composition of Motion had been 
 explained by Galileo, was altogether unanswerable. They allowed, 
 that a ball dropped from the mast of a ship under sail would not fall at 
 the foot of the mast, but behind it ; because the ball, they said, was no 
 part of the ship, and because the motion of the ship was natural 
 neither to itself nor to the ball. But the stone was a part of the earth, 
 and the diurnal and annual revolutions of the Earth were natural to 
 the whole, and to every part of it, and therefore to the stone. The 
 stone, therefore, having naturally the same motion with the Earth, fell- 
 precisely at the bottom of the tower. But this answer could not satisfy 
 the imagination, which still found it difficult to .conceive how these 
 motions could be natural to the earth ; or how a body, which had 
 always presented itself to the senses as inert, ponderous, and averse to 
 motion, should naturally be continually wheeling about both its own 
 axis and the Sun, with such violent rapidity. It was, besides, argued 
 by Tycho Brahe, upon the principles of the same philosophy which 
 had afforded both the objection and the answer, that even upon the 
 supposition, that any such motion was natural to the whole body of 
 the Earth, yet the stone, which was separated from it, could no longer 
 be actuated by that motion. The limb, which is cut off from an 
 animal, loses those animal motions which were natural to the whole. 
 The branch, which is cut off from the trunk, loses that vegetative
 
 364 THE SYSTEM PROPOUNDED BY TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 motion which is natural to the whole tree. Even the metals, minerals, 
 and stones, which were dug out from the bosom of the Earth, lose 
 those motions which occasioned their production and increase, and 
 which were natural to them in their original state. Though the diurnal 
 and annual motion of the Earth, therefore, had been natural to them 
 while they were contained in its bosom, it could no longer be so when 
 they were separated from it. 
 
 Tycho Brahe, the great restorer of the science of the heavens, who 
 had spent his life, and wasted his fortune upon the advancement of 
 Astronomy, whose observations were both more numerous and more 
 accurate than those of all the astronomers who had gone before him, 
 was himself so much affected by the force of this objection, that, 
 though he had never mentioned the system of Copernicus without some 
 note of high admiration he had conceived for its author, he could 
 never himself be induced to embrace it ; yet all his astronomical obser- 
 vations tended to confirm it. They demonstrated, that Venus and 
 Mercury were sometimes above, and sometimes below the Sun ; and 
 that, consequently, the Sun, and not the Earth, was the centre of their 
 periodical revolutions. They showed, that Mars, when in his meridian 
 at midnight, was nearer to the Earth than the Earth is to the Sun ; 
 though, when in conjunction with the Sun, he was much more remote 
 from the Earth than that luminary ; a discovery which was absolutely 
 inconsistent with the system of Ptolemy, which proved, that the Sun, 
 and not the Earth, was the centre of the periodical revolutions of 
 Mars, as well as of Venus and Mercury; and which demonstrated that 
 the Earth was placed betwixt the orbits of Mars and Venus. They 
 made the same thing probable with regard to Jupiter and Saturn ; that 
 they, too, revolved round the Sun ; and that, therefore, the Sun, if not 
 the centre of the universe, was at least, that of the planetary system. 
 They proved that Comets were superior to the Moon, and moved 
 through the heavens in all possible directions ; an observation incom- 
 patible with the Solid Spheres of Aristotle and Purbach, and which, 
 therefore, overturned the physical part, at least, of the established 
 systems of Astronomy. 
 
 All these observations, joined to his aversion to the system, and 
 perhaps, notwithstanding the generosity of his character, some little 
 jealousy for the fame of Copernicus, suggested to Tycho the idea of a 
 new hypothesis, in which the Earth continued to be, as in the old 
 account, the immovable centre of the universe, round which the firma- 
 ment revolved every day from east to west, and, by some secret virtue, 
 carried the Sun, the Moon, and the Five Planets along with it, not- 
 withstanding their immense distance, and notwithstanding that there 
 was nothing betwixt it and them but the most fluid ether. But, 
 although all these seven bodies thus obeyed the diurnal revolution of 
 the Firmament, they had each of them, as in the old system, too, a
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 365 
 
 contrary periodical eastward revolution of their own, which made them 
 appear to be every day, more or less, left behind by the Firmament. 
 The Sun was the centre of the periodical revolutions of the Five 
 Planets ; the Earth, that of the Sun and Moon. The Five Planets 
 followed the Sun in his periodical revolution round the Earth, as they 
 did the Firmament in its diurnal rotation. The three superior Planets 
 comprehended the Earth within the orbit in which they revolved round 
 the Sun, and had each of them an Epicycle to connect together, in the 
 same manner as in the system of Ptolemy, their direct, retrograde, and 
 stationary appearances. As, notwithstanding their immense distance, 
 they followed the Sun in his periodical revolution round the Earth, 
 keeping always at an equal distance from him, they were necessarily 
 brought much nearer to the Earth when in opposition to the Sun, than 
 than when in conjunction with him. Mars, the neai'est of them, when 
 in his meridian at midnight, came within the orbit which the Sun 
 described round the Earth, and consequently was then nearer to the Earth 
 than the Earth was to the Sun. The appearances of the two inferior 
 Planets were explained, in the same manner, as in the system of 
 Copernicus, and consequently required no Epicycle to connect them. 
 The circles in which the Five Planets performed their periodical revo- 
 lutions round the Sun, as well as those in which the Sun and Moon 
 performed theirs round the Earth, were, as both in the old and new 
 hypothesis, Eccentric Circles, to connect together their differently 
 accelerated and retarded motions. 
 
 Such was the system of Tycho Brahe, compounded, as is evident, 
 out of these of Ptolemy and Copernicus ; happier than that of Ptolemy, 
 in the account which it gives of the motions of the two inferior Planets ; 
 more complex, by supposing the different revolutions of all the Five to 
 be performed round two different centres ; the diurnal round the Earth, 
 the periodical round the Sun, but, in every respect, more complex and 
 more incoherent than that of Copernicus. Such, however, was the 
 difficulty that mankind felt in conceiving the motion of the Earth, that 
 it long balanced the reputation of that otherwise more beautiful system. 
 It may be said, that those who considered the heavens only, favoured 
 the system of Copernicus, which connected so happily all the appear- 
 ances which presented themselves there ; but that those who looked 
 upon the Earth, adopted the account of Tycho Brahe, which, leaving 
 it at rest in the centre of the universe, did less violence to the usual 
 habits of the imagination. The learned were, indeed, sensible of the 
 intricacy, and of the many incoherences of that system ; that it gave 
 no account why the Sun, Moon, and Five Planets, should follow the 
 revolution of the Firmament; or why the Five Planets, notwithstanding 
 the immense distance of the three superior ones, should obey the 
 periodical motion of the Sun; or why the Earth, though placed between 
 the orbits of Mars and Venus ? should remain immovable in the centre
 
 366 GALILEO FIRST APPLIED TELESCOPES TO ASTRONOMY. 
 
 of the Firmament, and constantly resist the influence of whatever it 
 was, which carried bodies that were so much larger than itself, and that 
 were placed on all sides of it, periodically round the Sun. Tycho Brahe 
 died before he had fully explained his system. His great and merited 
 renown disposed many of the learned to believe, that, had his life been 
 longer, he would have connected together many of these incoherences, 
 and knew methods of adapting his system to some other appearances, 
 with which none of his followers could connect it. 
 
 The objection to the system of Copernicus, which was drawn from 
 the nature of motion, and that was most insisted on by Tycho Brahe, 
 was at last fully answered by Galileo ; not, however, till about thirty 
 years after the death of Tycho, and about a hundred after that of 
 Copernicus. It was then that Galileo, by explaining the nature of the 
 composition of motion, by showing, both from reason and experience, 
 that a ball dropped from the mast of a ship under sail would fall precisely 
 at the foot of the mast, and by rendering this doctrine, from a great 
 number of other instances, quite familiar to the imagination, took off, 
 perhaps, the principal objection which had been made to this hypo- 
 thesis of the astronomers. 
 
 Several other astronomical difficulties, which encumbered this ac- 
 count of things, were removed by the same philosopher. Copernicus, 
 after altering the centre of the world, and making the Earth, and all 
 the Planets revolve round the Sun, was obliged to leave the Moon to 
 revolve round the Earth as before. But no example of any such secon- 
 dary Planet having then been discovered in the heavens, there seemed 
 still to be this irregularity remaining in the system. Galileo, who first 
 applied telescopes to Astronomy, discovered, by their assistance, the 
 Satellites of Jupiter, which, revolving round that Planet, at the same 
 time that they were carried along with it in its revolution, round either 
 the Earth, or the Sun, made it seem less contrary to the analogy of 
 nature, that the Moon should both revolve round the Earth, and 
 accompany her in her revolution round the Sun. 
 
 It had been objected to Copernicus, that, if Venus and Mercury 
 revolved round the Sun in an orbit comprehended within the orbit of 
 the Earth, they would show all the same phases with the Moon ; present, 
 sometimes their darkened, and sometimes their enlightened sides to 
 the Earth, and sometimes part of the one, and part of the other. He 
 answered, that they undoubtedly did all this ; but that their smallness 
 and distance hindered us from perceiving it. This very bold assertion 
 of Copernicus was confirmed by Galileo. His telescopes rendered the 
 phases of Venus quite sensible, and thus demonstrated, more evidently 
 than had been done, even by the observations of Tycho Brahe, the 
 revolutions of these two Planets round the Sun, as well as so far des- 
 troyed the system of Ptolemy. 
 
 The mountains and seas, which, by the help of the same instrument,
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 367 
 
 he discovered, or imagined he had discovered in the Moon, rendering 
 that Planet, in every respect, similar to the Earth, made it seem less 
 contrary to the analogy of nature, that, as the Moon revolved round 
 the Earth, the Earth should revolve round the Sun. 
 
 The spots which, in the same manner, he discovered in the Sun, 
 demonstrating, by their motion, the revolution of the Sun round his 
 axis, made it seem less improbable that the Earth, a body so much 
 smaller than the Sun, should likewise revolve round her axis in the 
 same manner. 
 
 Succeeding telescopical observations, discovered, in each of the Five 
 Planets, spots not unlike those which Galileo had observed in the 
 Moon, and thereby seemed to demonstrate what Copernicus had only 
 conjectured, that the Planets were naturally opaque, enlightened only 
 by the rays of the Sun, habitable, diversified by seas and mountains, 
 and, in every respect, bodies of the same kind with the earth ; and 
 thus added one other probability to this system. By discovering, too, 
 that each of the. Planets revolved round its own axis, at the same time 
 that it was carried round either the Earth or the Sun, they made it 
 seem quite agreeable to the analogy of nature, that the Earth, which, 
 in every other respect, resembled the Planets, should, like them too, 
 revolve round its own axis, and at the same time perform its periodical 
 motion round the Sun. 
 
 While, in Italy, the unfortunate Galileo was adding so many proba- 
 bilities to the system of Copernicus, there was another philosopher 
 employing himself in Germany, to ascertain, correct, and improve it ; 
 Kepler, with great genius, but without the taste, or the order and 
 method of Galileo, possessed, like all his other countrymen, the most 
 laborious industry, joined to that passion for discovering proportions 
 and resemblances betwixt the different parts of nature, which, though 
 common to all philosophers, seems, in him, to have been excessive. 
 He had been instructed, by Masstlinus, in the system of Copernicus ; 
 and his first curiosity was, as he tells us, to find out, why the Planets, 
 the Earth being counted for one, were Six in number ; why they were 
 placed at such irregular distances from the Sun ; and whether there was 
 any uniform proportion betwixt their several distances, and the times 
 employed in their periodical revolutions. Till some reason, or propor- 
 tion of this kind, could be discovered, the system did not appear to 
 him to be completely coherent. He endeavoured, first, to find it in the 
 proportions of numbers, and plain figures ; afterwards, in those of the 
 regular solids ; and, last of all, in those of the musical divisions of the 
 Octave. Whatever was the science which Kepler was studying, he 
 seems constantly to have pleased himself with finding some analogy 
 betwixt it and the system of the universe ; and thus, arithmetic and 
 music, plane and solid geometry, came all of them by turns to illustrate 
 the doctrine of the Sphere, in the explaining of which he was, by his
 
 368 THE CALCULATIONS AND DISCOVERIES OF KEPLER. 
 
 profession, principally employed. Tycho Brahe, to whom he had pre- 
 sented one of his books, though he could not but disapprove of his 
 system, was pleased, however, with his genius, and with his indefatigable 
 diligence in making the most laborious calculations. That generous 
 and magnificent Dane invited the obscure and indigent Kepler to come 
 and live with him, and communicated to him, as soon as he arrived, 
 his observations upon Mars, in the arranging and methodizing of which 
 his disciples were at that time employed. Kepler, upon comparing 
 them with one another, found, that the orbit of Mars was not a perfect 
 circle ; that one of its diameters was somewhat longer than the other ; 
 and that it approached to an oval, or an ellipse, which had the Sun 
 placed in one of its foci. He found, too, that the motion of the Planet 
 was not equable ; that it was swiftest when nearest the Sun, and slowest 
 when furthest from him ; and that its velocity gradually increased, or 
 diminished, according as it approached or receded from him. The 
 observations of the same astronomer discovered to him, though not so 
 evidently, that the same things were true of all the other Planets ; that 
 their orbits were elliptical, and that their motions were swiftest when 
 nearest the Sun, and slowest when furthest from him. They showed 
 the same things, too, of the Sun, if supposed to revolve round the 
 Earth; and consequently of the Earth, if it also was supposed to 
 revolve round the Sun. 
 
 That the motions of all the heavenly bodies were perfectly circular, 
 had been the fundamental idea upon which every astronomical hypo- 
 thesis, except the irregular one of the Stoics, had been built. A circle, 
 as the degree of its curvature is every where the same, is of all curve 
 lines the simplest and the most easily conceived. Since it was evident, 
 therefore, that the heavenly bodies did not move in straight lines, the 
 indolent imagination found, that it could most easily attend to their 
 motions if they were supposed to revolve in perfect circles. It had, 
 upon this account, determined that a circular motion was the most 
 perfect of all motions, and that none but the most perfect motion could 
 be worthy of such beautiful and divine objects; and it had upon this 
 account, so often, in vain, endeavoured to adjust to the appearances, so 
 many different systems, which all supposed them to revolve in this 
 perfect manner. 
 
 The equality of their motions was another fundamental idea, which, 
 in the same manner, and for the same reason, was supposed by all the 
 founders of astronomical systems. For an equal motion can be more 
 easily attended to, than one that is continually either accelerated or 
 retarded. All inconsistency, therefore, was declared to be unworthy 
 those bodies which revolved in the celestial regions, and to be fit only 
 for inferior and sublunary things. The calculations of Kepler over- 
 turned, with regard to the Planets, both these natural prejudices of the 
 imagination ; destroyed their circular orbits; and introduced into their
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 369 
 
 real motions, such an equality as no equalizing circle would remedy. 
 It was, however, to render their motion perfectly equable, without even 
 the assistance of a equalizing circle, that Copernicus, as he himself 
 assures us, had originally invented his system. Since the calculations 
 of Kepler, therefore, overturned what Copernicus had principally in 
 view in establishing his system, we cannot wonder that they should at 
 first seem rather to embarrass than improve it. 
 
 It is true, by these elliptical orbits and unequal motions, Kepler dis- 
 engaged the system from the embarrassment of those small Epicycles, 
 which Copernicus, in order to connect the seemingly accelerated and 
 retarded movements of the Planets, with their supposed real equality, 
 had been obliged to leave in it. For it is remarkable, that though 
 Copernicus had delivered the orbits of the Planets from the enormous 
 Epicycles of Hipparchus, that though in this consisted the great 
 superiority of his system above that of the ancient astronomers, he 
 was yet obliged, himself, to abandon, in some measure, this advantage, 
 and to make use of some small Epicycles, to join together those seem- 
 ing irregularities. His Epicycles indeed, like the irregularities for 
 whose sake they were introduced, were but small ones, and the imagina- 
 tions of his first followers seem, accordingly, either to have slurred them 
 over altogether, or scarcely to have observed them. Neither Galileo, 
 nor Gassendi, the two most eloquent of his defenders, take any notice 
 of them. Nor does it seem to have been generally attended to, that 
 there was any such thing as Epicycles in the system of Copernicus, till 
 Kepler, in order to vindicate his own elliptical orbits, insisted, that 
 even, according to Copernicus, the body of the Planet was to be found 
 but at two different places in the circumference of that circle which 
 the centre of its Epicycle described. 
 
 It is true, too, that an ellipse is, of all curve lines after a circle, the 
 simplest and most easily conceived ; and it is true, besides all this, 
 that, while Kepler took from the motion of the Planets the easiest of all 
 proportions, that of equality, he did not leave them absolutely without 
 one, but ascertained the rule by which their velocities continually 
 varied ; for a genius so fond of analogies, when he had taken away 
 one, would be sure to substitute another in its room. Notwithstanding 
 all this, notwithstanding that his system was better supported by 
 observations than any system had ever been before, yet, such was the 
 attachment to the equal motions and circular orbits of the Planets, 
 that it seems, for some time, to have been in general but little attended 
 to by the learned, to have been altogether neglected by philosophers, 
 and not much regarded even by astronomers. 
 
 Gassendi, who began to figure in the world about the latter days of 
 Kepler, and who was himself no mean astronomer, seems indeed to 
 have conceived a good deal of esteem for his diligence and accuracy 
 in accommodating the observations of Tycho Brahe to the system of
 
 370 GASSENDI, DES CARTES, WARD, BOL'HJ.AUD SYSTEMS OF. 
 
 Copernicus. But Gassendi appears to have had no comprehension of 
 the importance of those alterations which Kepler had made in that 
 system, as is evident from his scarcely ever mentioning them in the 
 whole course of his voluminous writings upon Astronomy. Des Cartes, 
 the contemporary and rival of Gassendi, seems to have paid no atten- 
 tion to them at all, but to have built his Theory of the Heavens, with- 
 out any regard to them. Even those astronomers, whom a serious 
 attention had convinced of the justness of his corrections, were still so 
 enamoured with the circular orbits and equal motion, that they endea- 
 voured to compound his system with those ancient but natural preju- 
 dices. Thus, Ward endeavoured to show that, though the Planets 
 moved in elliptical orbits, which had the Sun in one of their foci, and 
 though their velocities in the elliptical line were continually varying, 
 yet, if a ray was supposed to be extended from the centre of any 
 one of them to the other focus, and to be carried along by the period- 
 ical motion of the Planet, it would make equal angles in equal times, 
 and consequently cut off equal portions of the circle of which that 
 other focus was the centre. To one, therefore, placed in that focus, 
 the motion of the Planet would appear to be perfectly circular and 
 perfectly equable, in the same manner as in the Equalizing Circles of 
 Ptolemy and Hipparchus. Thus Bouillaud, who censured this hypo- 
 thesis of Ward, invented another of the same kind, infinitely more 
 whimsical and capricious. The Planets, according to that astronomer, 
 always revolve in circles ; for that being the most perfect figure, it is 
 impossible they should revolve in any other. No one of them, how- 
 ever, continues to move in any one circle, but is perpetually passing 
 from one to another, through an infinite number of circles, in the course 
 of each revolution ; for an ellipse, said he, is an oblique section of a 
 cone, and in a cone, betwixt the two vortices of the ellipse there is an 
 infinite number of circles, out of the infinitely small portions of which 
 the elliptical line is compounded. The Planet, therefore which moves 
 in this line, is, in every point of it, moving in an infinitely small portion 
 of a certain circle. The motion of each Planet, too, according to him, 
 was necessarily, for the same reason, perfectly equable. An equable 
 motion being the most perfect of all motions. It was not, however, in 
 the elliptical line, that it was equable, but in any one of the circles 
 that were parallel to the base of that cone, by whose section this ellip- 
 tical line had been formed : for, if a ray was extended from the Planet 
 to any one of those circles, and carried along by its periodical motion, 
 it would cut off equal portions of that circle in equal times ; another 
 most fantastical equalising circle, supported by no other foundation 
 besides the frivolous connection between a cone and an ellipse, and 
 recommended by nothing but the natural passion for circular orbits 
 and equable motions. It may be regarded as the last effort of this 
 passion, and may serve to show the force of that principle which could
 
 SMITHS ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 371 
 
 thus oblige this accurate observer, and great improver of the Theory of 
 the Heavens, to adopt so strange an hypothesis. Such was the diffi- 
 culty and hesitation with which the followers of Copernicus adopted 
 the corrections of Kepler. 
 
 The rule, indeed, which Kepler ascertained for determining the 
 gradual acceleration or retardation in the movement of the Planets, 
 was intricate, and difficult to be comprehended ; it could therefore but 
 little facilitate the progress of the imagination in tracing those revolu- 
 tions which were supposed to be conducted by it. According to that 
 astronomer, if a straight line was drawn from the centre of each Planet 
 to the Sun, and carried along by the periodical motion of the Planet, 
 it would describe equal areas in equal times, though the Planet did not 
 pass over equal spaces ; and the same rule he found, took place nearly 
 with regard to the Moon. The imagination, when acquainted with the 
 law by which any motion is accelerated or retarded, can follow and 
 attend to it more easily, than when at a loss, and, as it were, wander- 
 ing in uncertainty with regard to the proportion which regulates its 
 varieties ; the discovery of this analogy therefore, no doubt, rendered 
 the system of Kepler more agreeable to the natural taste of mankind : 
 it, was, however, an analogy too difficult to be followed, or compre- 
 hended, to render it completely so. 
 
 Kepler, besides this, introduced another new analogy into the system, 
 and first discovered, that there was one uniform relation observed be- 
 twixt the distances of the Planets from the Sun, and the times em- 
 ployed in their periodical motions. He found, that their periodical 
 times were greater than in proportion to their distances, and less than 
 in proportion to the squares of those distances ; but, that they were 
 nearly as the mean proportionals betwixt their distances and the 
 squares of their distances ; or, in other words, that the squares of their 
 periodical times were nearly as the cubes of their distances ; an ana- 
 logy, which, though, like all others, it no doubt rendered the system 
 somewhat more distinct and comprehensible, was, however, as well as 
 the former, of too intricate a nature to facilitate very much the effort of 
 the imagination in conceiving it. 
 
 The truth of both these analogies, intricate as they were, was at last 
 fully established by the observations of Cassini. That astronomer first 
 discovered, that the secondary Planets of Jupiter and Saturn revolved 
 round their primaiy ones, according to the same laws which Kepler 
 had observed in the revolutions of the primary ones round the Sun, 
 and that of the Moon round the earth; that each of them described 
 equal areas in equal times, and that the squares of their periodic times 
 were as the cubes of their distances. When these two last abstruse 
 analogies, which, when Kepler at first observed them, were but little 
 regarded, had been thus found to take place in the revolutions -of the 
 Four Satellites of Jupiter, and in those of the Five of Saturn, they were
 
 372 IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES OF THE ASTRONOMER CASSINL 
 
 now thought not only to confirm the doctrine of Kepler, but to add a 
 new probability to the Copernican hypothesis. The observations of 
 Cassini seem to establish it as a law of the system, that, when one 
 body revolved round another, it described equal areas in equal times ; 
 and that, when several revolved round the same body, the squares of 
 their periodic times were as the cubes of their distances. If the Earth 
 and the Five Planets were supposed to revolve round the Sun, these 
 laws, it was said, would take place universally. But if, according to 
 the system of Ptolemy, the Sun, Moon, and Five Planets were sup- 
 posed to revolve round the Earth, the periodical motions of the Sun 
 and Moon, would, indeed, observe the first of these laws, would each 
 of them describe equal areas in equal times; but they would not ob- 
 serve the second, the squares of their periodic times would not be as 
 the cubes of their distances : and the revolutions of the Five Planets 
 would observe neither the one law nor the other. Or if, according to 
 the system of Tycho Brahe. the Five Planets were supposed to revolve 
 round the Sun, while the Sun and Moon revolved round the Earth, the 
 revolutions of the Five Planets round the Sun, would, indeed, observe 1 
 both these laws; but those of the Sun and Moon round the Earth 
 would observe only the first of them. The analogy of nature, therefore, 
 could be preserved completely, according to no other system but that 
 of Copernicus, which, upon that account, must be the true one. This 
 argument is regarded by Voltaire, and the Cardinal of Polignac, as an 
 irrefragable demonstration ; even M'Laurin, who was more capable of 
 judging, nay, Newton himself, seems to mention it as one of the prin- 
 cipal evidences for the truth of that hypothesis. Yet, an analogy of 
 this kind, it would seem, far from a demonstration, could afford, at 
 most, but the shadow of a probability. 
 
 It is true, that though Cassini supposed the Planets to revolve in an 
 oblong curve, it was in a curve somewhat different from that of Kepler. 
 In the ellipse, the sum of the two lines which are drawn from any one 
 point in the circumference to the two foci, is always equal to that of 
 those which are drawn from any other point in the circumference to 
 the same foci. In the curve of Cassini, it is not the sum of the lines, 
 but the rectangles which are contained under the lines, that are always 
 equal. As this, however, was a proportion more difficult to be com- 
 prehended by astronomers than the other, the curve of Cassini has 
 never had the vogue. 
 
 Nothing now embarrassed the system of Copernicus, but the diffi- 
 culty which the imagination felt in conceiving bodies so immensely 
 ponderous as the Earth and the other Planets revolving round the Sun 
 with such incredible rapidity. It was in vain that Copernicus pretended, 
 that, notwithstanding the prejudices of sense, this circular motion 
 might be as natural to the Planets, as it is to a stone to fall to the 
 ground. The imagination had been accustomed to conceive such ob-
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 373 
 
 jects as tending rather to rest than motion. This habitual idea of their 
 natural inertness was incompatible with that of their natural motion. 
 It was in vain that Keplqr, in order to assist the fancy in connecting 
 together this natural inertness with their astonishing velocities, talked 
 of some vital and immaterial virtue, which was shed by the Sun into 
 the surrounding spaces, which was whirled about with his revolution 
 round his own axis, and which, taking hold of the Planets, forced them, 
 in spite of their ponderousness and strong propensity to rest, thus to 
 whirl about the centre of the system. The imagination had no hold of 
 this immaterial virtue, and could form no determinate idea of what it 
 consisted in. The imagination, indeed, felt a gap, or interval, betwixt 
 the constant motion and the supposed inertness of the Planets, and 
 had in this, as in all other cases, some general idea or apprehension 
 that there must be a connecting chain of intermediate objects to link 
 together these discordant qualities. Wherein this connecting chain 
 consisted, it was, indeed, at a loss to conceive ; nor did the doctrine of 
 Kepler lend it any assistance in this respect. That doctrine, like almost 
 all those of the philosophy in fashion during his time, bestowed a name 
 upon this invisible chain, called it an immaterial virtue, but afforded 
 no determinate idea of what was its nature. 
 
 Des Cartes was the first who attempted to ascertain, precisely, 
 wherein this invisible chain consisted, and to afford the imagination a 
 train of intermediate events, which, succeeding each other in an order 
 that was of all others the most familiar to it, should unite those inco- 
 herent qualities, the rapid motion, and the natural inertness of the 
 Planets. Des Cartes was the first who explained wherein consisted 
 the real inertness of matter ; that it was not in an aversion to motion, 
 or in a propensity to rest, but in a power of continuing indifferently 
 either at rest of in motion, and of resisting, with a certain force, what- 
 ever endeavoured to change its state from the one to the other. Ac- 
 cording to that ingenious and fanciful philosopher, the whole of infinite 
 space was full of matter, for with him matter and extension were the 
 same, and consequently there could be no void. This immensity of 
 matter, he supposed to be divided into an infinite number of very small 
 cubes ; all of which, being whirled about upon their own centres, neces- 
 sarily gave occasion to the production of two different elements. The 
 first consisted of those angular parts, which, having been necessarily 
 rubbed off, and grinded yet smaller by their mutual friction, constituted 
 the most subtle and movable part of matter. The second consisted of 
 those little globules that were formed by the rubbing off of the first. 
 The interstices betwixt these globules of the second element was filled 
 up by the particles of the first. But in the infinite collisions, which 
 must occur in an infinite space filled with matter, and all in motion, it 
 must necessarily happen that many of the globules of the second ele- 
 ment should be broken and grinded down into the first. The quantity
 
 374 DES CARTES ON LAWS OF MATTER AND MOTION. 
 
 of the first element having been thus increased beyond what was suffi- 
 cient to fill up the interstices of the second, it must, in many places, 
 have been heaped up together, without any mixture of the second along 
 with it. Such, according to Des Cartes, was the original division of 
 matter. Upon this infinitude of matter thus divided, a certain quantity 
 of motion was originally impressed by the Creator of all things, and 
 the laws of motion were so adjusted as always to preserve the same 
 quantity in it, without increase, and without diminution. Whatever 
 motion was lost by one part of matter, was communicated to some 
 other; and whatever was acquired by one part of matter, was derived 
 from some other: and thus, through an eternal revolution, from rest 
 to motion, and from motion to rest, in every part of the universe, the 
 quantity of motion in the whole was always the same. 
 
 But, as there was no void, no one part of matter could be moved 
 without thrusting some other out of its place, nor that without thrusting 
 some other, and so on. To avoid, therefore, an infinite progress, he 
 supposed that the matter which any body pushed before it, rolled im- 
 mediately backwards, to supply the place of that matter which flowed 
 in behind it ; and as we may observe in the swimming of a fish, that 
 the water which it pushes before it, immediately rolls backward, to 
 supply the place of what flows in behind it, and thus forms a small 
 circle or vortex round the body of the fish. It was, in the same man- 
 ner, that the motion originally impressed by the Creator upon the 
 infinitude of matter, necessarily produced in it an infinity of greater 
 and smaller vortices, or circular streams : and the law of motion being 
 so adjusted as always to preserve the same quantity of motion in the 
 universe, those vortices either continued for ever, or by their dissolu- 
 tion gave birth to others of the same kind. There was, thus, at all 
 times, an infinite number of greater and smaller vortices, or circular 
 streams, revolving in the universe. 
 
 But, whatever moves in a circle, is constantly endeavouring to fly off 
 from the centre of its revolution. For the natural motion of all bodies 
 is Ji a straight line. All the particles of matter, therefore, in each of 
 those greater vortices, were continually pressing from the centre to the 
 circumference, with more or less force, according to the different degrees 
 of their bulk and solidity. The larger and more solid globules of the 
 second element forced themselves upwards to the circumference, while 
 the smaller, more yielding, and more active particles of the first, which 
 could flow, even through the interstices of the second, were forced 
 downwards to the centre. They were forced downwards to the centre, 
 notwithstanding their natural tendency was upwards to the circum- 
 ference ; for the same reason that a piece of wood, when plunged in 
 water, is forced upwards to the surface, notwithstanding its natural 
 tendency is downwards to the bottom; because its tendency down- 
 wards is less strong than that of the particles of water, which, therefore,
 
 SMITHS ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 375 
 
 if one may say so, press in before it, and thus force it upwards. But 
 there being a greater quantity of the first element than what was neces- 
 sary to fill up the interstices of the second, it was necessarily accumu- 
 lated in the centre of each of these great circular streams, and formed 
 there the fiery and active substance of the Sun. For, according to that 
 philosopher, the Solar Systems were infinite in number, each Fixed Star 
 being the centre of one : and he is among the first of the moderns, who 
 thus took away the boundaries of the Universe; even Copernicus and 
 Kepler, themselves, having confined it within, what they supposed, to 
 be the vault of the Firmament. 
 
 The centre of each vortex being thus occupied by the most active 
 and movable parts of matter, there was necessarily among them, a 
 more violent agitation than in any other part of the vortex, and this 
 violent agitation of the centre cherished and supported the movement 
 of the whole. But, among the particles of the first element, which fill 
 up the interstices of the second, there are many, which, from the pres- 
 sure of the globules on all sides of them, necessarily receive an angular 
 form, and thus constitute a third element of particles less fit for motion 
 than those of the other two. As the particles, however, of this third 
 element were formed in the interstices of the second, they are neces- 
 sarily smaller than those of the second, and are, therefore, along with 
 those of the first, urged down towards the centre, where, when a num- 
 ber of them happen to take hold of one another, they form such spots 
 upon the surface of the accumulated particles of the first element, as 
 are often discovered by telescopes upon the face of that Sun which 
 enlightens and animates our particular system. Those spots are often 
 broken and dispelled, by the violent agitation of the particles of the 
 first element, as has hitherto happily been the case with those which 
 have successively been formed upon the face of our Sun. Sometimes, 
 however, they encrust the whole surface of that fire which is accumu- 
 lated in the centre ; and the communication betwixt the most active 
 and the most inert parts of the vortex being thus interrupted, the 
 rapidity of its motion immediately begins to languish, and can no 
 longer defend it from being swallowed up and carried away by the 
 superior violence of some other like circular stream; and in this 
 manner, what was once a Sun, becomes a Planet. Thus, the time 
 was, according to this system, when the Moon was a body of the same 
 kind with the Sun, the fiery centre of a circular stream of ether, which 
 flowed continually round her; but her face having been crusted over 
 by a congeries of angular particles, the motion of this circular stream 
 began to languish, and could no longer defend itself from being ab- 
 sorbed by the more violent vortex of the Earth, which was then, too, a 
 Sun, and which chanced to be placed in its neighbourhood. The Moon, 
 therefore, became a Planet, and revolved round the Earth. In process 
 of time, the same fortune, which had thus befallen the Moon, befell also
 
 3 7 6 CARTESIAN EXPLANATION OF THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM. 
 
 the Earth ; its face was encrusted by a gross and inactive substance ; 
 the motion of its vortex began to languish, and it was absorbed by the 
 greater vortex of the Sun : but though the vortex of the Earth had thus 
 become languid, it still had force enough to occasion both the diurnal 
 revolution of the Earth, and the monthly motion of the Moon. For a 
 small circular stream may easily be conceived as flowing round the 
 body of the Earth, at the same time that it is carried along by that 
 great ocean of ether which is continually revolving round the Sun ; in 
 the same manner, as in a great whirlpool of water, one may often see 
 several small whirlpools, which revolve round centres of their own, and 
 at the same time are carried round the centre of the great one. Such 
 was the cause of the original formation and consequent motions of -the 
 Planetary System. When a solid body is turned round its centre, those 
 parts of it, which are nearest, and those which are remotest from the 
 centre, complete their revolutions in one and the same time. But it is 
 otherwise with the revolutions of a fluid; the parts of it which are 
 nearest the centre complete their revolutions in a shorter time, than 
 those which are remoter. The Planets, therefore, all floating, in that 
 immense tide of ether which is continually setting in from west to east 
 round the body of the Sun, complete their revolutions in a longer or a 
 shorter time, according to their nearness or distance from him. There 
 was, however, according to Des Cartes, no very exact proportion 
 observed betwixt the times of their revolutions and their distances from 
 the centre. For that nice analogy, which Kepler had discovered betwixt 
 them, having not yet been confirmed by the observations of Cassini, 
 was, as I before took notice, entirely disregarded by Des Cartes. Ac- 
 cording to him, too, their orbits might not be perfectly circular, but be 
 longer the one way than the other, and thus approach to an Ellipse. 
 Nor yet was it necessary to suppose, that they described this figure 
 with geometrical accuracy, or even that they described always precisely 
 the same figure. It rarely happens, that nature can be mathematically 
 exact with regard to the figure of the objects she produces, upon account 
 of the infinite combinations of impulses, which must conspire to the 
 production of each of her effects. No two Planets, no two animals of 
 the same kind, have exactly the same figure, nor is that of any one of 
 them perfectly regular. It was in vain, therefore, that astronomers 
 laboured to find that perfect constancy and regularity in the motions of 
 the heavenly bodies, which is to be found in no other parts of nature. 
 These motions, like all others, must either languish or be accelerated, 
 according as the cause which produces them, the revolution of the 
 vortex of the Sun, either languishes, or is accelerated ; and there are 
 innumerable events which may occasion either the one or the other of 
 those changes. 
 
 It was thus, that Des Cartes endeavoured to render familiar to the 
 imagination, the greatest difficulty in the Copernican system, the rapid
 
 SMITHS ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 377 
 
 motion of the enormous bodies of the Planets. When the fancy had 
 thus been taught to conceive them as floating in an immense ocean of 
 ether, it was quite agreeable to its usual habits to conceive, that they 
 should follow the stream of this ocean, how rapid soever. This was an 
 order of succession to which it had been long accustomed, and with 
 which it was, therefore, quite familiar. This account, too, of the motions 
 of the Heavens, was connected with avast, an immense system, which 
 joined together a greater number of the most discordant phenomena 
 of nature, than had been united by any other hypothesis; a system 
 in which the principles of connection, though perhaps equally imagi- 
 nary, were, however, more distinct and determinate, than any that had 
 been known before; and which attempted to trace to the imagination, 
 not only the order of succession by which the heavenly bodies were 
 moved, but that by which they, and almost all other natural objects, 
 had originally been produced. The Cartesian philosophy begins now 
 to be almost universally rejected, whilst the Copernican system con- 
 tinues to be universally received. Yet it is not easy to imagine, how 
 much probability and coherence this admired system was long sup- 
 posed to derive from that exploded hypothesis. Till Des Cartes had 
 published his principles, the disjointed and incoherent system of Tycho 
 Brahe, though it was embraced heartily and completely by scarce any 
 body, was yet constantly talked of by all the learned, as, in point of 
 probability, upon a level with Copernicus. They took notice, indeed, 
 of its inferiority with regard to coherence and connection, expressing 
 hopes, however, that these defects might be remedied by some future 
 improvements. But when the world beheld that complete, and almost 
 perfect coherence, which the philosophy of Des Cartes bestowed upon 
 the system of Copernicus, the imaginations of mankind could no longer 
 reiuse themselves the pleasure of going along with so harmonious 
 an account of things. The system of Tycho Brahe was every day 
 less and less talked of, till at last it was forgotten altogether. 
 
 The system of Des Cartes, however, though it connected together 
 the real motions of the heavenly bodies according to the system of 
 Copernicus, more happily than had been done before, did so only when 
 they were considered in the gross ; but did not apply to them, when 
 they were regarded in the detail. Des Cartes, as was said before, had 
 never himself observed the Heavens with any particular application. 
 Though he was not ignorant, therefore, of any of the observations 
 which had been made before his time, he seems to have paid them no 
 great degree of attention ; which, probably, proceeded from his own 
 inexperience in the study of Astronomy. So far, therefore, from accom- 
 modating his system to all the minute irregularities, which Kepler had 
 ascertained in the movements of the Planets ; or from showing, par- 
 ticularly, how these irregularities, and no other, should arise from it, 
 he contented himself with observing, that perfect uniformity could not 
 
 25
 
 37S SAGACITY AND SUPERIOR GENIUS OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 
 
 be expected in their motions, from the nature of the causes which pro- 
 duced them ; that certain irregularities might take place in them, for a 
 great number of successive revolutions, and afterwards gave way to 
 others of a different kind : a remark which, happily, relieved him from 
 the necessity of applying his system to the observations of Kepler, and 
 the other Astronomers. 
 
 But when the observations of Cassini had established the authority 
 of those laws, which Kepler had first discovered in the system, the 
 philosophy of Des Cartes, which could afford no reason why such par- 
 ticular laws should be observed, might continue to amuse the learned 
 in other sciences, but could no longer satisfy those that were skilled in 
 Astronomy. Sir Isaac Newton first attempted to give a physical 
 account of the motions of the Planets, which should accommodate 
 itself to all the constant irregularities which astronomers had ever ob- 
 served in their motions. The physical connection, by which Des 
 Cartes had endeavoured to bind together the movements of the Planets, 
 was the laws of impulse ; of all the orders of succession, those which 
 are most familiar to the imagination ; as they all flow from the inert- 
 ness of matter. After this' quality, there is no other with which we 
 are so well acquainted as that of gravity. We never act upon matter, 
 but we have occasion to observe it. The superior genius and sagacity 
 of Sir Isaac Newton, therefore, made the most happy, and, we may 
 now say, the greatest and most admirable improvement that was ever 
 made in philosophy, when he discovered, that he could join together 
 the movements of the Planets by so familiar a principle of connection, 
 which completely removed all the difficulties the imagination had 
 hitherto felt in attending to them. He demonstrated, that, if the 
 Planets were supposed to gravitate towards the Sun, and to one another, 
 and at the same time to have had a projecting force originally im- 
 pressed upon them, the primary ones might all describe ellipses in one 
 of the foci of which that great luminary was placed ; and the second- 
 ary ones might describe figures of the same kind round their respec- 
 tive primaries, without being disturbed by the continual motion of the 
 centres of their revolutions. That if the forcq, which retained each of 
 them in their orbits, was like that of gravity, and directed towards the 
 Sun, they would, each of them, describe equal areas in equal times. 
 That if this attractive power of the Sun, like all other qualities which 
 are diffused in rays from a centre, diminished in the same proportion as 
 the squares of the distances increased, their motions would be swiftest 
 when nearest the Sun, and slowest when farthest off from him, in the 
 same proportion in which, by observation, they are discovered to be ; 
 and that upon the same supposition, of this gradual diminution of their 
 respective gravities, their periodic times would bear the same propor- 
 tion to their distances, which Kepler and Cassini had established 
 betwixt them. Having thus shown, that gravity might be the connect-
 
 SMITH S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 379 
 
 ing principle which joined together the movements of the Planets, he 
 endeavoured next to prove that it really was so. Experience shows us, 
 what is the power of gravity near the surface of the Earth. That it is 
 such as to make a body fall, in the first second of its descent, through 
 about fifteen Parisian feet. The Moon is about sixty semidiameters of 
 the Earth distant from its surface. If gravity, therefore, was supposed 
 to diminish, as the squares of the distance increase, a body, at the 
 Moon, would fall towards the Earth in a minute ; that is, in sixty 
 seconds, through the same space, which it falls near its surface in one 
 second. But the arch which the Moon describes in a minute, falls, by 
 observation, about fifteen Parisian feet below the tangent drawn at the 
 beginning of it. So far, therefore, the Moon may be conceived as 
 constantly falling towards the Earth. 
 
 The system of Sir Isaac Newton corresponded to many other irregu- 
 larities which Astronomers had observed in the Heavens. It assigned 
 a reason, why the centres of the revolutions of the Planets were not 
 precisely in the centre of the Sun, but in the common centre of gravity 
 of the Sun and the Planets. From the mutual attraction of the Planets, 
 it gave a reason for some other irregularities in their motions ; irregu- 
 larities, which are quite sensible in those of Jupiter and Saturn, when 
 those Planets are nearly in conjunction with one another. But of all 
 the irregularities in the Heavens, those of the Moon had hitherto given 
 the greatest perplexity to Astronomers ; and the system of Sir Isaac 
 Newton corresponded, if possible, yet more accurately with them than 
 with any of the other Planets. The Moon, when either in conjunction, 
 or in opposition to the Sun, appears furthest from the Earth, and near- 
 est to it when in her quarters. According to the system of that philo- 
 sopher, when she is in conjunction with the Sun, she is nearer the Sun 
 than the Earth is ; consequently, more attracted to him, and, therefore, 
 more separated from the Earth. On the contrary, when in opposition 
 to the Sun, she is further from the Sun than the Earth. The Earth, 
 therefore, is more attracted to the Sun : and consequently, in this case, 
 too, further separated from the Moon. But, on the other hand, when 
 the Moon is in her quarters, the Earth and the Moon, being both at 
 equal distance from the Sun, are equally attracted to him. They would 
 not, upon this account alone, therefore, be brought nearer to one 
 another. As it is not in parallel lines however that they are attracted 
 towards the Sun, but in lines which meet in his centre, they are, 
 thereby, still further approached to one another. Sir Isaac Newton 
 computed the difference of the forces with which the Moon and the 
 Earth ought, in all those different situations, according to his theory, 
 to be impelled towards one another ; and found, that the different 
 degrees of their approaches, as they had been observed by Astrono- 
 mers, corresponded exactly to his computations. As the attraction of 
 the Sun, in the conjunctions and oppositions, diminishes the gravity of
 
 380 THE THEOKV OF GRAVITY'. ATTRACTION OF '1HE SUN. 
 
 the Moon towards the Earth, and, consequently, makes her necessarily 
 extend her orbit, and, therefore, require a longer periodical time to 
 finish it. But, when the Moon and the Earth are in that part of the 
 orbit which is nearest the Sun, this attraction of the Sun will be the 
 greatest ; consequently, the gravity of the Moon towards the Earth will 
 there be most diminished ; her orbit be most extended ; and her 
 periodic time be, -therefore, the longest. This is, also, agreeable to 
 experience, and in the very same proportion, in which, by computation, 
 from these principles, it might be expected. 
 
 The orbit of the Moon is not precisely in the same Plane with that 
 of the Earth ; but makes a very small angle with it. The points of 
 intersection with those two Planes, are called, the Nodes of the Moon. 
 These Nodes of the Moon are in continual motion, and in eighteen or 
 nineteen years, revolve backwards, from east to west, through all the 
 different points of the Ecliptic. For the Moon, after having finished 
 her periodical revolution, generally intersects the orbit of the Earth 
 somewhat behind the point where she had intersected it before. But, 
 though the motion of the Nodes is thus generally retrograde, it is not 
 always so, but is sometimes direct, and sometimes they appear even 
 stationary ; the Moon generally intersects the Plane of the Earth's 
 orbit behind the point where she had intersected it in her former revo- 
 lution ; but she sometimes intersects it before that point, and some- 
 times in the very same point. It is the situation of those Nodes which 
 determines the times of Eclipses, and their motions had, upon this 
 account, at all times,- been particularly attended to by Astronomers. 
 Nothing, however, had perplexed them more, than to account for these 
 so inconsistent motions, and, at the same time, preserve their so much 
 sought-for regularity in the revolutions of the Moon. For they had no 
 other means of connecting the appearances together than by supposing 
 the motions which produced them, to be, in reality, perfectly regular 
 and equable. The history of Astronomy, therefore, gives an account 
 of a greater number of theories invented for connecting together the 
 motions of the Moon, than for connecting together those of all the 
 other heavenly bodies taken together. The theory of gravity, con- 
 nected together, in the most accurate manner, by the different actions 
 of the Sun and the Earth, all those irregular motions ; and it appears, 
 by calculation, that the time, the quantity, and the duration of those 
 direct and retrograde motions of the Nodes, as well as of their station- 
 ary appearances, might be expected to be exactly such, as the observa- 
 tions of Astronomers have determined them. 
 
 The same principle, the attraction of the Sun, which thus accounts 
 for the motions of the Nodes, connects, too, another very perplexing 
 irregularity in the appearances of the Moon ; the perpetual variation 
 in the inclination of her orbit to that of the Earth. 
 
 As the Moon revolves in an ellipse, which has the centre of the
 
 SMITH'S KSSAV ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMV. 381 
 
 Earth in one of its foci, the longer axis of its orbit is called the Line of 
 its Apsides. This line is found, by observation, not to be always 
 directed towards the same points of the Firmament, but to revolve 
 forwards from west to east, so as to pass through all the points of the 
 Ecliptic, and to complete its period in about nine years ; another 
 irregularity, which had very much perplexed Astronomers, but which 
 the theory of gravity sufficiently accounted for. 
 
 The Earth had hitherto been regarded as perfectly globular, prob- 
 ably for the same reason which had made men imagine, that the orbits 
 of the Planets must necessarily be perfectly circular. But Sir Isaac 
 Newton, from mechanical principles, concluded, that, as the parts of 
 the Earth must be more agitated by her diurnal revolution at the 
 Equator, than at the Poles, they must necessarily be somewhat elevated 
 at the first, and flattened at the second. The observation, that the oscil- 
 lations of pendulums were slower at the Equator than at the Poles, seem- 
 ing to demonstrate, that gravity was stronger at the Poles, and weaker 
 at the Equator, proved, he thought, that the Equator was further from 
 the centre than the Poles. All the measures, however, which had 
 hitherto been made of the Earth, seemed to show the contrary, that it 
 was drawn out towards the Poles, and flattened towards the Equator. 
 Newton, however, preferred his mechanical computations to the former 
 measures of Geographers and Astronomers ; and in this he was con- 
 firmed by the observations of Astronomers on the figure of Jupiter, whose 
 diameter at the Pole seems to be to his diameter at the Equator, as 
 twelve to thirteen ; a much greater inequality than could be supposed 
 to take place betwixt the correspondent diameters of the Earth, but 
 which was exactly proportioned to the superior bulk of Jupiter, and the 
 superior rapidity with which he performs his diurnal revolutions. The 
 observations of Astronomers at Lapland and Peru have fully confirmed 
 Sir Isaac's system, and have not only demonstrated, that the figure of 
 the Earth is, in general, such as he supposed it ; but that the propor- 
 tion of its axis to the diameter of its Equator is almost precisely such 
 as he had computed it. And of all the proofs that have ever been 
 adduced of the diurnal revolution of the Earth, this perhaps is the 
 most solid and most satisfactory. 
 
 Hipparchus, by comparing his own observations with those of some 
 former Astronomers, had found that the equinoctial points were not 
 always opposite to the same part of the Heavens, but that they ad- 
 vanced gradually eastward by so slow a motion, as to be scarce sen- 
 sible in one hundred years, and which would require thirty-six thousand 
 to make a complete revolution of the Equinoxes, and to carry them 
 successively through all the different points of the Ecliptic. More 
 accurate observations discovered that this procession of the Equinoxes 
 was not so slow as Hipparchus had imagined it, and that it required 
 somewhat less than twenty-six thousand years to give them a complete
 
 382 THEORIES OF ASTRONOMERS ON COMETS. 
 
 revolution. While the ancient system of Astronomy, which represented 
 the Earth as the immovable centre of the universe, took place, this 
 appearance was necessarily accounted for, by supposing that the Firma- 
 ment, besides its rapid diurnal revolution round the poles of the Equa- 
 tor, had likewise a slow periodical one round those of the Ecliptic. 
 And when the system of Hipparchus was by the schoolmen united 
 with the solid Spheres of Aristotle, they placed a new crystalline 
 Sphere above the Firmament, in order to join this motion to the rest. 
 In the Copernican system, this appearance had hitherto been con- 
 nected with the other parts of that hypothesis, by supposing a small 
 revolution in the Earth's axis from east to west. Sir Isaac Newton 
 connected this motion by the same principle of gravity, by which he 
 had united all the others, and showed, how the elevation of the parts 
 of the Earth at the Equator must, by the attraction of the Sun, pro- 
 duce the same retrograde motion of the Nodes of the Ecliptic, which 
 it produced of the Nodes of the Moon. He computed the quantity of 
 motion which could arise from this action of the Sun, and his calculations 
 here too corresponded with the observations of Astronomers. 
 
 Comets have hitherto, of. all the appearances in the Heavens, been 
 the least attended to by Astronomers. The rarity and inconstancy of 
 their appearance, seemed to separate them entirely from the constant, 
 regular, and uniform objects in the Heavens, and to make them 
 resemble more the inconstant, transitory, and accidental phenomena of 
 those regions that are in the neighbourhood of the Earth. Aristotle, 
 Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and Purbach, therefore, had all de- 
 graded them below the Moon, and ranked them among the meteors of 
 the upper regions of the air. The observations of Tycho Brahe 
 demonstrated, that they ascended into the celestial regions, and were 
 often higher than Venus or the Sun. Des Cartes, at random, supposed 
 them to be always higher than even the orbit of Saturn ; and seems, 
 by the superior elevation he thus bestowed upon them, to have been 
 willing to compensate that unjust degradation which they had suffered 
 for so many ages before. The observations of some later Astronomers 
 demonstrated, that they too revolved about the Sun, and might there- 
 fore be parts of the Solar System. Newton accordingly applied his 
 mechanical principle of gravity to explain the motions of these bodies. 
 That they described equal areas in equal times, had been discovered 
 by the observations of some later Astronomers ; and Newton endea- 
 voured to show how from this principle, and those observations, the 
 nature and position of their several orbits might be ascertained, and 
 their periodic times determined. His followers have, from his principles, 
 ventured even to predict the returns of several of them, particularly of one 
 which is to make its appearance in 1758.* We must wait for that time 
 
 * It must be observed, that the whole of this Essay was written previous to the date here 
 mentioned ; and that the return of the comet happened agreeably to the prediction.
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 383 
 
 before we can determine, whether his philosophy corresponds as happily 
 to this part of the system as to all the others. In the meantime, how- 
 ever, the ductility of this principle, which applied itself so happily to 
 these, the most irregular of all the celestial appearances, and which has 
 introduced such complete coherence into the motions of all the Hea- 
 venly Bodies, has served not a little to recommend it to the imagina- 
 tions of mankind. 
 
 But of all the attempts of the Newtonian philosophy, that which 
 would appear to be the most above the reach of human reason and 
 experience, is the attempt to compute the weights and densities of the 
 Sun, and of the several Planets. An attempt, however, which was in- 
 dispensably necessary to complete the coherence of the Newtonian 
 system. The power of attraction which, according to the theory of 
 gravity, each body possesses, is in proportion to the quantity of matter 
 contained in that body. But the periodic time in which one body, at a 
 given distance, revolves round another that .attracts it, is shorter in 
 proportion as this power is greater, and consequently as the quantity 
 of matter in the attracting body. If the densities of Jupiter and Saturn 
 were the same with that of the Earth, the periodic times of their several 
 Satellites would be shorter than by observation they are found to be. 
 Because the quantity of matter, and consequently the attracting power 
 of each of them, would be as the cubes of their diameters. By com- 
 paring the bulks of those Planets, and the periodic times of their 
 Satellites, it is found that, upon the hypothesis of gravity, the density 
 of Jupiter must be greater than that of Saturn, and the density of the 
 Earth greater than that of Jupiter. This seems to establish it as a law 
 in the system, that the nearer the several Planets approach to the Sun, 
 the density of their matter is the greater : a constitution of things which 
 seems to be the most advantageous of any that could have been estab- 
 lished ; as water of the same density with that of our Earth, would freeze 
 under the Equator of Saturn, and boil under that of Mercury. 
 
 Such is the system of Sir Isaac Newton, a system whose parts are 
 all more strictly connected together, than those of any other philoso- 
 phical hypothesis. Allow his principle, the universality of gravity, and 
 that it decreases as the squares of the distance increase, and all the 
 appearances, which he joins together by it, necessarily follow. Neither 
 is their connection merely a general and loose connection, as that of 
 most other systems, in which either these appearances, or some such 
 like appearances, might indifferently have been expected. It is every- 
 where the most precise and particular that can be imagined, and ascer- 
 tains the time, the place, the quantity, the duration of each individual 
 phenomenon, to be exactly such as, by observation, they have been 
 determined to be. Neither are the principles of union, which it em- 
 ploys, such as the imagination can find any difficulty in going along 
 with. The gravity of matter is, of all its qualities, after its inertness,
 
 384 THE DISCOVERIES OF NEWTON THE CK^ATEST MADE PA' MAN. 
 
 that which is most familiar to us. We never act upon it without having 
 occasion to observe this property. The law too, by which it is supposed 
 to diminish as it recedes from its centre, is the same which takes place 
 in all other qualities which are propagated in rays from a centre, in 
 light, and in every thing else of the same kind. It is such, that we not 
 only find that it does take place in all such qualities, but we arc neces- 
 sarily determined to conceive that, from the nature of the thing, it 
 must take place. The opposition which was made in France, and in 
 some other foreign nations, to the prevalence of this system, did not 
 arise from any difficulty which mankind naturally felt in conceiving 
 gravity as an original and primary mover in the constitution of the 
 universe. The Cartesian system, which had prevailed so generally 
 before it, had accustomed mankind to conceive motion as never begin- 
 ning, but in consequence of impulse, and had connected the descent of 
 heavy bodies, near the surface of the Earth, and the other Planets, by 
 this more general bond of union ; and it was the attachment the world 
 had conceived for this account of things, which indisposed them to 
 that of Sir Isaac Newton. His system, however, now prevails over all 
 opposition, and has advanced to the acquisition of the most universal 
 empire that was ever established in philosophy. His principles, it. 
 must be acknowledged, have a degree of firmness and solidity that we 
 should in vain look for in any other system. The most sceptical can- 
 not avoid feeling this. They not only connect together most perfectly 
 all the phenomena of the Heavens, which had been observed before 
 his time ; but those also which the persevering industry and more per- 
 fect instruments of later Astronomers have made known to us have 
 been either easily and immediately explained by the application of his 
 principles, or have been explained in consequence of more laborious 
 and accurate calculations from these principles, than had been insti- 
 tuted before. And even we, while we have been endeavouring to re- 
 present all philosophical systems as mere inventions of the imagination, 
 to connect together the otherwise disjointed and discordant phenomena 
 of Nature, have insensibly been drawn in, to make use of language ex- 
 pressing the connecting principles of this one, as if they were the real 
 chains which Nature makes use of to bind together her several opera- 
 tions. Can we wonder then, that it should have gained the general 
 and complete approbation of mankind, and that it should now be con- 
 sidered, not as an attempt to connect in the imagination the pheno- 
 mena of the Heavens, but as the greatest discovery that ever was made 
 by man, the discovery of an immense chain of the most important and 
 sublime truths, all closely connected -together, by one capital fact, of 
 the reality of which we have daily experience. 
 
 ******** 
 * * # * * * #-#
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ANCIF.XT PHYSICS. 385 
 
 Note by the Editors. 
 
 The Author, at the end of this Essay, left some Notes and Memo- 
 randums, from which it appears, that he considered this last part of 
 his History of Astronomy as imperfect, and needing several additions. 
 The Editors, however, chose rather to publish than suppress, it. It 
 must be viewed, not as a History or Account of Sir Isaac Newton's 
 Astronomy, but chiefly as an additional illustration of those Principles 
 in the Human Mind which Mr. Smith has pointed out to be the uni- 
 versal motives of Philosophical Researches. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRIES; 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THE 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT PHYSICS. 
 
 FROM arranging and methodizing the System of the Heavens, Philo- 
 sophy descended to the consideration of the inferior parts of Nature, 
 of the Earth, and of the bodies which immediately surround it. If the 
 objects, which were here presented to its view, were inferior in great- 
 ness or beauty, and therefore less apt to attract the attention of the 
 mind, they were more apt, when they came to be attended to, to em- 
 barrass and perplex it, by the variety of their species, and by the 
 intricacy and seeming irregularity of the laws or orders of their suc- 
 cession. The species of objects in the Heavens are few in number ; 
 the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and the P'ixed Stars, are all which 
 those philosophers could distinguish. All the changes too, which are 
 ever observed in these bodies, evidently arise from some difference in 
 the velocity and direction of their several motions ; but the variety of 
 meteors in the air, of clouds, rainbows, thunder, lightning, winds, rain, 
 hail, snow, is vastly greater; and the order of their succession seems to 
 be still more irregular and inconstant. The species of fossils, minerals, 
 plants, animals, which are found in the Waters, and near the surface of 
 the Earth, are still more intricately diversified ; and if we regard the
 
 386 THE ELEMENTS OF EARTH, WATER, FIRE AND AIR. 
 
 different manners of their production, their mutual influence in altering, 
 destroying, supporting one another, the orders of their succession seem 
 to admit of an almost infinite variety. If the imagination, therefore, 
 when it considered the appearances in the Heavens, was often per- 
 plexed, and driven out of its natural career, it would be much more 
 exposed to the same embarrassment, when it directed its attention to 
 the objects which the Earth presented to it, and when it endeavoured 
 to trace their progress and successive revolutions. 
 
 To introduce order and coherence into the mind's conception of this 
 seeming chaos of dissimilar and disjointed appearances, it was neces- 
 sary to deduce all their qualities, operations, and laws of succession, 
 from those of some particular things, with which it was perfectly ac- 
 quainted and familiar, and along which its imagination could glide 
 smoothly and easily, and without interruption. But as we would in 
 vain attempt to deduce the heat of a stove from that of an open chim- 
 ney, unless we could show that the same fire which was exposed in the 
 one, lay concealed in the other ; so it was impossible to deduce the 
 qualities and laws of succession, observed in the more uncommon 
 appearances of Nature, from those of such as were more familiar, if 
 those customary objects were not supposed, however disguised in their 
 appearance, to enter into the composition of those rarer and more sin- 
 gular phenomena. To render, therefore, this lower part of the great 
 theatre of nature a coherent spectacle to the imagination, it became 
 necessary to suppose, first, That all the strange objects of which it 
 consisted were made up out of a few, with which the mind was 
 extremely familiar : and secondly, That all their qualities, operations 
 and rules of succession, were no more than different diversifications of 
 those to which it had long been accustomed, in these primary and 
 elementary objects. 
 
 Of all the bodies of which these inferior parts of the universe seem 
 to be composed, those with which we are most familiar, are the Earth, 
 which we tread upon ; the Water, which we every day use ; the Air, 
 which we constantly breathe ; and the Fire, whose benign influence is 
 not only required for preparing the common necessaries of life, but for 
 the continual support of that vital principle which actuates both plants 
 and animals. These therefore, were by Empedocles, and the other 
 philosophers of the Italian school, supposed to be the elements, out of 
 which, at least, all the inferior parts of nature were composed. The 
 familiarity of those bodies to the mind, naturally disposed it to look for 
 some resemblance to them in whatever else was presented to its con- 
 sideration. The discovery of some such resemblance united the new 
 object to an assortment of things, with which the imagination was per- 
 fectly acquainted. And if any analogy could be observed betwixt the 
 operations and laws of succession of the compound, and those of the 
 simple objects, the movement of the fancy, in tracing their progress,
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHYSICS. 387 
 
 became quite smooth, and natural, and easy. This natural anticipation, 
 too, was still more confirmed by such a slight and inaccurate analysis 
 of things, as could be expected in the infancy of science, when the 
 curiosity of mankind, grasping at an account of all things before it had 
 got full satisfaction with regard to any one, hurried on to build, in 
 imagination, the immense fabric of the universe. The heat, observed 
 in both plants and animals, seemed to demonstrate, that Fire made a 
 part of their composition. Air was not less necessary for the sub- 
 sistence of both, and seemed, too, to enter into the fabric of animals by 
 respiration, and into that of plants by some other means. The juices 
 which circulated through them showed how much of their texture was 
 owing to Water. And their resolution into Earth by putrefaction dis- 
 covered that this element had not been left out in their original forma- 
 tion. A similar analysis seemed to show the same principles in most 
 of the other compound bodies. 
 
 The vast extent of those bodies seemed to render them, upon another 
 account, proper to be the great stores out of which nature compounded 
 all the other species of things. Earth and Water divide almost the 
 whole of the terrestrial globe between them. The thin transparent 
 covering of the Air surrounds it to an immense height upon all sides. 
 Fire, with its attendant, light, seems to descend from the celestial 
 regions, and might, therefore, either be supposed to be diffused through 
 the whole of those etherial spaces, as well as to be condensed and 
 conglobated in those luminous bodies, which sparkle across them, as 
 by the Stoics; or, to be placed immediately under the sphere of the 
 Moon, in the region next below them, as by the Peripatetics, who could 
 not reconcile the devouring nature of Fire with the supposed unchange- 
 able essence of their solid and crystalline spheres. 
 
 The qualities, too, by which we are chiefly accustomed to charac- 
 terize and distinguish natural bodies, are all of them found, in the 
 highest degree in those Four Elements. The great divisions of the 
 objects, near the surface of the Earth, are those into hot and cold, 
 moist and dry, light and heavy. These are the most remarkable pro- 
 perties of bodies ; and it is upon them that many of their other most 
 sensible qualities and powers seem to depend. Of these, heat and cold 
 were naturally enough regarded by those first enquirers into nature, as 
 the active, moisture and dryness, as the passive qualities of matter. 
 It was the temperature of heat and cold which seemed to occasion the 
 growth and dissolution of plants and animals ; as appeared evident 
 from the effects of the change of the seasons upon both. A proper 
 degree of moisture and dryness was not less necessary for these pur- 
 poses ; as was evident from the different effects and productions of wet 
 and dry seasons and soils. It was the heat and cold, however, which 
 actuated and determined those two otherwise inert qualities of things, 
 to a state either of rest or motion. Gravity and levity were regarded
 
 388 DISCOVERIES OF ARCHIMEDES AS TO ASCENT OK BODIES. 
 
 as the two principles of motion, which directed all sublunary things to 
 their proper place : and all those six qualities, taken together, were, 
 upon such an inattentive view of nature, as must be expected in the 
 beginnings of philosophy, readily enough apprehended to be capable of 
 connecting together the most remarkable revolutions, which occur in 
 these inferior parts of the universe. Heat and dryness were the quali- 
 ties which characterized the element of Fire; heat and moisture that 
 of Air ; moisture and cold that of Water ; cold and dryness that of 
 Earth. The natural motion of two of these elements, Earth and Water, 
 was downwards, upon account of their gravity. This tendency, how- 
 ever, was stronger in the one than in the other, upon account of the 
 superior gravity of Earth. The natural motion of the two other ele- 
 ments, Fire and Air, was upwards, upon account of their levity ; and 
 this tendency, too, was stronger in the one than in the other, upon 
 account of the superior levity of Fire. Let us not despise those ancient 
 philosophers, for thus supposing, that these two elements had a positive 
 levity, or a real tendency upwards. Let us remember, that this notion 
 has an appearance of being confirmed by the most obvious observa- 
 tions ; that those facts and experiments, which demonstrate the weight 
 of the Air, and which no superior sagacity, but chance alone, presented 
 to the moderns, were altogether unknown to them ; and that, what 
 might, in some measure, have supplied the place of those experiments, 
 the reasonings concerning the causes of the ascent of bodies, in fluids 
 specifically heavier than themselves, seem to have been unknown in 
 the ancient world, till Archimedes discovered them, long after their 
 system of physics was completed, and had acquired an established 
 reputation : that those reasonings are far from being obvious, and that 
 by their inventor, they seem to have been thought applicable only to 
 the ascent of Solids in Water, and not even to that of Solids in Air, 
 much less to that of one fluid in another. But it is this last only which 
 could explain the ascent of flame, vapours, and fiery exhalations, with- 
 out the supposition of a specific levity. 
 
 Thus, each of those Four Elements had, in the system of the Uni- 
 verse, a place which was peculiarly allotted to it, and to which it natu- 
 rally tended. Earth and Water rolled down to the centre ; the Air 
 spread itself above them ; while the Fire soared aloft, either to the 
 celestial region, or to that which was immediately below it. When 
 each of those simple bodies had thus obtained its proper sphere, there 
 was nothing in the nature of any one of them to make it pass into the 
 place of the other, to make the Fire descend into the Air, the Air into 
 the Water, or the Water into the Earth ; or, on the contrary, to brin^ 
 up the Earth into the place of the Water, the Water into that of the 
 Air, or the Air into that of the Fire. All sublunary things, therefore, 
 if left to themselves, would have remained in an eternal repose. The 
 revolution of the heavens, those of the Sun, Moon, and Five Planets,
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OP ANCIENT PHYSICS. 389 
 
 by producing the vicissitudes of Day and Night, and of the Seasons, 
 prevented this torpor and inactivity from reigning through the inferior 
 parts of nature ; inflamed by the rapidity of their circumvolutions, the 
 element of Fire, and forced it violently downwards into the Air, into 
 the Water, and into the Earth, and thereby produced those mixtures of 
 the different elements which kept up the motion and circulation of the 
 lower parts of Nature ; occasioned, sometimes, the entire transmutation 
 of one element into another, and sometimes the production of forms 
 and species different from them all, and in which, though the qualities 
 of them all might be found, they were so altered and attempered by 
 the mixture, as scarce to be distinguishable. 
 
 Thus, if a small quantity of Fire was mixed with a great quantity of 
 Air, the moisture and moderate warmth of the one entirely surmounted 
 and changed into their own essence the intense heat and dryness of 
 the other ; and the whole aggregate became Air. The contrary of 
 which happened, if a small quantity of Air was mixed with a great 
 quantity of Fire : the whole, in this case, became Fire. In the same 
 manner, if a small quantity of Fire was mixed with a great quantity of 
 Water, then, either the moisture and cold of the Water might surmount 
 the heat and dryness of the Fire, so that the whole should become 
 Water ; or, the moisture of the Water might surmount the dryness of 
 the Fire, while, in its turn, the heat of the Fire surmounted the cold- 
 ness of the Water, so as that the whole aggregate, its qualities being 
 heat and moisture, should become Air, which was regarded as the more 
 natural and easy metamorphosis of the two. In the same manner they 
 explained how like changes were produced by the different mixtures 
 of Fire and Earth, Earth and Water, Water and Air, Air and Earth ; 
 and thus they connected together the successive transmutations of the 
 elements into one another. 
 
 Every mixture of the Elements, however, did not produce an entire 
 transmutation. They were sometimes so blended together, that the 
 qualities of the one, not being able to destroy, served only to attemper 
 those of the other. Thus Fire, when mixed with Water, produced 
 sometimes a watery vapour, whose qualities were heat and moisture ; 
 which partook at once of the levity of the Fire, and of the gravity of 
 the Water, and which was elevated by the first into the Air, but re- 
 tained by the last from ascending into the region of Fire. The relative 
 cold, which they supposed prevailed in the middle region of the Air, 
 upon account of its equal distance, both from the region of Fire, and 
 from the rays that are reflected by the surface of the Earth, condensed 
 this vapour into Water ; the Fire escaped it, and flew upwards, and the 
 Water fell down in rain, or, according to the different degrees of cold 
 that prevailed in the different seasons, was sometimes congealed into 
 snow, and sometimes into hail. In the same manner, Fire, when mixed 
 with Earth, produced sometimes a fiery exhalation, whose qualities
 
 390 THEORY OP* THE ANCIENTS ON THE CRYSTALLINE SPHERES. 
 
 were heat and dryness, which being elevated by the levity of the first 
 into the Air condensed by the cold, so as to take fire, and being at the 
 same time surrounded by watery vapours, burst forth into thunder and 
 lightning, and other fiery meteors. Thus they connected together the 
 different appearances in the Air, by the qualities of their Four Ele- 
 ments ; and from them, too, in the same manner, they endeavoured to 
 deduce all the other qualities in the otter homogeneous bodies, that 
 are near the surface of the Earth. Thus, to give an example, with 
 regard to the hardness and softness of bodies ; heat and moisture, they 
 observed, were the great softeners of matter. Whatever was hard, 
 therefore, owed that quality either to the absence of heat, or to the 
 absence of moisture. Ice, crystal, lead, gold, and almost all metals, 
 owed their hardness to the absence of heat, and were, therefore, dis- 
 solvable by Fire. Rock-salt, nitre, alum, and hard clay, owed that 
 quality to the absence of moisture, and were therefore, dissolvable in 
 water. And, in the same manner, they endeavoured to connect to- 
 gether most of the other tangible qualities of matter. Their principles 
 of union, indeed, were often such as had no real existence, and were 
 always vague and undetermined in the highest degree ; they were such, 
 however, as might be expected in the beginnings of science, and such 
 as, with all their imperfections, could enable mankind both to think 
 and to talk, with more coherence, concerning those general subjects, 
 than without them they would have been capable of doing. Neither 
 was their system entirely devoid either of beauty or magnificence. 
 Each of the Four Elements having a particular region allotted to it, 
 had a place of rest, to which it naturally tended, by its motion, either 
 up or down, in a straight line, .and where, when it had arrived, it 
 naturally ceased to move. Earth descended, till it arrived at the place 
 of Earth; Water, till it arrived at that of Water; and Air, till 'it arrived 
 at that of Air ; and there each of them tended to a state of eternal re- 
 pose and inaction. The Spheres consisted of a Fifth Element, which 
 was neither light nor heavy, and whose natural motion made it tend, 
 neither to the centre, nor from the centre, but revolve round it in a 
 circle. As, by this motion, they could never change their situation 
 with regard to the centre, they had no place of repose, no place to 
 which they naturally tended more than to any other, but revolved round 
 and round for ever. This Fifth Element was subject neither to gene- 
 ration nor corruption, nor alteration of any kind ; for whatever changes 
 may happen in the Heavens, the senses can scarce perceive them, and 
 their appearance is the same in one age as in another. The beauty, 
 too, of their supposed crystalline spheres seemed still more to entitle 
 them to this distinction of unchangeable immortality. It was the 
 motion of those Spheres, which occasioned the mixtures of the Ele- 
 ments, and from 'hence, the production of all the forms and species, 
 that diversify the world. It was the approach of the Sun and of the
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHYSICS. 391 
 
 other Planets, to the different parts of the Earth, which, by forcing 
 clown the element of Fire, occasioned the generation of those forms. 
 It was the recess of those bodies, which, by allowing each Element to 
 escape to its proper sphere, brought about, in an equal time, their cor- 
 ruption. It was the periods of those great lights of Heaven, which 
 measured out to all sublunary things, the term of their duration, of 
 their growth, and of their decay, either in one, or in a number of 
 seasons, according as the Elements of which they were composed, 
 were either imperfectly or accurately blended and mixed with one 
 another. Immortality, they could bestow upon no individual form, 
 because the principles out of which it was formed, all tending to dis- 
 engage themselves, and to return to their proper spheres, necessarily, 
 at last, brought about its dissolution. But, though all individuals were 
 thus perishable, and constantly decaying, every species was immortal, 
 because the subject-matter out of which they were made, and the 
 revolution of the Heavens, the cause of their successive generations, 
 continued to be always the same. 
 
 In the first ages of the world, the seeming incoherence of the ap- 
 pearances of nature, so confounded mankind, that they despaired of 
 discovering in her operations any regular system. Their ignorance, 
 and confusion of thought, necessarily gave birth to that pusillanimous 
 superstition, which ascribes almost every unexpected event, to the 
 arbitrary will of some designing, though invisible beings, who produced 
 it for some private and particular purpose. The idea of an universal 
 mind, of a God of all, who originally formed the whole, and who 
 governs the whole by general laws, directed to the conservation and 
 prosperity of the whole, without regard to that of any private individual, 
 was a notion to which they were utterly strangers. Their gods, though 
 they were apprehended to interpose, upon some particular occasions, 
 were so far from being regarded as the creators of the world, that their 
 origin was apprehended to be posterior to that of the world. The 
 Earth, according to Hesiod, was the first production of the chaos. The 
 Heavens arose out of the Earth, and from both together, all the gods, 
 who afterwards inhabited them. Nor was this notion confined to the 
 vulgar, and to those poets who seem to have recorded the vulgar theo- 
 logy. Of all the philosophers of the Ionian school, Anaxagoras, it is 
 well known, was the first who supposed that mind and understanding 
 were requisite to account for the first origin of the world, and who, 
 therefore, compared with the other philosophers of his time, talked, as 
 Aristotle observes, like a sober man among drunkards ; but whose 
 opinion was, at the time, so remarkable, that he seems to have got a 
 sirname from it. The same notion, of the spontaneous origin of the 
 world, was embraced, too, as the same author tells, by the early Pytha- 
 goreans, a sect, which, in the ancient world, was never regarded as 
 irreligious. Mind, and understanding, and consequently Deity, being
 
 39 2 THE GROWTH OF THEISM AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 the most perfect, were necessarily, according to them, the last produc- 
 tions of Nature. For in all other things, what was most perfect, they 
 observed, always came last. As in plants and animals, it is not the 
 seed that is most perfect, but the complete animal, with all its members, 
 in the one ; and the complete plant, with all its branches, leaves, 
 flowers, and fruits, in the other. This notion, which could take place 
 only while Nature was still considered as, in some measure, disorderly 
 and inconsistent in her operations, -was necessarily renounced by those 
 philosophers, when, upon a more attentive survey, they discovered, or 
 imagined they had discovered, more distinctly, the chain which bound 
 all her different parts to one another. As soon as the Universe was 
 regarded as a complete machine, as a coherent system, governed by 
 general laws, and directed to general ends, viz. its own preservation 
 and prosperity, and that of all the species that are in it ; the resem- 
 blance which it evidently bore to those machines which are produced 
 by human art, necessarily impressed those sages with a belief, that in 
 the original formation of the world there must have been employed 
 an art resembling the human art, but as much superior to it, as the 
 world is superior to the machines which that art produces. The unity 
 of the system, which, according to this ancient philosophy, is most 
 perfect, suggested the idea of the unity of that principle, by whose art 
 it was formed ; and thus, as ignorance begot superstition, science gave 
 birth to the first theism that arose among those nations, who were not 
 enlightened by divine Revelation. According to Tima^us, who was 
 followed by Plato, that intelligent Being who formed the world en- 
 dowed it with a principle of life and understanding, which extends from 
 its centre to its remotest circumference, which is conscious of all its 
 changes, and which governs and directs all its motions to the great end 
 of its formation. This soul of the world was itself a God, the greatest 
 of all the inferior, and created deities ; of an essence that was indis- 
 soluble, by any power but by that of him who made it, and which was 
 united to the body of the world, so as to be inseparable by every force, 
 but his who joined them, from the exertion of which his goodness 
 secured them. The beauty of the celestial spheres attracting the ad- 
 miration of mankind, the constancy and regularity of their motions 
 seeming to manifest peculiar wisdom and understanding, they were 
 each of them supposed to be animated by an Intelligence of a nature 
 that was, in the same manner, indissoluble and immortal, and insepar- 
 ably united to that sphere which it inhabited. All the mortal and 
 changeable beings which people the surface of the earth were formed 
 by those inferior deities ; for the revolutions of the heavenly bodies 
 seemed plainly to influence the generation and growth of both plants 
 and animals, whose frail and fading forms bore the too evident marks 
 of the weakness of those inferior causes, which joined their different 
 parts to one another. According to Plato and Timivus, neither the
 
 SMITH'S ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHYSICS. 393 
 
 Universe, nor even those inferior deities who govern the Universe, were 
 eternal, but were formed in time, by the great Author of all things, out 
 of that matter which had existed from all eternity. This at least their 
 words seemed to import, and thus they are understood by Cicero, and 
 by all the other writers of earlier antiquity, though some of the later 
 Platonists have interpreted them differently. 
 
 According to Aristotle, who seems to have followed the doctrine of 
 Ocellus, the world was eternal ; the eternal effect of an eternal cause. 
 He found it difficult, it would seem, to conceive what could hinder the 
 First Cause from exerting his divine energy from all eternity. At what- 
 ever time he began to exert it, he must have been at rest during all the 
 infinite ages of that eternity which had passed before it. To what 
 obstruction, from within or from without, could this be owing ? or how 
 could this obstruction, if it ever had subsisted, have ever been removed ? 
 His idea of the nature and manner of existence of this First Cause, as 
 it is expressed in the last book of his Physics, and the five last chapters 
 of his Metaphysics, is indeed obscure and unintelligible in the highest 
 degree, and has perplexed his commentators more than any other parts 
 of his writings. Thus far, however, he seems to express himself plainly 
 enough : that the First Heavens, that of the Fixed Stars, from which 
 are derived the motions of all the rest, is revolved by an eternal, im- 
 movable, unchangeable, unextended being, whose essence consists in 
 intelligence, as that of a body consists in solidity and extension ; and 
 which is therefore necessarily and always intelligent, as a body is 
 necessarily and always extended : that this Being was the first and 
 supreme mover of the Universe : that the inferior Planetary Spheres 
 derived each of them its peculiar revolution from an inferior being of 
 the same kind ; eternal, immovable, unextended, and necessarily intel- 
 ligent : that the sole object of the intelligences of those beings was 
 their own essence, and the revolution of their own spheres ; all other 
 inferior things being unworthy of their consideration ; and that there- 
 fore whatever was below the Moon was abandoned by the gods to the 
 direction of Nature, and Chance, and Necessity. For though those 
 celestial beings were, by the revolutions of their several Spheres, the 
 original causes of the generation and corruption of all sublunary forms, 
 they were causes who neither knew nor intended the effects which they 
 produced. This renowned philosopher seems, in his theological notions, 
 to have been directed by prejudices which, though extremely natural, 
 are not very philosophical. The revolutions of the Heavens, by their 
 grandeur and constancy, excited his admiration, and seemed, upon that 
 account, to be effects not unworthy a Divine Intelligence. Whereas 
 the meanness of many things, the disorder and confusion of all things 
 below, exciting no such agreeable emotion, seemed to have no marks 
 of being directed by that Supreme Understanding. Yet, though this 
 opinion saps the foundations of human worship, and must have the 
 
 26
 
 394 THE OPINIONS AND SPECULATIONS OF THE STOICS. 
 
 same effects upon society as Atheism itself, one may easily trace, in 
 the Metaphysics upon which it is grounded, the origin of many of the 
 notions, or rather of many of the expressions, in the scholastic theology, 
 to which no notions can be annexed. 
 
 The Stoics, the most religious of all the ancient sects of philosophers, 
 seem in this, as in most other things, to have altered and refined upon 
 the doctrine of Plato. The order, harmony, and coherence which this 
 philosophy bestowed upon the Universal System, struck them with awe 
 and veneration. As, in the rude ages of the world, whatever particular 
 part of Nature excited the admiration of mankind, was apprehended to 
 be animated by some particular divinity ; so the whole of Nature hav- 
 ing, by their reasonings, become equally the object of admiration, was 
 equally apprehended to be animated by a Universal Deity, to be itself 
 a Divinity, an Animal ; a term which to our ears seems by no means 
 synonymous with the foregoing ; whose body was the solid and sensible 
 parts of Nature, and whose soul was that etherial Fire, which pene- 
 trated and actuated the whole. For of all the four elements, out of 
 which all things were composed, Fire or Ether seemed to be that 
 which bore the greatest resemblance to the Vital Principle which 
 informs both plants and animals, and therefore most likely to be the 
 Vital Principle which animated the Universe. This infinite and un- 
 bounded Ether, which extended itself from the centre beyond the 
 remotest circumference of Nature, and was endowed with the most 
 consummate reason and intelligence, or rather was itself the very 
 essence of reason and intelligence, had originally formed the world, 
 and had communicated a portion, or ray, of its own essence to what- 
 ever was endowed with life and sensation, which, upon the dissolution 
 of those forms, either immediately or some time after, was again ab- 
 sorbed into that ocean of Deity from whence it had originally been 
 detached. In this system the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and the 
 Fixed Stars, were each of them also inferior divinities, animated by a 
 detached portion of that etherial essence which was the soul of the 
 world. In the system of Plato, the Intelligence which animated the 
 world was different from that which originally formed it. Neither were 
 these which animated the celestial spheres, nor those which informed 
 inferior terrestrial animals, regarded as portions of this plastic soul of 
 the world. Upon the dissolution of animals, therefore, their souls were 
 not absorbed in the soul of the world, but had a separate and eternal 
 existence, which gave birth to the notion of the transmigration of souls. 
 Neither did it seem unnatural, that, as the same matter which had 
 composed one animal body might be employed to compose another, 
 that the same intelligence which had animated one such being should 
 again animate another. But in the system of the Stoics, the intelli- 
 gence which originally formed, and that which animated the world, 
 were one and the same, all inferior intelligences were detached portions
 
 SMITH'S HISTORY OF ANCIENT LOGICS AND METAPHYSICS. 395 
 
 of the great one ; and therefore, in a longer, or in a shorter time, were 
 all of them, even the gods themselves, who animated the celestial 
 bodies, to be at last resolved into the infinite essence of this almighty 
 Jupiter, who, at a distant period, should, by an universal conflagration, 
 wrap up all things, in that etherial and fiery nature, out of which they 
 had originally been deduced, again to bring forth a new Heaven and a 
 new Earth, new animals, new men, new deities ; all of which would 
 again, at a fated time, be swallowed up in a like conflagration, again 
 to be re-produced, and again to be re-destroyed, and so on without end. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRIES; 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF THE 
 
 ANCIENT LOGICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 IN every transmutation, either of one element into another, or of one 
 compound body either into the elements out of which it was composed, 
 or into another compound body, it seemed evident, that both in the old 
 and in the new species, there was something that was the same, and 
 something that was different. When Fire was changed into Air, or 
 Water into Earth, the Stuff, or Subject-matter of this Air and this 
 Earth, was evidently the same with that of the former Fire or Water ; 
 but the Nature or Species of those new bodies was entirely different. 
 When, in the same manner, a number of fresh, green, and odoriferous 
 flowers were thrown together in a heap, they, in a short time, entirely 
 changed their nature, became putrid and loathsome, and dissolved into 
 a confused mass of ordure, which bore no resemblance, either in sensi- 
 ble qualities or in its effects, to their former beautiful appearance. But 
 how different soever the species, the subject-matter of the flowers, and 
 of the ordure, was, in this case too, evidently the same. In every body 
 therefore, whether simple or mixed, there were evidently two principles^ 
 whose combination constituted the whole nature of that particular body. 
 The first was the Stuff, or Subject-matter, out of which it was made ; 
 the second was the Species, the Specific Essence, the Essential, or, 
 as the schoolmen have cattsd it, the Substantial Form of the Body. 
 
 26
 
 396 SPECIES, NOT INDIVIDUALS, THE OBJECTS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The first seemed to be the same in all bodies, and to have neither 
 qualities nor powers of any kind, but to be altogether inert and imper- 
 ceptible by any of the senses, till it was qualified and rendered sensible 
 by its union with some species or essential form. All the qualities and 
 powers of bodies seemed to depend upon their species or essential 
 forms. It was not the stuff or matter of Fire, or Air, or Earth, or Water, 
 which enabled those elements to produce their several effects, but that 
 essential form which was peculiar to each of them. For it seemed 
 evident that Fire must produce the effects of Fire, by that which ren- 
 dered it Fire ; Air, by that which rendered it Air ; and that in the 
 same manner all other simple and mixed bodies must produce their 
 several effects, by that which constituted them such or such bodies ; 
 that is, by their Specific Essence or essential forms. But it is from the 
 effects of bodies upon one another, that all the changes and revolutions 
 in the material world arise. Since these, therefore, depend upon the 
 specific essences of those bodies, it must be the business of philosophy, 
 that science which endeavours to connect together all the different 
 changes that occur in the world, to determine wherein the Specific 
 Essence of each object consists, in order to foresee what changes or 
 revolutions may be expected from it. But the Specific Essence of each 
 individual object is not that which "is peculiar to it as an individual, but 
 that which is. common to it, with all other objects of the same kind. 
 Thus the Specific Essence of the Water, which now stands before me, 
 does not consist in its being heated by the Fire, or cooled by the Air, 
 in such a particular degree ; in its being contained in a vessel of such 
 a form, or of such dimensions. These are all accidental circumstances, 
 which are altogether extraneous to its general nature, and upon which 
 none of its effects as Water depend. Philosophy, therefore, in con- 
 sidering the general nature of Water, takes no notice of those particu- 
 larities which are peculiar to this water, but confines itself to those 
 things which are common to all Water. If, in the progress of its 
 inquiries, it should descend to consider the nature of Water that is 
 modified by such particular accidents, it still would not confine its con- 
 sideration to this water contained in this vessel, and thus heated at this 
 fire, but would extend its views to Water in general contained in such 
 kind of vessels, and heated to such a degree at such a fire. In every 
 case, therefore, Species, or Universals, and not Individuals, are the 
 objects of Philosophy. Because whatever effects are produced by in- 
 dividuals, whatever changes can flow from them, must all proceed from 
 some universal nature that is contained in them. As it was the business 
 of Physics, or Natural Philosophy, to determine wherein consisted the 
 Nature and Essence of every particular Species of things, in order to 
 connect together all the different events that occur in the material 
 world ; so there were two other sciences, which, though they had 
 originally arisen out of that system of Natural Philosophy I have just
 
 SMITHS HISTORY OF ANCIENT LOGICS AND METAPHYSICS. 397 
 
 been describing, were, however, apprehended to go before it, in the 
 order in which the knowledge of Nature ought to be communicated. 
 The first of these, Metaphysics, considered the general nature of Uni- 
 versals, and the different sorts or species into which they might be 
 divided. The second of these, Logics, was built upon this doctrine of 
 Metaphysics ; and from the general nature of Universals, and of the 
 sorts into which they were divided, endeavoured to ascertain the 
 general rules by which we might distribute all particular objects into 
 general classes, and determine to what class each individual object be- 
 longed ; for in this, they justly enough apprehended, consisted the 
 whole art of philosophical reasoning. As the first of these two sciences, 
 Metaphysics, is altogether subordinate to the second, Logic, they seem, 
 before the time of Aristotle, to have been regarded as one, and to have 
 made up between them that ancient Dialectic of which we hear so 
 much, and of which we understand so little : neither does this separa- 
 tion seem to have been much attended to, either by his own followers, 
 the ancient Peripatetics, or by any other of the old sects of philoso- 
 phers. The later schoolmen, indeed, have distinguished between 
 Ontology and Logic ; but their Ontology contains but a small part 
 of what is the subject of the metaphysical books of Aristotle, the 
 greater part of which, the doctrines of Universals, and everything that 
 is preparatory to the arts of defining and dividing, has, since the days 
 of Porphery, been inserted into their Logic. 
 
 According to Plato and Timaeus, the principles out of which the 
 Deity formed the World, and which were themselves eternal, were 
 three in number. The Subject-matter of things, the Species, or Speci- 
 fic Essences of things, and what was made out of these, the sensible 
 objects themselves. These last had no proper or durable existence, 
 but were in perpetual flux and succession. For as Heraclitus had 
 said that no man ever passed the same river twice, because the 
 water which he had passed over once was gone before he could pass 
 over it a second time ; so, in the same manner, no man ever saw, or 
 heard, or touched the same sensible object twice. When I look at 
 the window, for example, the visible species, which strikes my eyes 
 this moment, though resembling, is different from that which struck 
 my eyes the immediately preceding moment. When I ring the bell, 
 the sound, or audible species, which I hear this moment, though re- 
 sembling in the same manner, is different, however, from that which 
 I heard the moment before. When I lay my hand on the table, the 
 tangible species which I feel this moment, though resembling, in the 
 same manner, is numerically different too from that which I felt the 
 moment before. Our sensations, therefore, never properly exist or 
 endure one moment ; but, in the very instant of their generation, 
 perish and are annihilated for ever. Nor are the causes of those sen- 
 sations more permanent. No corporeal substance is ever exactly the
 
 398 HUMANITY, THE OBJECT OF SCIENCE AND OF REASON. 
 
 same, either in whole or in any assignable part, during two successive, 
 moments, but by the perpetual addition of new parts, as well as loss of 
 old ones, is in continual flux and succession. Things of so fleeting a 
 nature can never be the objects of science, or of any steady or perma- 
 nent judgment. While we look at them, in order to consider them, 
 they are changed and gone, and annihilated for ever. The objects of 
 science, and of all the steady judgments of the understanding, must be 
 permanent, unchangeable, always existent, and liable neither to gene- 
 ration nor corruption, nor alteration of any kind. Such are the species 
 or specific essences of things. Man is perpetually changing every par- 
 ticle of his body ; and every thought of his mind is in .continual flux 
 and succession. But humanity, or human nature, is always existent, is 
 always the same, is never generated, and is never corrupted. This, 
 therefore, is the object of science, reason, and understanding, as man is 
 the object of sense, and of those inconstant opinions which are founded 
 upon sense. As the objects of sense were apprehended to have an ex- 
 ternal existence, independent of the act of sensation, so these objects 
 of the understanding were much more supposed to have an external 
 existence independent of the act of understanding. Those external 
 essences were, according to Plato, the exemplars, according to which the 
 Deity formed the world, and all the sensible objects that are in it. The 
 Deity comprehended within his infinite essence, all these species, or ex- 
 ternal exemplars, in the same manner as he comprehended all sensible 
 objects. 
 
 Plato, however, seems to have regarded the .first of those as equally 
 distinct with the second from what we would now call the Ideas or 
 Thoughts of the Divine Mind,* and even to have supposed, that they 
 had a particular place of existence, beyond the sphere of the visible 
 
 * He calls them, indeed, Ideas, a word which, in him, in Aristotle, and all the other writers 
 of earlier antiquity, signifies a Species, and is perfectly synonymous with that other word 
 EtSos, more frequently made use of by Aristotle. As, by some of the later sects of philo- 
 sophers, particularly by the Stoics, all species, or specific essences, were regarded as mere 
 creatures of the mind, formed by abstraction, which had no real existence external to the 
 thoughts that conceived them, the word Idea came, by degrees, to its present signification, to 
 mean, first, an abstract thought or conception ; and afterwards, a thought or conception of any 
 kind ; and thus became synonymous with that other Greek word, Ewo(a, from which it had 
 originally a very different meaning. When the later Platonists, who lived at a time when the 
 notion of the separate existence of specific essences was universally exploded, began to com- 
 ment upon the writings of Plato, and upon that strange fancy that, in his writings, there was 
 a double doctrine; and that they were intended to seem to mean one thing, while at bottom 
 they meant a very different, which the writings of no man in his senses ever were, or ever 
 could be intended to do ; they represented his doctrine as meaning no more, than that the 
 Deity formed the world after what we would now call an Idea, or plan conceived in his own 
 mind, in the same manner as any other artist. But, if Plato had meant to express no more 
 than this most natural and simple of all notions, he might surely have expressed it more 
 plainly, and would hardly, one would think, have talked of it with so much emphasis, as of 
 something which it required the utmost reach of thought to comprehend. According to this 
 representation. Plato's notion of Species, or Universal*, was the same with that of Aristotle. 
 Aristotle, however, does not seem to understand il ab such; he bestows a .51 -cut pait of his
 
 SMITH'S HISTORY OF ANCIENT LOGICS AND METAPHYSICS. 399 
 
 corporeal world ; though this has been much controverted, both by the 
 later Platonists, and by some very judicious modern critics, who have 
 followed the interpretation of the later Platonists, as what did most 
 
 Metaphysics upon confuting it, and opposes it in all his other works ; nor does he, in any one 
 of them, give the least hint, or insinuation, as if it could be suspected that, by the Ideas of 
 Plato, was meant the thoughts or conceptions of the Divine Mind. Is it possible that he, who 
 was twenty years in his school, should, during all that time, have misunderstood him, espe- 
 cially when his meaning was so very plain and obvious? Neither is this notion of the separate 
 existence of Species, distinct both from the mind which conceives them, and from the sensible 
 objects which are made to resemble them, one of those doctrines which Plato would but seldom 
 have occasion to talk of. However it may be interpreted, it is the very basis of his philosophy ; 
 neither is there a single dialogue in all his works which does not refer to it. Shall we suppose, 
 that that great philosopher, who appears to have been so much superior to his master in every 
 thing but eloquence, wilfully, and upon all occasions, misrepresented, not one of the deep and 
 mysterious doctrines of the philosophy of Plato, but the first and most fundamental principle 
 of all his reasonings ; when the writings of Plato were in the hands of every body ; when his 
 followers and disciples were spread all over Greece ; when almost every Athenian of distinction, 
 that was nearly of the same age with Aristotle, must have been bred in his school ; when 
 Speusippus, the nephew and successor of Plato, as well as Xenocrates, who continued the 
 school in the Academy, at the same time that Aristotle held his in the Lyceum, must have 
 been ready, at all times, to expose and affront him for such gross disingenuity. Does not 
 Cicero, does not Seneca understand this doctrine in the same manner as Aristotle has repre- 
 sented it? Is there any author in all antiquity who seems to understand it otherwise, earlier 
 than Plutarch, an author who seems to have been as bad a critic in philosophy as in history, 
 and to have taken every thing at second-hand in both, and who lived after the origin of that 
 eclectic philosophy, from whence the later Platonists arose, and who seems himself to have 
 been one of that sect ? Is there any one passage in any Greek author, near the time of 
 Aristotle and Plato, in which the word Idea is used in its present meaning, to signify a thought 
 or conception ? Are not the words, which in all languages express reality or existence, directly 
 opposed to those which express thought, or conception only? Or, is there any other difference 
 betwixt a thing that exists, and a thing that does not exist, except this, that the one is a mere 
 conception, and that the other is something more than a conception ? With what propriety, 
 therefore, could Plato talk of those eternal species, as of the only things which had any real 
 existence, if they were no more than the conceptions of the Divine Mind ? Had not the 
 Deity, according to Plato, as well as according to the Stoics, from all eternity, the idea of 
 every individual, as well as of every species, and of the state in which every individual was to 
 be, in each different instance of its existence ? Were not all the divine ideas, therefore, of 
 each individual, or of all the different states, which each individual was to be in during the 
 course of its existence, equally eternal and unalterable with those of the species ? With what 
 sense, therefore, could Plato say, that the first were eternal, because the Deity had conceived 
 them from all eternity, since he had conceived the others from all eternity too, and since his 
 ideas of the Species could, in this respect, have no advantage of those of the individual ? 
 Does not Plato, in many different places, talk of the Ideas of Species or Universals as innate, 
 and having been impressed upon the mind in its state of pre-existence, when it had an oppor- 
 tunity of viewing these Species as they are in themselves, and not as they are expressed in 
 their copies, or representatives upon earth ? But if the only place of the existence of those 
 Species was the Divine Mind, will not this suppose, that Plato either imagined, like Father 
 Malbranche, that in its state of pre-existence, the mind saw all things in God : or that it was 
 itself an emanation of the Divinity? That he maintained the first opinion, will not be pre- 
 tended by any body who is at all versed in the history of science. That enthusiastic notion, 
 though it may seem to be favoured by some passages in the Fathers, was never, it is well 
 known, coolly and literally maintained by any body before that Cartesian philosopher. That 
 the human mind was itself an emanation of the Divine, though it was the doctrine of the 
 Stoics, was by no means that of Plato ; though, upon the notion of a pretended double 
 doctrine, the contrary has lately been asserted. According to Plato, the Deity formed the 
 soul of the world out of that substance which is always the same, that is, out of Species or 
 Universals ; out of that which is always different, that is, out of corporeal substances ; and out 
 of a substance that was of a. middle iiature between these, which it L> not easy to understand
 
 400 BELIEF OF THE ANCIENTS IN A STATE OF PRE-EXISTENCE. 
 
 honour to the judgment of that renowned philosopher. All the objects 
 in this world, continued he, are particular and individual. Here, there- 
 fore, the human mind has no opportunity of seeing any Species, or 
 Universal Nature. Whatever ideas it has, therefore, of such beings, 
 for it plainly has them, it must derive from the memory of what it has 
 seen, in some former period of its existence, when it had an opportunity 
 of visiting the place or Sphere of Universals. For some time after it 
 is immersed in the body, during its infancy, its childhood, and a great 
 part of its youth, the violence of those passions which it derives from 
 the body, and which are all directed to the particular and individual 
 objects of this world, hinder it from turning its attention to those 
 Universal Natures, with which it had been conversant in the world 
 from whence it came. The Ideas, of these, therefore, seem, in this 
 first period of its existence here, to be overwhelmed in the confusion of 
 those turbulent emotions, and to be almost entirely wiped out of its 
 remembrance. During the continuance of this state, it is incapable of 
 Reasoning, Science and Philosophy, which are conversant about Uni- 
 versals. Its whole attention is turned towards particular objects, con- 
 cerning which, being directed by no general notions, it forms many vain 
 and false opinions, and is filled with error, perplexity, and confusion. 
 But, when age has abated the violence of its passions, and composed 
 the confusion of its thoughts, it then becomes more capable of reflec- 
 tion, and of turning its attention to those almost forgotten ideas of 
 things with which it had been conversant in the former state of its 
 existence. All the particular objects in this sensible world, being 
 formed after the eternal exemplars in that intellectual world, awaken, 
 upon account of their resemblance, insensibly, and by slow degrees, 
 the almost obliterated ideas of these last. The beauty, which is shared 
 in different degrees among terrestrial objects, revives the same idea of 
 that Universal Nature of beauty which exists in the intellectual world : 
 particular acts of justice, of the universal nature of justice; particular 
 reasonings, and particular sciences, of the universal nature of science 
 and reasoning; particular roundnesses, of the universal nature of 
 roundness ; particular squares, of the universal nature of squareness. 
 Thus science, which is conversant about Universals, is derived from 
 memory; and to instruct any person concerning the general nature of 
 any subject, is no more than to awaken in him the remembrance" of 
 what he formerly knew about it. This both Plato and Socrates 
 imagined they could still further confirm, by the fallacious experiment, 
 
 what he meant by. Out of a part of the same composition, he made those inferior intelli- 
 gences who animated the celestial spheres, to whom he delivered the remaining part of it, to 
 form from thence the souls of men and animals. The souls of those inferior deities, though 
 made out of a similar substance or composition, were not regarded as parts or emanations of 
 that of the world ; nor were those of animals, in the same manner, regarded as parts or ema- 
 nations of those inferior deities : much less were any of them regarded as parts, or emanations 
 of the great Author of all things.
 
 SMITH'S HISTORY OF ANCIENT LOGICS AND METAPHYSICS. 401 
 
 which showed, that a person might be led to discover himself, without 
 any information, any general truth, of which he was before ignorant, 
 merely by being asked a number of properly arranged and connected 
 questions concerning it. 
 
 The more the soul was accustomed to the consideration of those 
 Universal Natures, the less it was attached to any particular and indi- 
 vidual objects ; it approached the nearer to the original perfection of 
 its nature, from which, according to this philosophy, it had fallen. 
 Philosophy, which accustoms it to consider the general Essence of 
 things only, and to abstract from all their particular and sensible 
 circumstances, was, upon this account, regarded as the great purifier of 
 the soul. As death separated the soul from the body, and from the 
 bodily senses and passions, it restored it to that intellectual world, from 
 whence it had originally descended, where no sensible Species called 
 off its attention from those general Essences of things. Philosophy, 
 in this life, habituating it to the same considerations, brings it, in some 
 degree, to that state of happiness and perfection, to which death restores 
 the souls of just men in a life to come. 
 
 Such was the doctrine of Plato concerning the Species or Specific 
 Essence of things. This, at least, is what his words seem to import, and 
 thus he is understood by Aristotle, the most intelligent and the most 
 renowned of all his disciples. It is a doctrine, which, like many of the 
 other doctrines of abstract Philosophy, is more coherent in the expres- 
 sion than in the idea ; and which seems to have arisen, more from the 
 nature of language, than from the nature of things. With all its im- 
 perfections it was excusable, in the beginnings of philosophy, and is 
 not a great deal more remote from the truth, than many others which 
 have since been substituted in its room by some of the greatest pre- 
 tenders to accuracy and precision. Mankind have had, at all times, 
 a strong propensity to realize their own abstractions, of which we shall 
 immediately ^see an example, in the notions of that very philosopher 
 who first exposed the ill-grounded foundation of those Ideas, or Uni- 
 versals, of Plato and Timae us. To explain the nature, and to account 
 for the origin of general Ideas, is, even at this day, the greatest diffi- 
 culty in abstract philosophy. How the human mind, when it reasons 
 concerning the general nature of triangles, should either conceive, as 
 Mr. Locke imagines it does, the idea of a triangle, which is neither 
 obtusangular, nor rectangular, nor acutangular ; but which was at 
 once both none and of all those together ; or should, as Malbranche 
 thinks necessary for this purpose, comprehend at once, within its 
 finite capacity, all possible triangles of all possible forms and dimen- 
 sions, which are infinite in number, is a question, to which it is 
 surely not easy to give a satisfactory answer. Malbranche, to solve 
 it, had recourse to the enthusiastic and unintelligible notion of the 
 intimate union of the human mind with the divine, in whose infinite
 
 402 ARISTOTLE TAUGHT THE ETERNITY OF THE SENSIBLE WORLD. 
 
 essence the immensity of such species could alone be comprehended ; 
 and in which alone, therefore, all finite intelligences could have an 
 opportunity of viewing them. If, after more than two thousand years 
 reasoning about this subject, this ingenious and sublime philosopher 
 was forced to have recourse to so strange a fancy, in order to explain 
 it, can we wonder that Plato, in the very first dawnings of science, 
 should, for the same purpose, adopt an hypothesis, which has been 
 thought, without much reason, indeed, to have some affinity to that of 
 Malbranche, and which is not more out of the way ? 
 
 What seems to have misled those early philosophers, was, the notion, 
 which appears, at first, natural enough, that those things, out of which 
 any object is composed, must exist antecedent to that object. But the 
 things out of which all particular objects seem to be composed, are 
 the stuff or matter of those objects, and the form or specific Essence, 
 which determines them to be of this or that class of things. These, 
 therefore, it was thought, must have existed antecedent to the 
 object which was made up between them. Plato, who held, that the 
 sensible world, which, according to him, is the world of individuals, 
 was made in time, necessarily conceived, that both the universal 
 matter, the object of spurious reason, and the specific essence, the 
 object of proper reason and philosophy out of which it was composed, 
 must have had a separate existence from all eternity. This intellectual 
 world, very different from the intellectual world of Cudworth, though 
 much of the language of the one has been borrowed from that of the 
 other, was necessarily and always existent ; whereas the sensible world 
 owed its origin to the free will and bounty of its author. 
 
 A notion of this kind, as long as it is expressed in very general 
 language ; as long as it is not much rested upon, nor attempted to be 
 very particularly and distinctly explained, passes easily enough, through 
 the indolent imagination, accustomed to substitute words in the room 
 of ideas ; and if the words seem to hang easily together, requiring no 
 great precision in the ideas. It vanishes, indeed ; is discovered to be 
 altogether incomprehensible, and eludes the grasp of the imagination, 
 upon an attentive consideration. It requires, however, an attentive 
 consideration ; and if it had been as fortunate as many other opinions 
 of the same kind, and about the same subject, it might, without exami- 
 nation, have continued to be the current philosophy for a century or 
 two. Aristotle, however, seems immediately to have discovered, that 
 it was impossible to conceive, as actually existent, either that general 
 matter, which was not determined by any particular species, or those 
 species which were not embodied, if one may say so, in some particular 
 portion of matter. Aristotle, too, held, as we have already observed 
 the eternity of the sensible world. Though he held, therefore, that all 
 sensible objects were made up of t\vo principles, both of which, he 
 calls, equally, substances, the matter and the specific essence, he was
 
 SMITH'S HISTORY OF ANCIENT LOGICS AND METAPHYSICS. 403 
 
 not obliged to hold, like Plato, that those principles existed prior in 
 the order of time to the objects which they afterwards composed. 
 They were prior, he said, in nature, but not in time, according to a dis- 
 tinction which was of use to him upon some other occasion. He dis- 
 tinguished, too, betwixt actual and potential existence. By the first, he 
 seems to have understood what is commonly meant by existence or 
 reality; by the second, the bare possibility of existence. His mean- 
 ing, I say, seems to amount to this ; though he does not explain 
 it precisely in this manner. Neither the material Essence of body 
 could, according to him, exist actually without being determined by 
 some Specific Essence, to some particular class of things, nor any 
 Specific Essence without being embodied in some particular portion of 
 matter. Each of these two principles, however, could exist potentially 
 in this separate state. That matter existed potentially, which, being 
 endowed with a particular form, could be brought into actual existence ; 
 and that form, which, by being embodied in a particular portion of 
 matter, could, in the same manner, be called forth into the class of 
 complete realities. This potential existence of matter and form, he 
 sometimes talks of, in expressions which resemble those of Plato, to 
 whose notion of separate Essence it bears a very great affinity. 
 
 Aristotle, who seems in many things original, and who endeavoured 
 to seem to be so in all things, added the principle of privation to those 
 of matter and form, which he had derived from the ancient Pytha- 
 gorean school. When Water is changed into Air, the transmutation 
 is brought about by the material principle of those two elements being 
 deprived of the form of Water, and then assuming the form of Air. 
 Privation, therefore, was a third principle opposite to form, which entered 
 into the generation of every Species, which was always from some other 
 Species. It was a principle of generation, but not of composition, as is 
 most obvious. 
 
 The Stoics, whose opinions were, in all the different parts of philo- 
 sophy, either the same with, or very nearly allied to those of Aristotle 
 and Plato, though often disguised in very different language, held, that 
 all things, even the elements themselves, were compounded of two 
 principles, upon one of which depended all the active, and upon the 
 other all the passive, powers of these bodies. The last of these, they 
 called Matter; the first, the Cause, by which they meant the very same 
 thing which Aristotle and Plato understood, by their specific Essences. 
 Matter, according to the Stoics, could have no existence separate from 
 the cause or efficient principle which determined it to some particular 
 class of things. Neither could the efficient principle exist separately 
 from the material, in which it was always necessarily embodied. Their 
 opinion, therefore, so far coincided with that of the old Peripatetics. 
 The efficient principle, they said, was the Deity. By which -they 
 meant, that it was a detached portion of the etherial and divine nature,
 
 404 THE SPECIFIC ESSENCE THEORY; PROPERTIES, ACCIDENTS. 
 
 which penetrated all things, that constituted what Plato would have 
 called the Specific Essence of each individual object; and so far their 
 opinion coincides pretty nearly with that of the latter Platonists, who 
 held, that the Specific Essences of all things were detached portions of 
 their created deity, the soul of the world; and with that of some of the 
 Arabian and Scholastic Commentators of Aristotle, who held that the 
 substantial forms of all things descended from those Divine Essences 
 which animated the Celestial Spheres. Such was the doctrine of the 
 four principal Sects of the ancient Philosophers, concerning the Specific 
 Essences of things, of the old Pythagoreans, of the Academical, the 
 Peripatetic, and the Stoical Sects. 
 
 As this doctrine of Specific Essences seems naturally enough to have 
 arisen from that ancient system of Physics, which I have above de- 
 scribed, and which is, by no means, devoid of probability, so many of 
 the doctrines of that system, which seems to us, who have been long 
 accustomed to another, the most incomprehensible, necessarily flow 
 from this metaphysical notion. Such are those of generation, corrup- 
 tion, and alteration ; of mixture, condensation, and rarefaction. A body 
 was generated or corrupted, when it changed its Specific Essence, and 
 passed from one denomination to another. It was altered when it 
 changed only some of its qualities, but still retained the same Specific 
 Essence, and the same denomination. Thus, when a flower was 
 withered, it was not corrupted; though some of its qualities were 
 changed, it still retained the Specific Essence, and therefore justly 
 passed under the denomination of a flower. But, when, in the further 
 progress of its decay, it crumbled into earth, it was corrupted ; it lost 
 the Specific Essence, or substantial form of the flower, and assumed 
 that of the earth, and therefore justly changed its denomination. 
 
 The Specific Essence, or universal nature that was lodged in each 
 particular class of bodies, was not itself the object of any of our senses, 
 but could be perceived only by the understanding. It was by the sen- 
 sible qualities, however, that we judged of the Specific Essence of each 
 object. Some of these sensible qualities, therefore, we regarded as 
 essential, or such as showed, by their presence or absence, the presence 
 or absence of that essential form from which they necessarily flowed. 
 Others were accidental, or such whose presence or absence had no such 
 necessary consequences. The first of these two sorts of qualities was 
 called Properties ; the second, Accidents. 
 
 In the Specific Essence of each object itself, they distinguished two 
 parts ; one of which was peculiar and characteristical of the one class 
 of things of which that particular object was an individual, the other 
 was common to it with some other higher classes of things. These two 
 parts were, to the Specific Essence, pretty much what the Matter and 
 the Specific Essence were to each individual body. The one, which 
 was called the Genus, was modified and determined by the other,
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 405 
 
 which was called the Specific Difference, pretty much in the same 
 manner as the universal matter contained in each body was modified 
 and determined by the Specific Essence of that particular class of 
 bodies. These four, with the Specific Essence or Species itself, made 
 up the number of the Five Universals, so well known in the schools by 
 the names of Genus, Species, Differentia, Proprium, and Accidens. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NATURE OF THAT IMITATION 
 
 WHICH TAKES PLACE IN WHAT ARE CALLED 
 
 THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE most perfect imitation of an object of any kind must in all cases, 
 it is evident, be another object of the same kind, made as exactly as 
 possible after the same model. What, for example, would be the most 
 perfect imitation of the carpet which now lies before me ? Another 
 carpet, certainly, wrought as exactly as possible after the same pattern. 
 But, whatever might be the merit or beauty of this second carpet, it 
 would not be supposed to derive any from the circumstance of its 
 having been made in imitation of the first. This circumstance of its 
 being not an original, but a copy, would even be considered as some 
 diminution of that merit; a greater or smaller, in proportion as the 
 object was of a nature to lay claim to a greater or smaller degree of 
 admiration. It would not much diminish the merit of a common 
 carpet, because in such trifling objects, which at best can lay claim to 
 so little beauty or merit of any kind, we do not always think it worth 
 while to affect originality : it would diminish a good deal that of a 
 carpet of very exquisite workmanship. In objects of still greater, im- 
 portance, this exact, or, as it would be called, this servile imitation, 
 would be considered as the most unpardonable blemish. To build 
 another St. Peter's or St. Paul's church, of exactly the same dimen- 
 sions, proportions, and ornaments with the present buildings at Rome 
 or London, would be supposed to argue such a miserable barrenness 
 of genius and invention in the architect as would disgrace the most 
 expensive magnificence. 
 
 The exact resemblance of the correspondent parts of the same object
 
 406 EXACT RESEMBLANCE SELDOM CONSIDERED AS A BEAUTY. 
 
 is frequently considered as a beauty, and the want of it as a deformity ; 
 as in the correspondent members of the human body, in the opposite 
 wings of the same building, in the opposite trees of the same alley, jn 
 the correspondent compartments of the same piece of carpet-work, or 
 of the same flower-garden, in the chairs or tables which stand in the 
 correspondent parts of the same room, etc. But in objects of the same 
 kind, which in other respects are regarded as altogether separate and 
 unconnected, this exact resemblance is seldom considered as a beauty, 
 nor the want of it as a deformity. A man, and in the same manner a 
 horse, is handsome or ugly, each of them, on account of his own in- 
 trinsic beauty or defonnity, without any regard to their resembling or 
 not resembling, the one, another man, or the other, another horse. A 
 set of coach-horses, indeed, is supposed to be handsomer when they 
 are all exactly matched ; but each horse is, in this case, considered not 
 as a separated and unconnected object, or as a whole by himself, but 
 as a part of another whole, to the other parts of which he ought to bear 
 a certain correspondence : separated from the set, he derives neither 
 beauty from his resemblance, nor deformity from his unlikeness to the 
 other horses which compose it. 
 
 Even in the correspondent parts of the same object, we frequently 
 require no more than a resembla ice in the general outline. If the 
 inferior members of those correspondent parts are too minute to be 
 seen distinctly, without a separate and distinct examination of each 
 part by itself, as a separate and unconnected object, we should some- 
 times even be displeased if the resemblance was carried beyond this 
 general outline. In the correspondent parts of a room we frequently 
 hang pictures of the same size ; those pictures, however, resemble one 
 another in nothing but the frame, or, perhaps, in the general character 
 of the subject ; if the one is a landscape, the other is a landscape too ; 
 if the one represents a religious or a bacchanalian subject, its com- 
 panion represents another of the same kind. Nobody ever thought of 
 repeating the same picture in each correspondent frame. The frame, 
 and the general character of two or three pictures, is as much as the eye 
 can comprehend at one view, or from one station. Each picture, in 
 order, to be seen distinctly, and understood thoroughly, must be viewed 
 from a particular station, and examined by itself as a separate and 
 unconnected object. In a hall or portico, adorned with statues, the 
 niches, or perhaps the pedestals, may exactly resemble one another, 
 but the statues are always different Even the masks which are some- 
 times carried upon the different key-stones of the same arcade, or of 
 the correspondent doors and windows of the same front, though they 
 may all resemble one another in the general outline, yet each of them 
 has always its own peculiar features, and a grimace of its own. There 
 are some Gothic buildings in which the correspondent windows resem- 
 ble one another only in the general outline, and not in the smaller
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. '407 
 
 ornaments and subdivisions. These are different in each, and the 
 architect had considered them as too minute to be seen distinctly, 
 without a particular and separate examination of each window by itself, 
 as a separate and unconnected object. A variety of this sort, however, 
 I think, is not agreeable. In objects which are susceptible only of a 
 certain inferior order of beauty, such as the frames of pictures, the 
 niches or the pedestals of statues, &c., there seems frequently to be 
 affectation in the study of variety, of which the merit is scarcely ever 
 sufficient to compensate the want of that perspicuity and distinctness, 
 of that easiness to be comprehended and remembered, which is the 
 natural effect of exact uniformity. In a portico of the Corinthian or 
 Ionic order, each column resembles every other, not only in the general 
 outline, but in all the minutest ornaments ; though some of them, in 
 order to be seen distinctly, may require a separate and distinct examin- 
 ation in each column, and in the entablature of each intercolumnation. 
 In the inlaid tables, which, according to the present fashion, are some- 
 times fixed in the correspondent parts of the same room, the pictures 
 only are different in each. All the other more frivolous and fanciful 
 ornaments are commonly, so far at least as I have observed the fashion, 
 the same in them all. Those ornaments, however, in order to be seen 
 distinctly, require a distinct examination of each table. 
 
 The extraordinary resemblance of two natural objects, of twins, for 
 example, is regarded as a curious circumstance ; which, though it does 
 not increase, yet does not diminish the beauty of either, considered as 
 a separate and unconnected object. But the exact resemblance of two 
 productions of art, seems to be always considered as some diminution 
 of the merit of at least one of them ; as it seems to prove, that one of 
 them, at lea;st, is a copy either of the other, or of some other original. 
 One may say, even of the copy of a picture, that it derives its merit, 
 not so much from its resemblance to the original, as from its resem- 
 blance to the object which the original was meant to resemble. The 
 owner of the copy, so far from setting any high value upon its resem- 
 blance to the original, is often anxious to destroy any value or merit 
 which it might derive from this circumstance. He is often anxious to 
 persuade both himself and other people that it is not a copy, but an 
 original, of which what passes for the original is only a copy. But, 
 whatever merit a copy may derive from its resemblance to the original, 
 an original can derive none from the resemblance of its copy. 
 
 But though a production of art seldom derives any merit from its 
 resemblance to another object of the same kind, it frequently derives a 
 great deal from its resemblance to an object of a different kind, whether 
 that object be a production of art or of nature. A painted cloth, the 
 work of some laborious Dutch artist, so curiously shaded and coloured 
 as to represent the pile and softness of a woollen one, might derive 
 some merit from its resemblance even to the sorry carpet which now
 
 408 CONTRAST OF IMITATIVE MERIT IN PAINTING AND STATUARY. 
 
 lies before me. The copy might, and probably would, in this case, be 
 of much greater value than the original. But if this carpet was repre- 
 sented as spread, either upon a floor or upon a table, and projecting 
 from the background of the picture, with exact observation of perspec- 
 tive, and of light and shade, the merit of the imitation would be still 
 even greater. 
 
 In Painting, a plain surface of one kind is made to resemble, not 
 only a plain surface of another, but all the three dimensions of a solid 
 substance. In Statuary and Sculpture, a solid substance of one kind, 
 is made to resemble a solid substance of another. The disparity 
 between the object imitating, and the object imitated, is much greater 
 in the one art than in the other ; and the pleasure arising from the 
 imitation seems greater in proportion as this disparity is greater. 
 
 In Painting, the imitation frequently pleases, though the original 
 object be indifferent, or even offensive. In Statuary and Sculpture it 
 is otherwise. The imitation seldom pleases, unless the original object 
 be in a very high degree either great, or beautiful, or interesting. A 
 butcher's-stall, or a kitchen-dresser, with the objects which they com- 
 monly present, are not certainly the happiest subjects, even for Paint- 
 ing. They have, however, been represented with so much care and 
 success by some Dutch masters, that it is impossible to view the pic- 
 tures without some degree of pleasure. They would be most absurd 
 subjects for Statuary or Sculpture, which are, however, capable of 
 representing them. The picture of a very ugly or deformed man, such 
 as ALsop, or Scarron, might not make a disagreeable piece of furniture. 
 The statue certainly would. Even a vulgar ordinary man or woman, 
 engaged in a vulgar ordinary action, like what we see with so much 
 pleasure in the pictures of Rembrandt, would be too mean a subject 
 for Statuary. Jupiter, Hercules, and Apollo, Venus and Diana, the 
 Nymphs and the Graces, Bacchus, Mercury, Antinous, and Meleager, 
 the miserable death of Laocoon, the melancholy fate of the children of 
 Niobe, the Wrestlers, the fighting, the dying gladiator, the figures of 
 gods and goddesses, of heroes and heroines, the most perfect forms of 
 the human body, placed either in the noblest attitudes, or in the most 
 interesting situations which the human imagination is capable of con- 
 ceiving, are the proper, and therefore have always been the favourite, 
 subjects of Statuary : that art cannot, without degrading itself, stoop to 
 represent any thing that is offensive, or mean, or even indifferent. 
 Painting is not so disdainful ; and, though capable of representing the 
 noblest objects, it can, without forfeiting its title to please, submit to 
 imitate those of a much more humble nature. The merit of the imita- 
 tion alone, and without any merit in the imitated object, is capable of 
 supporting the dignity of Painting : it cannot support that of Statuary. 
 There would seem, therefore, to be more merit in the one species of 
 imitation than in the other.
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 409 
 
 In Statuary, scarcely any drapery is agreeable. The best of the 
 ancient statues were either altogether naked or almost naked ; and 
 those of which any considerable part of the body is covered, are repre- 
 sented as clothed in wet linen a species of clothing which most cer- 
 tainly never was agreeable to the fashion of any country. This dra- 
 pery too is drawn so tight, as to express beneath its narrow foldings 
 the exact form and outline of any limb, and almost of every muscle of 
 the body. The clothing which thus approached the nearest to no 
 clothing at all, had, it seems, in the judgment of the great artists of 
 antiquity, been that which was most suitable to Statuary. A great painter 
 of the Roman school, who had formed his manner almost entirely upon 
 the study of the ancient statues, imitated at first their drapery in his 
 pictures ; but he soon found that in Painting it had the air of mean- 
 ness and poverty, as if the persons who wore it could scarce afford 
 clothes enough to cover them ; and that larger folds, and a looser and 
 more flowing drapery, were more suitable to the nature of his art. In 
 Painting, the imitation of so very inferior an object as a suit of clothes 
 is capable of pleasing ; and, in order to give this object all the magni- 
 ficence of which it is capable, it is necessary that the folds should be 
 large, loose, and flowing. It is not necessary in Painting that the exact 
 form and outline of every limb, and almost of every muscle of the 
 body, should be expressed beneath the folds of the drapery ; it is suffi- 
 cient if these are so disposed as to indicate in general the situation and 
 attitude of the principal limbs. Painting, by the mere force and merit 
 of its imitation, can venture, without the hazard of displeasing, to sub- 
 stitute, upon many occasions, the inferior in the room of the superior 
 object, by making the one, in this manner, cover and entirely conceal a 
 great part of the other. Statuary can seldom venture to do this, but 
 with the utmost reserve and caution ; and the same drapery, which is 
 noble and magnificent in the one art, appears clumsy and awkward in 
 the other. Some modern artists, however, have attempted to introduce 
 into Statuary the drapery which is peculiar to Painting. It may not, 
 perhaps, upon every occasion, be quite so ridiculous as the marble 
 periwigs in Westminster Abbey : but if it does not always appear clumsy 
 and awkward, it is at best always insipid and uninteresting. 
 
 It is not the want of colouring which hinders many things from 
 pleasing in Statuary which please in Painting ; it is the want of that 
 degree of disparity between the imitating and the imitated object, 
 which is necessary, in order to render interesting the imitation of an 
 object which is itself not interesting. Colouring, when added to 
 Statuary, so far from increasing, destroys almost entirely the pleasure 
 which we receive from the imitation ; because it takes away the great 
 source of that pleasure, the disparity between the imitating and the 
 imitated object. That one solid and coloured object should exactly 
 resemble another solid and coloured object, seems to be a matter of no 
 
 27
 
 410 NUDE STATUARY BETTER THAN DRAPED FIGURES. 
 
 great wonder or admiration. A painted statue, though it may resemble 
 a human figure much more exactly than any statue which is not 
 painted, is generally acknowledged to be a disagreeable and even an 
 offensive object ; and so far are we from being pleased with this 
 superior likeness, that we are never satisfied with it ; and, after viewing 
 it again and again, we always find that it is not equal to what we are 
 disposed to imagine it might have been : though it should seem to want 
 scarce any thing but the life, we could not pardon it for thus wanting 
 what it is altogether impossible it should have. The works of Mrs. 
 Wright, a self-taught artist of great merit, are perhaps more perfect 
 in this way than any thing I have ever seen. They do admirably well 
 to be seen now and then as a show ; but the best of them we shall find, 
 if brought home to our own house, and placed in a situation where it 
 was to come often into view, would make, instead of an ornamental, a 
 most offensive piece of household furniture. Painted statues, accord- 
 ingly, are universally reprobated, and we scarce ever meet with them. 
 To colour the eyes of statues is not altogether so uncommon : even 
 this, however, is disapproved by all good judges. ' I cannot bear it,' 
 (a gentleman used to say, of great knowledge and judgment in this art), 
 ' I cannot bear it ; I always want them to speak to me.' 
 
 Artificial fruits and flowers sometimes imitate so exactly the natural 
 objects which they represent, that they frequently deceive us. We soon 
 grow weary of them, however ; and, though they seem to want nothing 
 but the freshness and the flavour of natural fruits and flowers, we 
 cannot pardon them, in the same manner, for thus wanting what it is 
 altogether impossible they should have. But we do not grow weary of 
 a good flower and fruit painting. We do not grow weary of the foliage 
 of the Corinthian capital, or of the flowers which sometimes ornament 
 the frieze of that order. Such imitations, however, never deceive us ; 
 their resemblance to the original objects is always much inferior to that 
 of artificial fruits and flowers. Such as it is, however, we are contented 
 with it ; and, where there is such disparity between the imitating and 
 the imitated objects, we find that it is as great as it can be, or as we 
 expect that it should be. Paint that foliage and those flowers with the 
 natural colours, and, instead of pleasing more, they will please much 
 less. The resemblance, however, will be much greater ; but the dis- 
 parity between the imitating and the imitated objects will be so much 
 less, that even this superior resemblance will not satisfy us. Where 
 the disparity is so very great, on the contrary, we are often contented 
 with the most imperfect resemblance ; with the very imperfect resem- 
 blance, for example, both as to the figure and the colour, of fruits and 
 flowers in shell-work. 
 
 It may be observed, however, that, though in Sculpture the imitation 
 of flowers and foliage pleases as an ornament of architecture, as a part 
 of the dress which is to set off the beauty of a different and a more
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 41! 
 
 important object, it would not please alone, or as a separate and uncon- 
 nected object, in the same manner as a fruit and flower painting 
 pleases. Flowers and foliage, how elegant and beautiful soever, are 
 not sufficiently interesting ; they have not dignity 'enough, if I 
 may say so, to be proper subjects for a piece of Sculpture, which 
 is to please alone, and not to appear as the ornamental appendage 
 of some other object. 
 
 In Tapestry and Needle-work, in the same manner as in Painting, a 
 plain surface is sometimes made to represent all the three dimensions 
 of a solid substance. But both the shuttle' of the weaver, and the 
 needle of the embroiderer, are instruments of imitation so much 
 inferior to the pencil of the painter, that we are not surprised to find a 
 proportionable inferiority in their productions. We have all more or 
 less experience that they usually are much inferior : and, in appreciat- 
 ing a piece of Tapestry or Needle-work, we never compare the imita- 
 tion of either with that of a good picture, for it never could stand that 
 comparison, but with that of other pieces of Tapestry or Needle-work. 
 We take into consideration, not only the disparity between the imitat- 
 ing and the imitated object, but the awkwardness of the instruments of 
 imitation ; and if it is as well as any thing that can be expected from 
 these, if it is better than the greater part of what actually comes from 
 them, we are often not only contented but highly pleased. 
 
 A good painter will often execute in a few days a subject which 
 would employ the best tapestry-weaver for many years ; though, in 
 proportion to his time, therefore, the latter is always much worse paid 
 than the former, yet his work in the end comes commonly much 
 dearer to market. The great expense of good Tapestry, the circum- 
 stance which confines it to the palaces of princes and of great lords, 
 gives it, in the eyes' of the greater part of the people, an air of riches 
 and magnificence, which contributes still further to compensate the 
 imperfection of its imitation. In arts which address themselves, not 
 to the prudent and the wise, but to the rich and the great, to the proud 
 and the vain, we ought not to wonder if the appearances of great 
 expense, of being what few people can purchase, of being one of the 
 surest characteristics of great fortune, should often stand in the place 
 of exquisite beauty, and contribute equally to recommend their pro- 
 ductions. As the idea of expense seems often to embellish, so that of 
 cheapness seems as frequently to tarnish the lustre even of very agree- 
 able objects. The difference between real and false jewels is what 
 even the experienced eye of a jeweller can sometimes with difficulty 
 distinguish. Let an unknown lady, however, come into a public as- 
 sembly, with a head-dress which appears to be very richly adorned 
 with diamonds, and let a jeweller only whisper in our ear that they are 
 false stones, not only the lady will immediately sink in our imagination 
 from the rank of a princess to that of a very ordinary woman, but the
 
 412 DISPARITY BETWEEN OBJECTS IS THE BEAUTY OF IMITATIONS. 
 
 head-dress, from being an object of the most splendid magnificence, 
 will at once become an impertinent piece of tawdry and tinsel finery. 
 
 It was some years ago the fashion to ornament a garden with yew 
 and holly trees, clipped into the artificial shapes of pyramids, and 
 columns, and vases, and obelisks. It is now the fashion to ridicule 
 this taste as unnatural. The figure of a pyramid or obelisk, however, 
 is not more unnatural to a yew-tree than to a block of porphyry or 
 marble. When the yew-tree is presented to the eye in this artificial 
 shape, the gardener does not mean that it should be understood to have 
 grown in that shape : he means, first, to give it the same beauty of 
 regular figure, which pleases so much in porphyry and marble ; and, 
 secondly, to imitate in a growing tree the ornaments of those precious 
 materials : he means to make an object of one kind resembling another 
 object of a very different kind ; and to the original beauty of figure to 
 join the relative beauty of imitation : but the disparity between the 
 imitating and the imitated object is the foundation of the beauty of 
 imitation. It is because the one object does not naturally resemble the 
 other, that we are so -much pleased with it, when by art it is made to do 
 so. The shears of the gardener, it may be said, indeed, are very clumsy 
 instruments of Sculpture. They are so, no doubt, when employed to 
 imitate the figures of men, or even of animals. But in the simple and 
 regular forms of pyramids, vases, and obelisks, even the shears of the 
 gardener do well enough. Some allowance, too, is naturally made for 
 the necessary imperfection of the instrument, in the same manner as in 
 Tapestry and Needle-work. In short, the next time you have an op- 
 portunity of surveying those out-of-fashion ornaments, endeavour only 
 to let yourself alone, and to restrain for a few minutes the foolish pas- 
 sion for playing the critic, and you will be sensible that they are .not 
 without some degree of beauty ; that they give the -air of neatness and 
 correct culture at least to the whole garden ; and that they are not un- 
 like what the ' retired leisure, that ' (as Milton says) ' in trim gardens 
 ' takes his pleasure,' might be amused with. What then, it may be 
 said, has brought them into such universal disrepute among us ? In a 
 pyramid or obelisk of marble, we know that the materials are expensive, 
 and that the labour which wrought them into that shape must have 
 been still more so. In a pyramid or obelisk of yew, we know that the 
 materials could cost very little, and the labour still less. The former 
 are ennobled by their expense ; the latter degraded by their cheapness. 
 In the cabbage-garden of a tallow-chandler we may sometimes perhaps 
 have seen as many columns and vases and other ornaments in yew, as 
 there are in marble and porphyry at Versailles : it is this vulgarity 
 which has disgraced them. The rich and the great, the proud and 
 the vain will not admit into their gardens an ornament which the mean- 
 est of the people can have as well as they. . The taste for these orna- 
 ments came originally from France ; where, notwithstanding that in-
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 413 
 
 constancy of fashion with which we sometimes reproach the natives of 
 that country, it still continues in good repute. In France, the condi- 
 tion of the inferior ranks of people is seldom so happy as it frequently 
 is in England ; and you will there seldom find even pyramids and 
 obelisks of yew in the garden of a tallow-chandler. Such ornaments, 
 not having in that country been degraded by their vulgarity, have not 
 yet been excluded from the gardens of princes and lords. 
 
 The works of the great masters in Statuary and Painting, it is to be 
 observed, never produce their effect by deception. They never are, 
 and it never is intended that they should be, mistaken for the real 
 objects which they represent. Painted Statuary may sometimes de- 
 ceive an inattentive eye : proper Statuary never does. The little pieces 
 of perspective in Painting, which it is intended should please by decep- 
 tion, represent always some very simple, as well as insignificant, objects : 
 a roll of paper, for example, or the steps of a staircase, in the dark corner 
 of some passage or gallery. They are generally the works too of some 
 very inferior artists. After being seen once, and producing the little 
 surprise which it is meant they should excite, together with the mirth 
 which commonly accompanies it, they never please more, but appear 
 to be ever after insipid and tiresome. 
 
 The proper pleasure which we derive from those two imitative arts, 
 so far from being the effect of deception, is altogether incompatible 
 with it. That pleasure is founded altogether upon our wonder at see- 
 ing an object of one kind represent so well an object of a very different 
 kind, and upon our admiration of the art which surmounts so happily 
 that disparity which Nature had established between them. The 
 nobler works of Statuary and Painting appear to us a sort of wonder- 
 ful phenomena, differing in this respect from the wonderful pheno- 
 mena of Nature, that they carry, as it were, their own explication 
 along with them, and demonstrate, even to the eye, the way and 
 manner in which they are produced. The eye, even of an unskilful 
 spectator, immediately discerns, in some measure, how it is that a cer- 
 tain modification of figure in Statuary, and of brighter and darker 
 colours in Painting, can represent, with so much truth and vivacity, the 
 actions, passions, and behaviour of men, as well as a great variety of 
 other objects. The pleasing wonder of ignorance is accompanied with 
 the still more pleasing satisfaction of science. We wonder and are 
 amazed at the effect ; and we are pleased ourselves, and happy to find 
 that we can comprehend, in some measure, how that wonderful effect 
 is produced upon us. 
 
 A good looking-glass represents the objects which are set before it 
 with much more truth and vivacity than either Statuary or Painting. 
 But, though the science of optics may explain to the understanding, the 
 looking-glass itself does not at all demonstrate to the eye how this 
 effect is brought about. It may excite the wonder of ignorance ; and
 
 414 STATUES WHY PREFERABLE TO PICTURES. 
 
 in a clown, who had never beheld a looking-glass before, I have seen 
 that wonder rise almost to rapture and extasy ; but it cannot give the 
 satisfaction of science. In all looking-glasses the effects are produced 
 by the same means, applied exactly in the same manner. In every 
 different statue and picture the effects are produced, though by similar, 
 yet not by the same means ; and those means too are applied in a 
 different manner in each. Every good statue and picture is a fresh 
 wonder, which at the same time carries, in some measure, its own 
 explication along with it. After a little use and experience, all 
 looking-glasses cease to be wonders altogether ; and even the ignorant 
 become so familiar with them, as not to think that their effects require 
 any explication. A looking-glass, besides, can represent only present 
 objects ; and, when the wonder is once fairly over, we choose, in all 
 cases, rather to contemplate the substance than to gaze at the shadow. 
 One's own face becomes then the most agreeable object which a look- 
 ing-glass can represent to us, and the only object which we do not soon 
 grow weary with looking at ; it is the only present object of which we 
 can see only the shadow : whether handsome or ugly, whether old or 
 young, it is the face of a friend always, of which the features correspond 
 exactly with whatever sentiment, emotion, or passion we may happen 
 at that moment to feel. 
 
 In Statuary, the means by which the wonderful effect is brought 
 about appear more simple and obvious than in Painting ; where the 
 disparity between the imitating and the imitated object being much 
 greater, the art which can conquer that greater disparity appears 
 evidently, and almost to the eye, to be founded upon a much deeper 
 science, or upon principles much more abstruse and profound. Even 
 in the meanest subjects we can often trace with pleasure the ingenious 
 means by which Painting surmounts this disparity. But we cannot do 
 this in Statuary, because the disparity not being so great, the means do 
 not appear so ingenious. And it is upon this account, that in Painting 
 we are often delighted with the representation of many things, which in 
 Statuary would appear insipid, and not worth the looking at. 
 
 Itought to be observed, however, that though in Statuary the art of 
 imitation appears, in many respects, inferior to what it is in Painting, 
 yet, in a room ornamented with both statues and pictures of nearly 
 equal merit, we shall generally find that the statues draw off our eye 
 from the pictures. There is generally but one or little more than one, 
 point of view from which a picture can be seen with advantage, and it 
 always presents to the eye precisely the same object. There are many 
 different points of view from which a statue may be seen with equal 
 advantage, and from each it presents a different object. There is more 
 variety in the pleasure which we receive from a good statue, than in 
 that which we receive from a good picture ; and one statue may fre- 
 quently be the subject of many good pictures or drawings, all different
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 415 
 
 from one another. The shadowy relief and projection of a picture, 
 besides, is much flattened, and seems almost to vanish away altogether, 
 when brought into comparison with the real and solid body which 
 stands by it. How nearly soever these two arts may seem to be akin, 
 they accord so very ill with one another, that their different productions 
 ought, perhaps, scarce ever to be seen together. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 AFTER the pleasures which arise from the gratification of the bodily 
 appetites, there seem to be none more natural to man than Music and 
 Dancing. In the progress of art and improvement they are, perhaps, 
 the first and earliest pleasures of his own invention ; for those which 
 arise from the gratification of the bodily appetites cannot be said to be 
 his own invention. No nation has yet been discovered so uncivilized 
 as to be altogether without them. It seems even to be amongst the 
 most barbarous nations that the use and practice of them is both most 
 frequent and most universal, as among the negroes of Africa and the 
 savage tribes of America. In civilized nations, the inferior ranks of 
 people have very little leisure, and the superior ranks have many other 
 amusements ; neither the one nor the other, therefore, can spend much 
 of their time in Music and Dancing. Among savage nations, the great 
 body of the people have frequently great intervals of leisure, and they 
 have scarce any other amusement; they naturally, therefore, spend a 
 great part of their time in almost the only one they have. 
 
 What the ancients called Rhythmus, what we call Time or Measure, 
 is the connecting principle of those two arts ; Music consisting in a 
 succession of a certain sort of sounds, and Dancing in a succession of 
 a certain sort of steps, gestures, and motions, regulated according to 
 time or measure, and thereby formed, into a sort of whole or system ; 
 which in the one art is called a song or tune, and in the other a dance ; 
 the time or measure of the dance corresponding always exactly with 
 that of the song or tune which accompanies and directs it. 
 
 The human voice, as it is always the best, so it would naturally be 
 the first and earliest of all musical instruments : in singing, or in its 
 first attempts towards singing, it would naturally employ sounds as 
 similar as possible to those which it had been accustomed to ; that is, 
 it would employ words of some kind or other, pronouncing them only 
 in time and measure, and generally with a more melodious tone than 
 had been usual in common conversation. Those words, however, might 
 not, and probably would not, for a Ion - time have any meaning, but 
 might resemble the syllables which w i make use of \nfol-faing, or the 
 
 * The Author's Observations on the Affinity between Miibic, Dancing, and Poetry, are 
 annexed to the end of 1'art III . of this Essay.
 
 41 6 RYTHYM, VERSE, MUSIC, DANCING, PANTOMIMES. 
 
 derry-down-down of our common ballads ; and serve only to assist the 
 voice in forming sounds proper to be modulated into melody, and to 
 be lengthened or shortened according to the time and measure of the 
 tune. This rude form of vocal Music, as it is by far the most simple 
 and obvious, so it naturally would be the first and earliest. 
 
 In the succession of ages it could not fail to occur, that in room of 
 those unmeaning or musical words, if I may call them so, might be 
 substituted words which expressed some sense or meaning, and of 
 which the pronunciation might coincide as exactly with the time and 
 measure of the tune, as that of the musical words had done before. 
 Hence the origin of Verse or Poetry. The Verse would for a long time 
 be rude and imperfect. When the meaning words fell short of the 
 measure required, they would frequently be eked out with the unmean- 
 ing ones, as is sometimes done in our common ballads. When the 
 public ear came to be so refined as to reject, in all serious Poetry, the 
 unmeaning words altogether, there would still be a liberty assumed of 
 altering and corrupting, upon many occasions, the pronunciation of the 
 meaning ones, for the sake of accommodating them to the measure. 
 The syllables which composed them would, for this purpose, sometimes 
 be improperly lengthened, and sometimes improperly shortened ; and 
 though no unmeaning words were made use of, yet an unmeaning syl- 
 lable would sometimes be stuck to the beginning, to the end, or into 
 the middle of a word. All these expedients we find frequently employed 
 in the verses even of Chaucer, the father of the English Poetry. Many- 
 ages might pass away before verse was commonly composed with such 
 correctness, that the usual and proper pronunciation of the words alone, 
 and without any other artifice, subjected the voice to the observation 
 of a time and measure, of the same kind with the time and measure of 
 the science of Music. 
 
 The Verse would naturally express some sense which suited the 
 grave or gay, the joyous or melancholy humour of the tune which it 
 was sung to ; being as it were blended and united with that tune, it 
 would seem to give sense and meaning to what otherwise might not 
 appear to have any, or at least any which could be clearly understood, 
 without the accompaniment of such an explication. 
 
 A pantomime dance may frequently answer the same purpose, and, 
 by representing some adventure in love or war, may seem to give sense 
 and meaning to a Music, which might not otherwise appear to have 
 any. It is more natural to mimic, by gestures and motions, the ad- 
 ventures of common life, than to express them in Verse or Poetry. 
 The thought itself is more obvious, and the execution is much more 
 easy. If this mimicry was accompanied by Music, it would of its own 
 accord, and almost without any intention of doing so, accommodate, 
 in some measure, its different steps and movements to the time and 
 measure of the tune ; especially if the same person both sung the tune
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ART?. 417 
 
 and performed the mimicry, as is said to be frequently the case among 
 the savage nations of Africa and America. Pantomime Dancing might 
 in this manner serve to give a distinct sense and meaning to Music 
 many ages before the invention, or at least before the common use of 
 Poetry. We hear little, accordingly, of the Poetry of the savage 
 nations who inhabit Africa and America, but a great deal of their 
 pantomime dances. 
 
 Poetry, however, is capable of expressing many things fully and dis- 
 tinctly, which Dancing either cannot represent at all, or can represent 
 but obscurely and imperfectly ; such as the reasonings and judgments, 
 of the understanding ; the ideas, fancies, and suspicions of the imagina- 
 tion; the sentiments, emotions, and passions of the heart. In the 
 power of expressing a meaning with clearness and distinctness, Danc- 
 ing is superior to Music, and Poetry to .Dancing. 
 
 Of those three Sister Arts, which originally, perhaps, went always 
 together, and which at all times go frequently together, there are two 
 which can subsist alone, and separate from their natural companions, 
 and one which cannot. In the distinct observation of what the ancients 
 called Rhythmus, of what we call Time and Measure, consists the es- 
 sence both of Dancing and of Poetry or Verse ; or the characteristical 
 quality which distinguishes the former from all other motion and 
 action, and the latter from all other discourse. But, concerning the 
 proportion between those intervals and divisions of duration which 
 constitute what is called time and measure, the ear, it would seem, can 
 judge with much more precision than the eye ; and Poetry, in the same 
 manner as Music, addresses itself to the ear, whereas Dancing ad- 
 dresses itself to the eye. In Dancing, the rhythmus, the proper pro- 
 portion, the time and measure of its motions, cannot distinctly be 
 perceived, unless they are marked by the more distinct time and 
 measure of Music. It is otherwise in Poetry; no accompaniment is 
 necessary to mark the measure of good Verse. Music and Poetry, 
 therefore, can each of them subsist alone; Dancing always requires 
 the accompaniment of Music- 
 
 It is Instrumental Music which can best subsist apart, and separate 
 from both Poetry and Dancing. Vocal Music, though it may, and 
 frequently does, consist of notes which have no distinct sense or mean- 
 ing, yet naturally calls for the support of Poetry.. But, ' Music, married 
 ' to immortal Verse/ as Milton says, or even to words of any kind which 
 have a distinct sense or meaning, is necessarily and essentially imita- 
 tive, Whatever be the meaning of those words, though, like many of 
 the songs of ancient Greece, as well as some of those of more modern 
 times, they may express merely some maxims of prudence and morality, 
 or may contain merely the simple narrative of some important event, 
 yet even in such didactic and historical songs there will still be imita- 
 tion ; there will still be a thing of one kind, which by art is made to
 
 .418 THE EMOTIONS WHICH VERSE GIVES EXPRESSION TO. 
 
 resemble a thing of a very different kind ; there will still be Music 
 imitating discourse; there will still be Rhythmus and Melody, shaped 
 and fashioned into the form either of a good moral counsel, or of an 
 amusing and interesting story. 
 
 In this first species of imitation, which being essential to, is therefore 
 inseparable from, all such Vocal Music, there may be, and there com- 
 monly is, added a secpnd. The words may, and commonly do, express 
 the situation of some particular person, and all the sentiments and pas- 
 sions which he feels from that situation. It is a joyous companion who 
 'gives vent to the gaiety and mirth with which wine, festivity, and good 
 company inspire him. It is a lover who complains, or hopes, or fears, or 
 despairs. It is a generous man who expresses either his gratitude for 
 the favours, or his indignation at the injuries, which may have been 
 done to him. It is a warrior who prepares himself to confront danger, 
 and who provokes or desires his enemy. It is a person in prosperity 
 who humbly returns thanks for the goodness, or one in affliction who 
 with contrition implores the mercy and forgiveness of that invisible 
 Power to whom he looks up as the Director of all the events of human 
 life. The situation may comprehend, not only one, but two, three, or 
 more persons ; it may excite in them all either similar or opposite sen- 
 timents; what is a subject of sorrow to one, being an occasion of joy 
 and triumph to another ; and they may all express, sometimes separately 
 and sometimes together, th particular way in which each of them is 
 affected, as in a duo, trio, or a chorus. 
 
 All this it may, and it frequently has been said is unnatural; nothing 
 being more so, than to sing when we are anxious to persuade, or in 
 earnest to express any very serious purpose. But it should be remem- 
 bered, that to make a thing of one kind resemble another thing of a 
 very different kind, is the very circumstance which, in all the Imitative 
 Arts, constitutes the merits of imitation ; and that to shape, and as it 
 were to bend, the measure and the melody of Music, so as to imitate 
 the tone and the language of counsel and conversation, the accent and 
 the style of emotion and passion, is to make a thing of one kind re- 
 semble another thing of a very different kind. 
 
 The tone and the movements of Music, though naturally very different 
 from those of conversation and passion, may, however, be so managed 
 as to seem to resemble them. On account of the great disparity 
 between the imitating and the imitated object, the mind in this, as in 
 the other cases, cannot only be contented, but delighted, and even 
 charmed and transported, with such an imperfect resemblance as can 
 be had. Such imitative Music, therefore, when sung to words which 
 explain and determine its meaning, may frequently appear to be a very 
 perfect imitation. It is upon this account, that even the incomplete 
 Music of a recitative seems to express sometimes all the sedateness 
 and composure of serious but calm discourse, and sometimes all the
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 419 
 
 exquisite sensibility of the most interesting passion. The more com- 
 plete Music of an air is still superior, and, in the imitation of the more 
 animated passions, has one great advantage over every sort of discourse, 
 whether Prose or Poetry, which is not sung to Music. In a person who 
 is either much depressed by grief or enlivened by joy, who is strongly 
 affected either with love or hatred, with gratitude or resentment, with 
 admiration or contempt, there is commonly one thought or idea which 
 dwells upon his mind, which continually haunts him, which, when he 
 has chased it away, immediately returns upon him, and which in com- 
 pany makes him absent and inattentive. He can think but of one 
 object, and he cannot repeat to them that object so frequently as it 
 recurs upon him. He takes refuge in solitude, where he can with free- 
 dom either indulge the extasy or give way to the agony of the agreeable 
 or disagreeable passion which agitates him ; and where he can repeat 
 to himself, which he does sometimes mentally, and sometimes even 
 aloud, and almost always in the same words, the particular thought 
 which either delights or distresses him. Neither Prose nor Poetry can 
 venture to imitate those almost endless repetitions of passion. They 
 may describe them as I do now, but they dare not imitate them ; they 
 would become most insufferably tiresome if they did. The Music of 
 a passionate air, not only may, but frequently does, imitate them ; and 
 it never makes its way so directly or so irresistibly to the heart as when 
 it does so. It is upon this account that the words of an air, especially 
 of a passionate one, though they are seldom very long, yet are scarce 
 ever sung straight on to the end, like those of a recitative ; but are 
 almost always broken into parts, which are transposed and repeated 
 again and again, according to the fancy or judgment of the composer. 
 It is by means of such repetitions only, that Music can exert those 
 peculiar powers of imitation which distinguish it, and in which it excels 
 all the other Imitative Arts. Poetry and Eloquence, it has accordingly 
 been often observed, produce their effect always by a connected variety 
 and succession of different thoughts and ideas : but Music frequently 
 produces its effects by a repetition of the same idea; and the same 
 sense expressed in the same, or nearly the same, combination of sounds, 
 though at first perhaps it may make scarce any impression upon us, 
 yet, by being repeated again and again, it comes at last gradually, and 
 by little and little, to move, to agitate, and to transport us. 
 
 To these powers of imitating, Music naturally, or rather necessarily, 
 joins the happiest choice in the objects of its imitation. The senti- 
 ments and passions which Music can best imitate are those which 
 unite and bind men together in society; the social, the decent, the 
 virtuous, the interesting and affecting, the amiable and agreeable, the 
 awful and respectable, the noble, elevating, and commanding passions. 
 Grief and distress are interesting and affecting ; humanity and compas- 
 sion, joy and admiration, are amiable and agreeable; devotion is awful 
 
 O
 
 420 MUSIC HAS A PECULIAR AND EXQUISITE MERIT OF ITS OWN. 
 
 and respectable; the generous contempt of danger, the honourable 
 indignation at injustice, are noble, elevating, and commanding. But it 
 is these and such like passions which Music is fittest for imitating, and 
 which it in fact most frequently imitates. They are, if I may say so, 
 all Musical Passions ; their natural tones are all clear, distinct, and 
 almost melodious ; and they naturally express themselves in a language 
 which is distinguished by pauses at regular, and almost equal, intervals ; 
 and which, upon that account, can more easily be adapted to the regular 
 returns of the correspondent periods of a tune. The passions, on the 
 contrary, which drive men from one another, the unsocial, the hateful, 
 the indecent, the vicious passions, cannot easily be imitated by Music, 
 The voice of furious anger, for example, is harsh and discordant ; its 
 periods are all irregular, sometimes very long and sometimes very short, 
 and distinguished by no regular pauses. The obscure and almost in- 
 articulate grumblings of black malice and envy, the screaming outcries 
 of dastardly fear, the hideous growlings of brutal and implacable 
 revenge, are all equally discordant. It is with difficulty 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 amiable 
 passions. It would be a strange entertainment which consisted alto- 
 gether in the imitation of the odious and the vicious. A single song 
 expresses almost always some social, agreeable, or interesting passion. 
 In an opera the unsocial and disagreeable are sometimes introduced, 
 but it is rarely, and as discords are introduced into harmony, to set off 
 by their contrast the superior beauty of the opposite passions. What 
 Plato said of Virtue, that it was of all beauties the brightest, may with 
 some sort of truth be said of the proper and natural objects of musical 
 imitation. They are either the sentiments and passions, in the exercise 
 of which consist both the glory and the happiness of human life, or 
 they are those from which it derives its most delicious pleasures, and 
 most enlivening joys ; or, at the worst and the lowest, they are those 
 by which it calls upon our indulgence and compassionate assistance to 
 its unavoidable weaknesses, distresses, and misfortunes. 
 
 To the merit of its imitation and to that of its happy choice in the 
 objects which it imitates, the great merits of Statuary and Painting, 
 Music joins another peculiar and exquisite merit of its own. Statuary 
 and Painting cannot be said to add any new beauties of their own tc 
 the beauties of Nature which they imitate; they may assemble a 
 greater number of those beauties, and group them in a more agree- 
 able manner than they are commonly, or perhaps ever, to be found in 
 Nature. It may perhaps be true, what the artists are so very fond of 
 telling us, that no woman ever equalled, in all the parts of her body, 
 the beauty of the Venus of Medicis, nor any man that of the Apollo oi 
 Belvidere. But they must allow, surely, that there is no particular
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 421 
 
 beauty in any part or feature of those two famous statues, which is not 
 at least equalled, if not much excelled, by what is to be found in many 
 living subjects. But Music, by arranging, and as it were bending to 
 its own time and measure, whatever sentiments and passions it fee- 
 presses, not only assembles and groups, as well as Statuary and 
 Painting, the different beauties of Nature which it imitates, but it 
 clothes them, besides, with a new and an exquisite beauty of its own ; 
 it clothes them with melody and harmony, which, like a transparent 
 mantle, far from concealing any beauty, serve only to give a brighter 
 colour, a more enlivening lustre and a more engaging grace to every 
 beauty which they infold. 
 
 To these two different sorts of imitation, to that general one, by 
 which Music is made to resemble discourse, and to that particular one, 
 by which it is made to express the sentiments and feelings with which 
 a particular situation inspires a particular person, there is frequently 
 joined a third. The person who sings may join to this double imita- 
 tion of the singer the additional imitation of the actor ; and express, 
 not only by the modulation and cadence of his voice, but by his 
 countenance, by his attitudes, by his gestures, and by his motions, the 
 sentiments and feelings of the person whose situation is painted in the 
 song. Even in private company, though a song may sometimes per- 
 haps be said to be well sung, it can never be said to be well performed, 
 unless the singer does something of this kind ; and there is no com- 
 parison between the effect of what is sung coldly from a music-book at 
 the end of a harpsichord, and of what is not only sung, but acted with 
 proper freedom, animation, and boldness. An opera actor does no 
 more than this; and an imitation which is so pleasing, and which 
 appears even so natural, in private society, ought not to appear forced, 
 unnatural, or disagreeable upon the stage. 
 
 In a good opera actor, not only the modulations and pauses of his 
 voice, but every motion and gesture, every variation, either in the air 
 of his head, or in the attitude of his body, correspond to the time and 
 measure of Music : they correspond to the expression of the sentiment 
 or passion which the Music imitates, and that expression necessarily 
 corresponds to this time and measure. Music is as it were the soul 
 which animates him, which informs every feature of his countenance, 
 and even directs every movement of his eyes. Like the musical 
 expression of a song, his action adds to the natural grace of the senti- 
 ment or action which it imitates, a new and peculiar grace of its own ; 
 the exquisite and engaging grace of those gestures and motio,ns, of 
 those airs and attitudes which are directed by the movement, by the 
 time and measure of Music ; this grace heightens and enlivens that 
 expression. Nothing can be more deeply affecting than the interesting 
 scenes of the serious opera, when to good Poetry and good Music, to 
 the Poetry of Metastasio and the Music of Pergolese, is added the
 
 422 IMITATIONS IN INSTRUMENTAL INFERIOR TO VOCAL MUSIC. 
 
 execution of a good actor. In the serious opera, indeed, the action is 
 too often sacrificed to the Music; the castrati, who perform the prin- 
 cipal parts, being always the most insipid and miserable actors. The 
 sprightly airs of the comic opera are, in the same manner, in the 
 highest degree enlivening and diverting. Though they do not make us 
 laugh so loud as we sometimes do at the scenes of the common comedy, 
 they make us smile more frequently; and the agreeable gaiety, the 
 temperate joy, if I may call it so, with which they inspire us, is not 
 only an elegant, but a most delicious pleasure. The deep distress and 
 the great passions of tragedy are capable of producing some effect, 
 though it should be but indifferently acted. It is not so with the 
 lighter misfortunes and less affecting situations of comedy : unless it is 
 at least tolerably acted, it is altogether insupportable. But the castrati 
 are scarce ever tolerable actors ; they are accordingly seldom admitted 
 to play in the comic opera ; which, being upon that account commonly 
 better performed than the serious, appears to many people the better 
 entertainment of the two. 
 
 The imitative powers of Instrumental are much inferior to those of 
 Vocal -Music ; its melodious but unmeaning and inarticulated sounds 
 cannot, like the articulations of the human voice, relate distinctly the 
 circumstances of any particular story, or describe the different situations 
 which those circumstances produced ; or even express clearly, and so 
 as to be understood by every hearer, the various sentiments and passions 
 which the parties concerned felt from these situations : even its imita- 
 tion of other sounds, the objects which it can certainly best imitate, is 
 commonly so indistinct, that alone, and without any explication, it 
 might not readily suggest to us what was the imitated object. The 
 rocking of a cradle is supposed to be imitated in that concerto of 
 Correlli, which is said to have been composed for the Nativity : but 
 unless we were told beforehand, it might not readily occur to us what 
 it meant to imitate, or whether it meant to imitate any thing at all ; 
 and this imitation (which, though perhaps as successful as any other, 
 is by no means the distinguished beauty of that admired composition) 
 might only appear to us a singular and odd passage in Music. The 
 ringing of bells and the singing of the lark and nightingale are imitated 
 in the symphony of Instrumental Music which Mr. Handel has com- 
 posed for the Allegro and Penseroso of Milton : these are not only 
 sounds but musical sounds, and may therefore be supposed to be more 
 within the compass of the powers of musical imitation. It is accordingly 
 universally acknowledged, that in these imitations this great master 
 has been remarkably successful ; and yet, unless the verses of Milton 
 explained the meaning of the Music, it might not even in this case 
 readily occur to us what it meant to imitate, or whether it meant to 
 imitate any thing at all. With the explication of the words, indeed, 
 the imitation appears, what it certainly is, a very fine one ; but without
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 423 
 
 that explication it might perhaps appear only a singular passage, which 
 had less" connexion either with what went before or with what came 
 after it, than any other in the Music. 
 
 Instrumental Music is said sometimes to imitate motion ; but in 
 reality it only either imitates the particular sounds which accompany 
 certain motions, or it produces sounds of which the time and measure 
 bear some correspondence to the variations, to the pauses and inter- 
 ruptions, to the successive accelerations and retardations of the motion 
 which it means to imitate : it is in this way that it sometimes attempts 
 to express the march and array of an army, the confusion and hurry of 
 a battle, &c. In all these cases, however, its imitation is so very 
 indistinct, that without the accompaniment of some other art, to explain 
 and interpret its meaning, it would be almost always unintelligible ; 
 and we could scarce ever know with certainty, either what it meant to 
 imitate, or whether it meant to imitate any thing at all. 
 
 In the imitative arts, though it is by no means necessary that the 
 imitating should so exactly resemble the imitated object, that the one 
 should sometimes be mistaken for the other, it is, however, necessary 
 that they should resemble at least so far, that the one should always 
 readily suggest the other. It would be a strange picture which required 
 an inscription at the foot to tell us, not only what particular person it 
 meant to represent, but whether it meant to represent a man or a horse, 
 or whether it meant to be a picture at all, and to represent any thing. 
 The imitations of instrumental Music may, in some respects, be said to 
 resemble such pictures. There is, however, this very essential differ- 
 ence between them, that the picture would not be much mended by 
 the inscription ; whereas, by what may be considered as very little 
 more than such an inscription, instrumental Music, though it cannot 
 always even then, perhaps, be said properly to imitate, may, however, 
 produce all the effects of the finest and most perfect imitation. In 
 order to explain how this is brought about, it will not be necessary to 
 descend into any great depth of philosophical speculation. 
 
 That train of thoughts and ideas which is continually passing through 
 the mind does not always move on with, the same pace, if I may say 
 so, or with the same order and connection. When we are gay and 
 cheerful, its motion is brisker and more lively, our thoughts succeed 
 one another more rapidly, and those which immediately follow one 
 another seem frequently either to have but little connection, or to be 
 connected rather by their opposition than by their mutual resemblance. 
 As in this wanton and playful disposition of mind we hate to dwell 
 long upon the same thought, so we do not much care to pursue resem- 
 bling thoughts ; and the variety of contrast is more agreeable to us 
 than the sameness of resemblance. It is quite otherwise when we are 
 melancholy and desponding ; we then frequently find ourselves haunted, 
 as it were, by some thought which we would gladly chase away, but
 
 424 THE EFFECT, ON THE MIND, OF INSTRUMENTAL HARMONY. 
 
 which constantly pursues us, and which admits no followers, attendants, 
 or companions, but such as are of its own kindred and complexion. A 
 slow succession of resembling or closely connected thoughts is the 
 characteristic of this disposition of mind ; a quick succession of 
 thoughts, frequently contrasted and in general very slightly connected, 
 is the characteristic of the other. What may be called the natural 
 state of the mind, the state in which we are neither elated nor dejected, 
 the state of sedateness, tranquillity, and composure, holds a sort of 
 middle place between those two opposite extremes ; our thoughts 
 may succeed one another more slowly, and with a more distinct 
 connection, than in the one ; but more- quickly and with a greater 
 variety, than in the other. 
 
 Acute sounds are naturally gay, sprightly, and enlivening ; grave 
 sounds solemn, awful, and melancholy. There seems too to be some 
 natural connection between acuteness in tune and quickness in time or 
 succession, as well as between gravity and slowness : an acute sound 
 seems to fly off more quickly than a grave one : the treble is more 
 cheerful than the bass ; its notes likewise commonly succeed one 
 another more rapidly. But instrumental Music, by a proper arrange- 
 ment, by a quicker or slower succession of acute and grave, of resem- 
 bling and contrasted sounds, can not only accommodate itself to the 
 gay, the sedate, or the melancholy mood ; but if the mind is so far 
 vacant as not to be disturbed by any disorderly passion, it can, at least 
 for the moment, and to a certain degree, produce every possible 
 modification of each of those moods or dispositions. We all readily 
 distinguish the cheerful, the gay, and the sprightly Music, from the 
 melancholy, the plaintive, and the affecting ; and both these from what 
 holds a sort of middle place between them, the sedate, the tranquil, 
 and the composing. And we are all sensible that, in the natural and 
 ordinary state of the mind, Music can, by a sort of incantation, sooth 
 and charm us into some degree of that particular mood or disposition 
 which accords with its own character and temper. In a concert of 
 instrumental Music the attention is engaged, with pleasure and delight, 
 to listen to a combination of the most agreeable and melodious sounds, 
 which follow one another, sometimes with a quicker, and sometimes 
 with a slower succession ; and in which those that immediately follow 
 one another sometimes exactly or nearly resemble, and sometimes 
 contrast with one another in tune, in time, and in ofder of arrange- 
 ment. The mind being thus successively occupied by a train of 
 objects, of which the nature, succession, and connection correspond, 
 sometimes to the gay, sometimes to the tranquil, and sometimes to the 
 melancholy mood or disposition, it is itself successively led into each 
 of those moods or dispositions ; and is thus brought into a sort of 
 harmony or concord with the Music which so agreeably engages its 
 attention.
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 425 
 
 It is not, however, by imitation properly, that instrumental Music 
 produces this effect : instrumental Music does not imitate, as vocal 
 Music, as Painting, or as Dancing would imitate, a gay, a sedate, or a 
 melancholy person ; it does not tell us, as any of those other arts could 
 tell us, a pleasant, a serious, or a melancholy story. It is not, as in 
 vocal Music, in Painting, or in Dancing, by sympathy with the gaiety, 
 the sedateness, or the melancholy and distress of some other person, 
 that instrumental Music soothes us into each of these dispositions : it 
 becomes itself a gay, a sedate, or a melancholy object ; and the mind 
 naturally assumes the mood or disposition which at the time cor- 
 responds to the object which engages its attention. Whatever we feel 
 from instrumental Music is an original, and not a sympathetic feeling : 
 it is our own gaiety, sedateness, or melancholy ; not the the reflected 
 disposition of another person. 
 
 When we follow the winding alleys of some happily situated and well 
 laid out garden, we are presented with a succession of landscapes, 
 which are sometimes gay, sometimes gloomy, and sometimes calm and 
 serene ; if the mind is in its natural state, it suits itself to the objects 
 which successively present themselves, and varies in some degree its 
 mood and present humour with every variation of the scene. It would 
 be improper, however, to say that those scenes imitated the gay, the 
 calm, or the melancholy mood of the mind; they may produce in their 
 turn each of those moods, but they cannot imitate any of them. In- 
 strumental Music, in the same manner, though it can excite all those 
 different dispositions, cannot imitate any of them. There are no two 
 things in nature more perfectly disparate than sound and sentiment ; 
 and it is impossible by any human power to fashion the one into any 
 thing that bears any real resemblance to the other. 
 
 This power of exciting and varying the different moods and disposi- 
 tions of the mind, which instrumental Music really possesses to a very 
 considerable degree, has been the principal source of its reputation for 
 those great imitative powers which have been ascribed to it. ' Paint- 
 ' ing/ says an author, more capable of feeling strongly than of analysing 
 accurately, Mr. Rousseau of Geneva, ' Painting, which presents its 
 ' imitations, not to the imagination, but to the senses, and to only one 
 ' of the senses, can represent nothing besides the objects of sight. 
 ' Music, one might imagine, should be equally confined to those of 
 'hearing. It imitates, however, every thing, even those objects which 
 ' are perceivable by sight only. By a delusion that seems almost in- 
 ' conceivable, it can, as it were, put the eye into the ear ; and the 
 ' greatest wonder, of an art which acts only by motion and succession, 
 ' is, that it can imitate rest and repose. Night, Sleep, Solitude, and 
 ' Silence are all within the compass of musical imitation. Though all 
 ' Nature should be asleep, the person who contemplates it is awake ; 
 'and the art of the musician consists in substituting, in the room of an 
 
 28
 
 426 ROUSSEAU ON THE POWER OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC. 
 
 4 image of what is not the object of hearing, that of the movements 
 ' which its presence would excite in the mind of the spectator.' That 
 is, of the effects which it would produce upon his mood and disposition. 
 'The musician (continues the same author) will sometimes, not only 
 4 agitate the waves of the sea, blow up the flames of a conflagration, 
 4 make the rain fall, the rivulets flow and swell the torrents, but he wHl 
 ' paint the horrors of a hideous desert, darken the walls of a subtcr- 
 4 raneous dungeon, calm the tempest, restore serenity and tranquillity 
 4 to the air and the sky, and shed from the orchestra a new freshness 
 4 over the groves and the fields. He will not directly represent any of 
 4 these objects, but he will excite in the mind the same movements 
 4 which it would feel from seeing them. 7 
 
 Upon this very eloquent description of Mr. Rousseau I must observe, 
 that without the accompaniment of the scenery and action of the opera, 
 without the assistance either of the scene-painter or of the poet, or of 
 both, the instrumental Music of the orchestra could produce none of 
 the effects which are here ascribed to it : and we could never know, we 
 could never even guess, which of the gay, melancholy, or tranquil ob- 
 jects above mentioned 'it meant to represent to us ; or whether it meant 
 to represent any of them, and not merely to entertain us with a concert 
 of gay, melancholy, or tranquil Music ; or, as the ancients called them, 
 of the Diastaltic, of the Systaltic, or of the Middle Music. With that 
 accompaniment, indeed, though it cannot always even then, perhaps, be 
 said properly to imitate, yet by supporting the imitation of some other 
 art, it may produce all the same effects upon us as if itself had imitated 
 in the finest and most perfect manner. Whatever be the object or 
 situation which the scene-painter represents upon the theatre, the 
 Music of the orchestra, by disposing the mind to the same sort of 
 mood and temper which it would feel from the presence of that object, 
 or from sympathy with the person who was placed in that situation, 
 can greatly enhance the effect of that imitation : it can accommodate 
 itself to every diversity of scene. The melancholy of the man who, 
 upon some great occasion, only finds himself alone in the darkness, the 
 silence and solitude of the night, is very different from that of one who, 
 upon a like occasion, finds himself in the midst of some dreary and 
 inhospitable desert ; and even in this situation his feelings would not 
 be the same as if he was shut up in a subterraneous dungeon. The 
 different degrees of precision with which the Music of the orchestra 
 can accommodate itself to each of those diversities, must depend upon 
 the taste, the sensibility, the fancy and imagination of the composer : 
 it may sometimes, perhaps, contribute to this precision, that it should 
 imitate, as well as it can, the sounds which either naturally accompany, 
 or which might be supposed to accompany, the particular objects re- 
 presented. The symphony in the French opera of Alcyone, which 
 imitated the violence of the winds and the dashing of the waves, in the
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 427 
 
 tempest which was to drown Coix, is much commended by cotemporary 
 writers. That in the opera of Isse, which imitated that murmuring in 
 the leaves of the oaks of Dodona, which might be supposed to precede 
 the miraculous pronunciation of the oracle : and that in the opera of 
 Amadis, of which the dismal accents imitated the sounds which might 
 be supposed to accompany the opening of the tomb of Ardari, before 
 the apparition of the ghost of that warrior, are still more celebrated. 
 Instrumental Music, however, without violating too much its own 
 melody and harmony, can imitate but imperfectly the sounds of natural 
 objects, of which the greater part have neither melody nor harmony. 
 Great reserve, great discretion, and a very nice discernment are re- 
 quisite, in order to introduce with propriety such imperfect imitations, 
 either into Poetry or Music ; when repeated too often, when continued 
 too long, they appear to be what they really are, mere tricks, in which 
 a very inferior artist, if he will only give himself the trouble to attend 
 to them, can easily equal the greatest. I have seen a Latin translation 
 of Mr. Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, which in this respect very 
 much excelled the original. Such imitations are still easier in Music. 
 Both in the one art and in the other, the difficulty is not in making 
 them as well as they are capable of being made, but in knowing when 
 and how far to make them at all : but to be able to accommodate the 
 temper and character of the Music to every peculiarity of the scene 
 and situation with such exact precision, that the one shall produce the 
 very same effect upon the mind as the other, is not one of those tricks 
 in which an inferior artist can easily equal the greatest ; it is an art 
 which requires all the judgment, knowledge, and invention of the most 
 consummate master. It is upon this art, and not upon its imperfect 
 imitation, either of real or imaginary sounds, that the great effects of 
 instrumental Music depend; such imitations ought perhaps to be ad- 
 mitted only so far as they may sometimes contribute to ascertain the 
 meaning, and thereby to enhance the effects of this art. 
 
 By endeavouring to extend the effects of scenery beyond what the 
 nature of the thing will admit of, it has been much abused ; and in the 
 common, as well as in the musical drama, many imitations have been 
 attempted, which, after the first and second time we have seen them, 
 necessarily appear ridiculous : such are, the Thunder rumbling from 
 the Mustard-bowl, and the Snow of Paper and thick Hail of Pease, 
 so finely exposed by Mr. Pope. Such imitations resemble those of 
 painted Statuary; they may surprise at first, but they disgust ever after, 
 and appear evidently such simple and easy tricks as are fit only for the 
 amusement of children and their nurses at a puppet-show. The 
 thunder of either theatre ought certainly never to be louder than that 
 which the orchestra is capable of producing ; and their most dreadful 
 tempests ought never to exceed what the scene painter is capable of 
 representing. In such imitations there may be an art which merits
 
 428 OPERA, EFFECTS OF, IN THE CLOSET OR ON THE STAGE. 
 
 some degree of esteem and admiration. In the other there can be 
 none which merits any. 
 
 This abuse of scenery has both subsisted much longer, and been 
 carried to- a much greater degree of extravagance, in the musical than 
 in the common drama. In France it has been long banished from the 
 latter ; but it still continues, not only to be tolerated, but to be admired 
 and applauded in the former. In the French operas, not only thunder 
 and lightning, storms and tempests, are commonly represented in the 
 ridiculous manner above mentioned, but all the marvellous, all the 
 supernatural of Epic Poetry, all the metamorphoses of Mythology, all 
 the wonders of Witchcraft and Magic, every thing that is most unfit to 
 be represented upon the stage, are every day exhibited with the most 
 complete approbation and applause of that ingenious nation. The 
 music of the orchestra producing upon the audience nearly the same 
 effect which a better and more artful imitation would produce, hinders 
 them from feeling, at least in its full force, the ridicule of those childish 
 and awkward imitations which necessarily abound in that extravagant 
 scenery. And in reality such imitations, though no doubt ridiculous 
 every where, yet certainly appear somewhat less so in the musical than 
 they would in the common drama. The Italian opera, before it was 
 reformed by Apostolo, Zeno, and Metastasio, was in this respect equally 
 extravagant, and was upon that account the subject of the agreeable 
 raillery of Mr. Addfson in several different papers of the Spectator. 
 Even since that reformation it still continues to be a rule, that the 
 scene should change at least with every act ; and the unity of place 
 never was a more sacred law in the common drama, than the violation 
 of it has become in the musical : the latter seems in reality to require 
 both a more picturesque and a. more varied scenery, than is at all 
 necessary for the former. In an opera, as the Music supports the effect 
 of the scenery, so the scenery often serves to determine the character, 
 and to explain the meaning of the Music ; it ought to vary therefore as 
 that character varies. The pleasure of an opera, besides, is in its 
 nature more a sensual pleasure, than that of a common comedy or 
 tragedy ; the latter produce their effect principally by means of the 
 imagination : in the closet, accordingly, their effect is not much inferior 
 to what it is upon the stage. But the effect of an opera is seldom very 
 great in the closet ; it addresses itself more to the external senses, and 
 as it soothes the ear by its melody and harmony, so we feel that it 
 ought to dazzle the eye with the splendour of its scenery. 
 
 In an opera the instrumental Music of the orchestra supports the 
 imitation both of the poet and of the actor, as well as of the scene- 
 painter. The overture disposes the mind to that mood which fits it for 
 the opening of the piece. The Music between the acts keeps up the 
 impression which the foregoing had made, and prepares us for that 
 which the following is to make. When the orchestra interrupts, as it
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 429 
 
 frequently does, either the recitative or the air, it is in order either to 
 enforce the effect of what had gone before, or to put the mind in the 
 mood which fits it for hearing what is to come after. Both in the 
 recitatives and in the airs it accompanies and directs the voice, and 
 often brings it back to the proper tone and modulation, when it is upon 
 the point of wandering away from them ; and the correctness of the 
 best vocal Music is owing in a great measure to the guidance of instru- 
 mental ; though in all these cases it supports the imitation of another 
 art, yet in all of them it may be said rather to diminish than to 
 increase the resemblance between the imitating and the imitated 
 object. Nothing can be more unlike to what really passes in the' world, 
 than that persons engaged in the most interesting situations, both of 
 public and private life, in sorrow, in disappointment, in distress, in 
 despair, should, in all that they say and do, be constantly accompanied 
 with a fine concert of instrumental Music. Were we to reflect upon it, 
 such accompaniment must in all cases diminish the probability of the 
 action, and render the representation still less like nature than it other- 
 wise would be. It is not by imitation, therefore, that instrumental 
 Music supports and enforces the imitations of the other arts ; but it is 
 by producing upon the mind, in consequence of other powers, the same 
 sort of effect which the most exact imitation of nature, which the most 
 perfect observation of probability, could produce. To produce this 
 effect is, in such entertainments, the sole end and purpose of that 
 imitation and observation. If it can be equally well produced by other 
 means, this end and purpose may be equally well answered. 
 
 But if instrumental Music can seldom be said to be properly imita- 
 tive, even when it is employed to support the imitation of some other 
 art, it is commonly still less so when it is employed alone. Why should 
 it embarrass its melody and harmony, or constrain its time and measure, 
 by attempting an imitation which, without the accompaniment of some 
 other art to explain and interpret its meaning, nobody is likely to under- 
 stand? In the most approved instrumental Music, accordingly, in the 
 overtures of Handel and the concertos of Correlli, there is little or no 
 imitation, and where there is any, it is the source of but a very small 
 part of the merit of those compositions. Without any imitation, instru- 
 mental Music can produce very considerable effects ; though its powers 
 over the heart and affections are, no doubt, much inferior to those of 
 vocal Music, it has, however, considerable powers : by the sweetness of 
 its sounds it awakens agreeably, and calls upon the attention ; by their 
 connection and affinity it naturally detains that attention, which follows 
 easily a series of agreeable sounds, which have all a certain relation 
 both to a common, fundamental, or leading note, called the key note ; 
 and to a certain succession or combination of notes, called the song or 
 composition. By means of this relation each foregoing sound seems 
 to introduce, and as it were prepare the mind for the following : by its
 
 430 THE EXCELLENT EFFECTS OF A WELL-ARRANGED CONCERT. 
 
 rhythmus,- by its time and measure, it disposes that succession of 
 sounds into a certain arrangement, which renders the whole more easy 
 to be comprehended and remembered. Time and measure are to 
 instrumental Music what order and method are to discourse ; they 
 break it into proper parts and divisions, by which we are enabled both 
 to remember better what is gone before, and frequently to foresee some- 
 what of what is to come after ; we frequently foresee the return of a 
 period which we know must correspond to another which we remember 
 to have gone before ; and, according to the saying of an ancient philo- 
 sopher and musician, the enjoyment of Music arises partly from 
 memory and partly from foresight. When the measure, after having 
 been continued so long as to satisfy us, changes to another, that variety, 
 which thus disappoints, becomes more agreeable to us than the unifor- 
 mity which would have gratified our expectation : but without this order 
 and method we could remember very little of what had gone before, 
 and we could foresee still less of what was to come after ; and the 
 whole enjoyment of Music would be equal to little more than the effect 
 of the particular sounds which rung in our ears at every particular 
 instant. By means of this order and method it is, during the progress 
 of the entertainment, equal to the effect of all that we remember, and 
 of all that we foresee ; and at the conclusion of the entertainment, 
 to the combined and accumulated effect of all the different parts of 
 which the whole was composed. 
 
 A well-composed concerto of instrumental Music, by the number 
 and variety of the instruments, by the variety of the parts which are 
 performed by them, and the perfect concord or correspondence of all 
 these different parts ; by the exact harmony or coincidence of all the 
 different sounds which are heard at the same time, and by that happy 
 variety of measure which regulates the succession of those which are 
 heard at different times, presents an object so agreeable, so great, so 
 various, and so interesting, that alone, and without suggesting any other 
 object, either by imitation or otherwise, it can occupy, and as it were 
 fill up, completely the whole capacity of the mind, so as to leave no 
 part of its attention vacant for thinking of any thing else. In the con- 
 templation of that immense variety of agreeable and melodious sounds, 
 arranged and digested, both in their coincidence and in their succes- 
 sion, into so complete and regular a system, the mind in reality enjoys 
 not only a. very great sensual, but a very high intellectual pleasure, not 
 unlike that which it derives from the contemplation of a great system 
 in any other science. A full concerto of such instrumental Music, not 
 only does not require, but it does not admit of any accompaniment. 
 A song or a dance, by demanding an attention which we have not to 
 spare, would disturb, instead of heightening, the effect of the Music ; 
 they may often very properly succeed, but they cannot accompany it. 
 That music seldom means to tell any particular story, or to imitate any
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 431 
 
 particular event, or in general to suggest any particular object, distinct 
 from that combination of sounds of which itself is composed. Its 
 meaning, therefore, may be said to be complete in itself, and to require 
 no interpreters to explain it. What is called the subject of such Music 
 is merely, as has already been said, a certain leading combination of 
 notes, to which it frequently returns, and to which all its digressions 
 and variations bear a certain affinity. It is altogether different from 
 what is called the subject of a poem or a picture, which is always some- 
 thing which is not either in the poem or in the picture, or something 
 distinct from that combination, either of words on the one hand or of 
 colours on the other, of which they are respectively composed. The 
 subject of a composition of instrumental Music is part of that com- 
 position : the subject of a poem or picture is part of neither. 
 
 The effect of instrumental Music upon the mind has been called its 
 expression. In the feeling it is frequently not unlike the effect of what 
 is called the expression of Painting, and is sometimes equally interest- 
 ing. But the effect of the expression of Painting arises always from 
 the thought of something which, though distinctly and clearly sug- 
 gested by the drawing and colouring of the picture, is altogether dif- 
 ferent from that drawing and colouring. It arises sometimes from 
 sympathy with, sometimes from antipathy and aversion to, the senti- 
 ments, emotions, and passions which the countenance, the action, the 
 air and attitude of the persons represented suggest. The melody and 
 harmony of instrumental Music, on the contrary, do not distinctly 
 and clearly suggest any thing that is different from that melody and 
 harmony. Whatever effect it produces is the immediate effect of that 
 melody and harmony, and not of something else which is signified and 
 suggested by them : they in fact signify and suggest nothing. It may 
 be proper to say that the complete art of painting, the complete merit 
 of a picture, is composed of three distinct arts or merits ; that of draw- 
 ing, that of colouring, and that of expression. But to say, as Mr. Addi- 
 son does, that the complete art of a musician, the complete merit of a 
 piece of Music, is composed or made up of three distinct arts or merits, 
 that of melody, that of harmony, and that of expression, is to say, that 
 it is made up of melody and harmony, and of the immediate and 
 necessary effect of melody and harmony : the division is by no means 
 logical ; expression in painting is not the necessary effect either of good 
 drawing or of good colouring, or of both together ; a picture may be 
 both finely drawn and finely coloured, and yet have very little expres- 
 sion : but that effect upon the mind which is called expression in Mu- 
 sic, is the immediate and necessary effect of good melody. In the 
 power of producing this effect consists the essential characteristic which 
 distinguishes such melody from what is bad or indifferent. Harmony 
 may enforce the effect of good melody, but without good melody the 
 most skilful harmony can produce no effect which deserves the name
 
 432 DANCING NOT NECESSARILY OR ESSENTIALLY IMITATIVE. 
 
 of expression ; it can do little more than fatigue and confound the ear. 
 A painter may possess, in a very eminent degree, the talents of draw- 
 ing and colouring, and yet possess that of expression in a very inferior 
 degree. Such a painter, too, may have great merit. In the judgment 
 of Du Piles, even the celebrated Titian was a painter of this kind. But 
 to say that a musician possessed the talents of melody and harmony in 
 a very eminent degree, and that of expression in a very inferior one, 
 would be to say, that in his works the cause was not followed by its 
 necessary and proportionable effect. A musician may be a very skilful 
 harmonist, and yet be defective in the talents of melody, air, and ex- 
 pression ; his songs may be dull and without effect. Such a musician 
 too may have a certain degree of merit, not unlike that of a man of 
 great learning, who wants fancy, taste, and invention. 
 
 Instrumental Music, therefore, though it may, no doubt, be considered 
 in some respects as an imitative art, is certainly less so than any other 
 which merits that appellation ; it can imitate but a few objects, and 
 even these so imperfectly, that without the accompaniment of some 
 other art, its imitation is scarce ever intelligible : imitation is by no 
 means essential to it, and the principal effect it is capable of producing 
 arises from powers altogether different from those of imitation. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE imitative powers of Dancing are much superior to those of in- 
 strumental Music, and are at least equal, perhaps superior, to those of 
 any other art. Like instrumental Music, however, it is not necessarily 
 or essentially imitative, and it can produce very agreeable effects, with- 
 out imitating any thing. In the greater part of our common dances 
 there is little or no imitation, and they consist almost entirely of a suc- 
 cession of such steps, gestures, and motions, regulated by the time and 
 measure of Music, as either display extraordinary grace or require ex- 
 traordinary agility. Even some of our dances, which are said to have 
 been originally imitative, have, in the way in which we practise them, 
 almost ceased to be so. The minuet, in which the woman, after pass- 
 ing and repassing the man several times, first gives him up one hand, 
 then the other, and then both hands, is said to have been originally a 
 Moorish dance, which emblematically represented the passion of love. 
 Many of my readers may have frequently danced this dance, and, in 
 the opinion of all who saw them, with great grace and propriety, though 
 neither they nor the spectators once thought of the allegorical meaning 
 which it originally intended to express. 
 
 A certain measured, cadenced step, commonly called a dancing step, 
 which keeps time with, and as it were beats the measure of, the Music 
 which accompanies and directs it, is the essential characteristic which
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE IMITATIVE ARTS. 433 
 
 distinguishes a dance from every other sort of motion. When the 
 dancer, moving with a step of this kind, and observing this time and 
 measure, imitates either the ordinary or the more important actions of 
 human life, he shapes and fashions, as it were, a thing of one kind, into 
 the resemblance of another thing of a very different kind : his art con- 
 quers the disparity which Nature has placed between the imitating and 
 the imitated object, and has upon that account some degree of that 
 sort of merit which belongs to all the imitative arts. This disparity, 
 indeed, is not so great as in some other of those arts, nor consequently 
 the merit of the imitation which conquers it. Nobody would compare 
 the merit of a good imitative dancer to that of a good painter or statu- 
 ary. The dancer, however, may have a very considerable degree of 
 merit, and his imitation perhaps may sometimes be capable of giving 
 us as much pleasure as that of either of the other two artists. All the 
 subjects, either of Statuary or of History Painting, are within the com- 
 pass of his imitative powers ; and in representing them, his art has 
 even some advantage over both the other two. Statuary and History 
 Painting can represent but a single instant of the action which they 
 mean to imitate : the causes which prepared, the consequences which 
 followed, the situation of that single instant are altogether beyond the 
 compass of their imitation. A pantomime dance can represent distinctly 
 those causes and consequences ; it is not confined to the situation of a 
 single instant ; but, like Epic Poetry, it can represent all the events of 
 a long story, and exhibit a long train and succession of connected and 
 interesting situations. It is capable therefore of affecting us much 
 more than either Statuary or Painting. The ancient Romans used to 
 shed tears at the representations of their pantomimes, as we do at 
 that of the most interesting tragedies ; an effect which is altogether 
 beyond the powers of Statuary or Painting. 
 
 The ancient Greeks appear to have been a nation of dancers, and 
 both their common and their stage dances seem to have been all imi- 
 tative. The stage dances of the ancient Romans appear to have been 
 equally so. Among that grave people it was reckoned indecent to 
 dance in private societies ; and they could therefore have no common 
 dances; and among both nations imitation seems to have been con- 
 sidered as essential to dancing. 
 
 It is quite otherwise in modern times : though we have pantomime 
 dances upon the stage, yet the greater part even of our stage dances 
 are not pantomime, and cannot well be said to imitate any thing. The 
 greater part of our common dances either never were pantomime, or, 
 with a very few exceptions, have almost all ceased to be so. 
 
 This remarkable difference of character between the ancient and the 
 modern dances seems to be the natural effect of a correspondent dif- 
 ference in that of the music, which has accompanied and directed both 
 the one and the other.
 
 434 THK CHORUS (GREEK) DANCED TO THEIR OWN MUSIC. 
 
 In modern times we almost always dance to instrumental music, 
 which being itself not imitative, the greater part of the dances which 
 it directs, and as it were inspires, have ceased to be so. In ancient 
 times, on the contrary, they seem to have danced almost always to 
 vocal music; which being necessarily and essentially imitative, their 
 dances became so too. The ancients seem to have had little or 
 nothing of what is properly called instrumental music, or of music 
 composed not to be sung by the voice, but to be played upon instru- 
 ments, and both their wind and stringed instruments seem to have 
 served only as an accompaniment and direction to the voice. 
 
 In the country it frequently happens, that a company of young people 
 take a fancy to dance, though they have neither fiddler nor piper to 
 dance to. A lady undertakes to sing while the rest of the company 
 dance : in most cases she sings the notes only, without the words, and 
 then the voice being little more than a musical instrument, the dance 
 is performed in the usual way, without any imitation. But if she sings 
 the words, and if in those words there happens to be somewhat more 
 than ordinary spirit and humour, immediately all the company, espe- 
 cially all the best dancers, and all those who dance most at their ease, 
 become more or less pantomimes, and by their gestures and motions 
 express, as well as they can, the meaning and story of the song. This 
 would be still more the case, if the same person both danced and sung ; 
 a practice very common among the ancients : it requires good lungs 
 and a vigorous constitution ; but with these advantages and long prac- 
 tice, the very highest dances may be performed in this manner. I have 
 seen a Negro dance to his own song, the war-dance of his own country, 
 with such vehemence of action and expression, that the whole company, 
 gentlemen as well as ladies, got up upon chairs and tables, to be as 
 much as possible out of the way of his fury. In the Greek language 
 there are two verbs which both signify to dance ; each of which has its 
 proper derivatives, signifying a dance and a dancer. In the greater 
 part of Greek authors, these two sets of words, like all others which 
 are nearly synonymous, are frequently confounded, and used promiscu- 
 ously. According to the best critics, however, in strict propriety, one 
 of these verbs signifies to dance and sing at the same time, or to dance 
 to one's own music. The other to dance without singing, or to dance 
 to the music of other people. There is said too to be a correspondent 
 difference in the signification of their respective derivatives. In the 
 choruses of the ancient Greek tragedies, consisting sometimes of more 
 than fifty persons, some piped and some sung, but all danced, and 
 danced to their own music. 
 
 # =* * & * # * 
 
 * * * * * * ' *
 
 ADAM SMITH ON MUSIC, DANCING, AND POETRY. 43$ 
 
 **-* [The following- Observations were found among Mr. SMITH'S 
 Manuscripts, without any intimation whether they were intended 
 as part of this, or of a different Essay. As they appeared too 
 valuable to be suppressed, the Editors have annexed them to 
 this Essay.] 
 
 Of the Affinity between Music, Dancing, and Poetry. 
 
 IN the second part of the preceding Essay I have mentioned the 
 connection between the two arts of Music and Dancing, formed by 
 the Rhylhmus, as the ancients termed it, or, as we call it, the tune 
 or measure that equally regulates both. 
 
 It is not, however, every sort of step, gesture, or motion, of which the 
 correspondence with the tune or measure of Music will constitute a 
 Dance. It must be a step, gesture, or motion of a particular sort. In 
 a good opera-actor, not only the modulations and pauses of his voice, 
 but every motion and gesture, every variation, either in the air of his head 
 or in the attitude of his body, correspond to the time and measure of 
 Music. The best opera-actor, however, is not, according to the lan- 
 guage of any country in Europe, understood to dance, yet in the per- 
 formance of his part, he makes use of what is called the stage step ; but 
 even this step is not understood to be a dancing step. 
 
 Though the eye of the most ordinary spectator readily distinguishes 
 between what is called a dancing step and any other step, gesture, or 
 motion, yet it may not perhaps be very easy to express what it is which 
 constitutes this distinction. To ascertain exactly the precise limits at 
 which the one species begins, and the other ends, or to give an accurate 
 definition of this very frivolous matter, might perhaps require more 
 thought and attention than the very small importance of the subject 
 may seem to deserve. Were I, however, to attempt to do this, I should 
 observe, that though in performing any ordinary action in walking, 
 for example from the one end of the room to the other, a person may 
 show both grace and agility, yet if he betrays the least intention of 
 showing either, he is sure of offending more or less, and we never fail 
 to accuse him of some degree of vanity and affectation. In the per- 
 formance of any such ordinary action, every person wishes to appear 
 to be solely occupied about the proper purpose of the action : if he 
 means to show either grace or agility, he is careful to conceal that 
 meaning, and he is very seldom successful in doing so : he offends, 
 however, just in proportion as he betrays it, and he almost always 
 betrays it. In Dancing, on the contrary, every person professes, and 
 avows, as it were, the intention of displaying some degree either of 
 grace or of agility, or of both. The display of one, or other, or both 
 of these qualities, is in reality the proper purpose of the action ; and 
 there can never be any disagreeable vanity or affectation in following
 
 436 TIME ALONE, WITHOUT TUNE, WILL MAKE MUSIC. 
 
 out the proper purpose of any action. When we say of any particular 
 person, that he gives himself many affected airs and graces in Dancing, 
 we mean either that he gives himself airs and graces which are unsuit- 
 able to the nature of the Dance, or that he executes awkwardly, perhaps 
 exaggerates too much, (the most common fault in Dancing,) the airs 
 and graces which are suitable to it. Every Dance is in reality a suc- 
 cession of airs and graces of some kind or other, and of airs and graces 
 which, if I may say so, profess themselves to be such. The steps, 
 gestures, and motions which, as it were, avow the intention of exhibit- 
 ing a succession of such airs and graces, are the steps, the gestures, 
 and the motions which are peculiar to Dancing, and when these are 
 performed to the time and the measure of Music, they constitute what 
 is properly called a Dance. 
 
 But though every sort of step, gesture, or motion, even though per- 
 formed to the time and measure of Music, will not alone make a 
 Dance, yet almost any sort of sound, provided it is repeated with a 
 distinct rhythmus, or according to a distinct time and measure, though 
 without any variation as to gravity or acuteness, will make a sort of 
 Music, no doubt indeed, an imperfect one. Drums, cymbals, and, so 
 far as I have observed, all other instruments of percussion, have only 
 one note ; this note, however, when repeated with a certain rhythmus, 
 or according to a certain time and measure, and sometimes, in order to 
 mark more distinctly that time and measure, with some little variation 
 as to loudness and lowness, though without any as to acuteness and 
 gravity, does certainly make a sort of Music, which is frequently far 
 from being disagreeable, and which even sometimes produces consider- 
 able effects. The simple note of such instruments, it is true, is gene- 
 rally a very clear, or what is called a melodious, sound. It does not 
 however seem indispensably necessary that it should be so. The 
 sound of the muffled drum, when it beats the dead march, is far from 
 being either clear or melodious, and yet it certainly produces a species 
 of Music which is sometimes affecting. Even in the performance of 
 the most humble of all artists, of the man who drums upon the table 
 with his fingers, we may sometimes distinguish the measure, and per- 
 haps a little of the humour, of some favourite song ; and we must allow 
 that even he makes some sort of Music. Without a proper step and 
 motion, the observation of tune alone will not make a Dance ; time 
 alone, without tune, will make some sort of Music. 
 
 That exact observation of tune, or of the proper intervals of gravity 
 and acuteness, which constitutes the great beauty of all perfect Music, 
 constitutes likewise its great difficulty. The time, or measure of a song 
 are simple matters, which even a coarse and unpractised ear is capable 
 of distinguishing and comprehending : but to distinguish and compre- 
 hend all the variations of the tune, and to conceive with precision the 
 exact proportion of every note, is what the finest and most cultivated
 
 ADAM SMITH ON MUSIC, DANCING, AND POETRY. 437 
 
 ear is frequently no more than capable of performing. In the singing 
 of the common people we may generally remark a distinct enough 
 observation of time, but a very imperfect one of tune. To discover 
 and to distinguish with precision the proper intervals of tune, must 
 have been a work of long experience and much observation. In the 
 theoretical treatises upon Music, what the authors have to say upon 
 time is commonly discussed in a single chapter of no great length or 
 difficulty. The theory of tune fills commonly all the rest of the volume, 
 and has long ago become both an extensive and an abstruse science, 
 which is often but imperfectly comprehended, even by intelligent 
 artists. In the first rude efforts of uncivilized nations towards singing, 
 the niceties of tune could be but little attended to : I have, upon this 
 account, been frequently disposed to doubt of the great antiquity of 
 those national songs, which it is pretended have been delivered down 
 from age to age by a sort of oral tradition, without having been ever 
 noted or distinctly recorded for many successive generations. The 
 measure, the humour of the song, might perhaps have been delivered 
 down in this manner, but it seems scarcely possible that the precise 
 notes of the tune should have been so preserved. The method of 
 singing some of what we reckon our old Scotch songs, has undergone 
 great alterations within the compass of my memory, and it may have 
 undergone still greater before. 
 
 The distinction between the sounds or tones of singing and those of 
 speaking seems to be of the same kind with that between the steps, 
 gestures, and motions of Dancing, and those of any other ordinary 
 action ; though in speaking, a person may show a very agreeable tone 
 of voice, yet if he seems to intend to show it, if he appears to listen to 
 the sound of his own voice, and as it were to tune it into a pleasing 
 modulation, he never fails to offend, as guilty of a most disagreeable 
 affectation. In speaking, as in every other ordinary action, we expect 
 and require that the speaker should attend only to the proper purpose 
 of the action, the clear and distinct expression of what he has to say. 
 In singing, on the contrary, every person professes the intention to 
 please by the tone and cadence of his voice ; and he not only appears 
 to be guilty of no disagreeable affectation in doing so, but we expect 
 and require that he should do so. To please by the choice and ar- 
 rangement of agreeable sounds is the proper purpose of all Music, 
 vocal as well as instrumental ; and we always expect and require, that 
 every person should attend to the proper purpose of whatever action 
 he is performing. A person may appear to sing, as well as to dance, 
 affectedly ; he may endeavour to please by sounds and tones which 
 are unsuitable to the nature of the song, or he may dwell too much on 
 those which are suitable to it, or in some other way he may show an 
 overweening conceit of his own abilities, beyond what seems to be 
 warranted by his performance. The disagreeable affectation appears
 
 438 THE TONES OF THE SINGING AND THE SPEAKING VOICES. 
 
 to consist always, not in attempting to please by a proper, but by some 
 improper modulation of the voice. It was early discovered that the 
 vibrations of chords or strings, which either in their lengths, or in their 
 densities, or in their degrees of tension, bear a certain proportion to 
 one another, produce sounds which correspond exactly, or, as the 
 musicians say, are the unisons of those sounds or tones of the human 
 voice which the ear approves of in singing. This discovery has enabled 
 musicians to speak with distinctness and precision concerning the 
 musical sounds or tones of the human voice ; they can always precisely 
 ascertain what are the particular sounds or tones which they mean, by 
 ascertaining what are the proportions of the strings of which the vibra- 
 tions produce the unisons of those sounds or tones. What are called 
 the intervals ; that is, the differences, in point of gravity and acuteness, 
 between the sounds or tones of a singing voice, are much greater and 
 more distinct than those of the speaking voice. Though the former, 
 therefore, can be measured and appreciated by the proportions of 
 chords or strings, the latter cannot. The nicest instruments cannot 
 express the extreme minuteness of these intervals. The heptamercde 
 of Mr. Sauveur could express an interval so small as the seventh part 
 of what is called a comma, the smallest interval that is admitted in 
 modern Music. Yet even this instrument, we are informed by Mr. 
 Duclos, could not express the minuteness of the intervals in the pro- 
 nunciation of the Chinese language ; of all the languages in the world, 
 that of which the pronunciation is said to approach the nearest to sing- 
 ing, or in which the intervals are said to be the greatest. 
 
 As the sounds or tones of the singing voice, therefore, can be ascer- 
 tained or appropriated, while those of the speaking voice cannot ; the 
 former are capable of being noted or recorded, while the latter are 
 not. 
 
 ADAM SMITH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EXTERNAL SENSES; 
 
 THE Senses, by which we perceive external objects, are commonly 
 reckoned Five in Number; viz. Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, 
 and Touching. 
 
 Of these, the four first mentioned are each of them confined to par- 
 ticular parts or organs of the body ; the Sense of Seeing is confined to 
 the Eyes ; that of Hearing to the Ears ; that of Smelling to the Nos- 
 trils ; and that of Tasting to the Palate. The Sense of Touching alone
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 439 
 
 seems not to be confined to any particular organ, but to be diffused 
 through almost every part of the body ; if we except the hair and the 
 nails of the fingers and toes, I believe through every part of it. I shall 
 say a few words concerning each of these Senses ; beginning with the 
 last, proceeding backwards in the opposite order to that in which they 
 are commonly enumerated. 
 
 Of the Sense of TOUCHING. 
 
 The objects of Touch always present themselves as pressing upon, 
 or as resisting the particular part of the body which perceives them, or 
 by Avhich we perceive them. When I lay my hand upon the table, the 
 table presses upon my hand, or resists the further motion of my hand, 
 in the same manner as my hand presses upon the table. But pressure 
 or resistance necessarily supposes externality in the thing which presses 
 or resists. The table could not press upon, or resist the further motion 
 of my hand, if it was not external to my hand. I feel it accordingly as 
 something which is not merely an affection of the hand, but altogether 
 external to and independent of my hand. The agreeable, indifferent, 
 or painful sensation of pressure, accordingly as I happen to press 
 hardly or softly, I feel, no doubt, as affections of my hand ; but the 
 thing which presses and which resists I feel as something altogether 
 different from those affections, as external to my hand, and as being 
 altogether independent of it. 
 
 In moving my hand along the table it soon comes, in every direction, 
 to a place where this pressure or resistance ceases. This place we 
 call the boundary, or end of the table ; of which the extent and figure 
 are determined by the extent and direction of the lines or surfaces 
 which constitute this boundary or end. 
 
 It is in this manner that a man born blind, or who has lost his sight 
 so early that he has no remembrance of visible objects, may form the 
 most distinct idea of the extent and figure of all the different parts of 
 his own body, and of every other tangible object which he has an 
 opportunity of handling and examining. When he lays his hand upon 
 his foot, as his hand feels the pressure or resistance of his foot, so his 
 foot feels that of his hand. They are both external to one another, 
 but they are, neither of them, altogether so external to him. He feels 
 in both, and he naturally considers them as parts of himself, or at 
 least as something which belongs to him, and which, for his own com- 
 fort, it is necessary that he should take some care of. 
 
 When he lays his hand upon the table, though his hand feels the 
 pressure of the table, the table does not feel, at least he does not know 
 that it feels, the pressure of his hand. He feels it therefore as some- 
 thing external, not only to his hand, but to himself, as something which 
 makes no part of himself, and in the state and condition of which he 
 has not necessarily any concern.
 
 440 QUALITIES OF SUBSTANCE SOLIDITY, EXTENSION, DIVISIBILITY. 
 
 When he lays his hand upon the body either of another man, or of 
 any other animal, though he knows, or at least may know, that they 
 feel the pressure of his hand as much as he feels that of their body : 
 yet as this feeling is altogether external to him, he frequently gives no 
 attention to it, and at no time takes any further concern in it than he is 
 obliged to do by that fellow-feeling which Nature has, for the wisest 
 purposes, implanted in man, not only towards all other men, but (though 
 no doubt in a much weaker degree) towards all other animals. Having 
 destined him to be the governing animal in this world, it seems to 
 have been her benevolent intention to inspire him with some degree of 
 respect, even for the meanest and weakest of his subjects. 
 
 This power or quality of resistance we call Solidity; and the thing 
 which possesses it, the Solid Body or Thing. As we feel it as some- 
 thing altogether external to us, so we necessarily conceive it as some- 
 thing altogether independent of us. We consider it, therefore, as what 
 we call a Substance, or as a thing that subsists by itself, and independ- 
 ent of any other thing. Solid and substantial, accordingly, are two 
 words which, in common language, are considered either as altogether 
 or as nearly synonymous. 
 
 Solidity necessarily supposes some degree of extension, and that in 
 all the three directions of length, breadth, and thickness. All the solid 
 bodies, of which we have any experience, have some degree of such 
 bulk or magnitude. It seems to be essential to their nature, and with- 
 out it, we cannot even conceive how they should be capable of pressure 
 or resistance ; are are the powers by which they are made known to 
 us, and by which alone they are capable of acting upon our own, 
 and upon all other bodies. 
 
 Extension, at least any sensible extension, supposes divisibility. The 
 body may be so hard, that our strength is not sufficient to break it ; we 
 still suppose, however, that if a sufficient force were applied, it might be 
 so broken ; and, at any rate, we can always, in fancy at least, imagine 
 it to be divided into two or more parts. 
 
 Every solid and extended body, if it be not infinite, (as the universe 
 may be conceived to be,) must have some shape or figure, or be bounded 
 by certain lines and surfaces. 
 
 Every such body must likewise be conceived as capable both of 
 motion and of rest ; both of altering its situation with regard to other 
 surrounding bodies, and of remaining in the same situation. That 
 bodies of small or moderate bulk, are capable of both motion and rest 
 we have constant experience. Great masses, perhaps, are according 
 to the ordinary habits of the imagination, supposed to be more fitted 
 for rest than for motion. Provided a sufficient force could be applied, 
 however, we have no difficulty in conceiving that the greatest and most 
 unwieldy masses might be made capable of motion. Philosophy 
 teaches us, (and by reasons too to which it is scarcely possible to
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 441 
 
 refuse our assent,) that the earth itself, and bodies much larger than 
 the earth, are not only movable, but are at all times actually in motion, 
 and continually altering their situation, in respect to other surrounding 
 bodies, with a rapidity that almost passes all human comprehension. 
 In the system of the universe, at least according to the imperfect 
 notions which we have hitherto been able to attain concerning it, the 
 great difficulty seems to be, not to find the most enormous masses in 
 motion, but to find the smallest particle of matter that is perfectly at 
 rest with regard to all other surrounding bodies. 
 
 These four qualities, or attributes of extension, divisibility, figure, 
 and mobility, or the capacity of motion or rest, seem necessarily 
 involved in the idea or conception of a solid substance. They are, in 
 reality, inseparable from that idea or conception, and the solid sub- 
 stance cannot possibly be conceived to exist without them. No other 
 qualities or attributes seem to be involved, in the same manner, in this 
 our idea or conception of solidity. It would, however, be rash from 
 thence to conclude that the solid substance can, as such, possess no 
 other qualities or attributes. This rash conclusion, notwithstanding, 
 has been not only drawn, but insisted upon, as an axiom of indubitable 
 certainty, by philosophers of very eminent reputation. 
 
 Of these external and resisting substances, some yield easily, and 
 change their figure, at least in some degree, in consequence of the 
 pressure of our hand : others neither yield nor change their figure, in 
 any respect, in consequence of the utmost pressure which our hand 
 alone is capable of giving them. The former we call soft, the latter 
 hard, bodies. In some bodies the parts are so very easily separable, 
 that they not only yield to a very moderate pressure, but easily receive 
 the pressing body within them, and without much resistance allow it 
 to traverse their extent in every possible direction. These are called 
 Fluid, in contradistinction to those of which the parts not being so 
 easily separable, are upon that account peculiarly called Solid Bodies ; 
 as if they possessed, in a more distinct and perceptible manner, the 
 characteristical quality of solidity or the power of resistance. Water, 
 however (one of the fluids with which we are most familiar), when 
 confined on all sides (as in a hollow globe of metal, which is first filled 
 with it, and then sealed hermetically), has been found to resist pres- 
 sure as much as the very hardest, or what we commonly call the most 
 solid bodies. 
 
 Some fluids yield so very easily to the slightest pressure, that upon, 
 ordinary occasions we are scarcely sensible of their resistance ; and are 
 upon that account little disposed to conceive them as bodies, or as 
 things capable of pressure and resistance. There was a time, as we 
 may learn from Aristotle and Lucretius, when it was supposed to re- 
 quire some degree of philosophy to demonstrate that air was a real 
 solid body, or capable of pressure and resistance. What, in ancient 
 
 29
 
 442 ON THE THEORIES OF AIR, LIGHT AND MATTER. 
 
 times, and in vulgar apprehensions, was supposed to be doubtful with 
 regard to air, still continues to be so with regard to light, of which the 
 rays, however condensed or concentrated, have never appeared capable 
 of making the smallest resistance to the motion of other bodies, the 
 characteristical power or quality of what are called bodies, or solid 
 substances. Some philosophers accordingly doubt, and some even 
 deny, that light is a material or corporeal substance. 
 
 Though all bodies or solid substances resist, yet all those with which 
 we are acquainted appear to be more or less compressible, or capable 
 of having, without any diminution in the quantity of their matter, their 
 bulk more or less reduced within a smaller space than that which they 
 usually occupy. An experiment of the Florentine academy was sup- 
 posed to have fully demonstrated that water was absolutely incompres- 
 sible. The same experiment, however, having been repeated with more 
 care and accuracy, it appears, that water, though it strongly resists 
 compression, is, however, when a sufficient force is applied, like all 
 other bodies, in some degree liable to it. Air, on the contrary, by the 
 application of a very moderate force, is easily reducible within a much 
 smaller portion of space than that which it usually occupies. The 
 condensing engine, and what is founded upon it, the wind-gun, 
 sufficiently demonstrate this: and even without the help of such 
 ingenious and expensive machines, we may easily satisfy ourselves of 
 the truth of this proportion, by squeezing a full-blown bladder of which 
 the neck is well tied. 
 
 The hardness or softness of bodies, or the greater or smaller force 
 with which they resist any change of shape, seems to depend altogether 
 upon the stronger or weaker degree of cohesion Avith which their parts 
 are mutually attracted to one another. The greater or smaller force 
 with which they resist compression may, upon many occasions, be 
 owing partly to the same cause : but it may likewise be owing to the 
 greater or smaller proportion of empty space comprehended within their 
 dimensions, or intermixed with the solid parts which compose them. 
 A body which comprehended no empty space within its dimensions, 
 which, through all its parts, was completely rilled with the resisting 
 substance, we are naturally disposed to conceive as something which 
 would be absolutely incompressible, and which would resist, with un- 
 conquerable force, every attempt to reduce it within narrower dimen- 
 sions. If the solid and resisting substance, without moving out of its 
 place, should admit into the same place another solid and resisting 
 substance, it would from that moment, in our apprehension, cease to 
 be a solid and resisting substance, and would no longer appear to pos- 
 sess that quality, by which alone it is made known to us, and which we 
 therefore consider as constituting its nature and essence, and as alto- 
 gether inseparable from it. Hence our notion of what has been called 
 impenetrability of matter; or of the absolute impossibility that two
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 443 
 
 solid resisting substances should occupy the same place at the same 
 time. 
 
 This doctrine, which is as old as Leucippus, Democritus, and Epi- 
 curus, was in the last century revived by Gassendi, and has since been 
 adopted by Newton and the far greater part of his followers. It may 
 at present be considered as the established system, or as the system 
 that is most in fashion, and most approved of by the greater part of 
 the philosophers of Europe. Though it has been opposed by several 
 puzzling arguments, drawn from that species of metaphysics which 
 confounds every thing and explains nothing, it seems upon the whole 
 to be the most simple, the most distinct, and the most comprehensible 
 account that has yet been given of the phenomena which are meant to 
 be explained by it. I shall only observe, that whatever system may be 
 adopted concerning the hardness or softness, the fluidity or solidity, 
 the compressibility or incompressibility of the resisting substance, the 
 certainty of our distinct sense and feeling of its Externality, or of its 
 entire independency upon the organ which perceives it, or by which 
 we perceive it, cannot in the smallest degree be affected by any such 
 system. I shall not therefore attempt to give any further account of 
 such systems. 
 
 Heat and cold being felt by almost every part of the human body, 
 have commonly been ranked along with solidity and resistance, among 
 the qualities which are the objects of Touch. Jt is not, however, I 
 think, in our language proper to say that we touch, but that we feel the 
 qualities of heat and cold. The word feeling, though in many cases 
 we use it as synonymous to touching, has, however, a much more ex- 
 tensive signification, and is frequently employed to denote our internal, 
 as well as our external, affections. We feel hunger and thirst, we feel 
 joy and sorrow, we feel love and hatred. 
 
 Heat and cold, in reality, though they may frequently be perceived 
 by the same parts of the human body, constitute an order of sensations 
 altogether different from those which are the proper objects of Touch. 
 They are naturally felt, not as pressing upon the organ, but as in the 
 organ. What we feel while we stand in the sunshine during a hot, or 
 in the shade during a frosty, day, is evidently felt, not as pressing upon 
 the body, but as in the body. It does not necessarily suggest the pre- 
 sence of any external object, nor could we from thence alone infer the 
 existence of any such object. It is a sensation which neither does nor 
 can exist any where but either in the organ which feels it, or in the un- 
 known principle of perception, whatever that may be, which feels in 
 that organ, or by means of that organ. When we lay our hand upon 
 a table, which is either heated or cooled a good deal beyond the actual 
 temperature of our hand, we have two distinct perceptions : first, that 
 of the solid or resisting table, which is necessarily felt as something 
 external to, and independent of, the hand which feels it ; and secondly, 
 
 29
 
 444 HEAT OR COLD NOT NECESSARILY SUGGESTIVE OF OBJECTS. 
 
 that of the heat or cold, which by the contact of the table is excited in 
 our hand, and which is naturally felt as nowhere but in our hand, or in 
 the principle of perception which feels in our hand. 
 
 But though the sensations of heat and cold do not necessarily sug- 
 gest the presence of any external object, we soon learn from experience 
 that they are commonly excited by some such object : sometimes by 
 the temperature of some external body immediately in contact with 
 our own body, and sometimes by some body at either a moderate or 
 a great distance from us ; as by the fire in a chamber, or by the sun in 
 a summer's day. By the frequency and uniformity of this experience, 
 by the custom and habit of thought which that frequency and uni- 
 formity necessarily occasion, the Internal Sensation, and the External 
 Cause of that Sensation, come in our conception to be so strictly con- 
 nected, that in our ordinary and careless way of thinking, we are apt 
 to consider them as almost one and the same thing, and therefore de- 
 note them by one and the same word. The confusion, however, is in 
 this case more in the word than in the thought; for in reality we still 
 retain some notion of the distinction, though we do not always evolve 
 it with that accuracy which a very slight degree of attention might en- 
 able us to do. When we move our hand, for example, along the surface 
 of a very hot or of a very cold table, though we say that the table is 
 hot or cold in every part of it, we never mean that, in any part of it, it 
 feels the sensations either of heat or of cold, but that in every part of 
 it, it possesses the power of exciting one or other of those sensations 
 in our bodies. The philosophers who have taken so much pains to 
 prove that there is no heat in the fire, meaning that the sensation or 
 feeling of heat is not in the fire, have laboured to refute an opinion 
 which the most ignorant of mankind never entertained. But the same 
 word being, in common language, employed to signify both the sensa- 
 tion and the power of exciting that sensation, they, without knowing it 
 perhaps, or intending it, have taken advantage of this ambiguity, and 
 have triumphed in their own superiority, when by irresistible arguments 
 they establish an opinion which, in words indeed, is diametrically op- 
 posite to the most obvious judgments of mankind, but which in reality 
 is perfectly agreeable to those judgments. 
 
 Of the Sense of TASTING. 
 
 WHEN we taste any solid or liquid substance, we have always two 
 distinct perceptions : first, that of the solid or liquid body, which is 
 naturally felt as pressing upon, and therefore as external to, and in- 
 dependent of, the organ which feels it ; and secondly, that of particular 
 taste, relish, or savour which it excites in the palate or organ of Tasting, 
 and which is naturally felt, not as pressing upon, as external to, or as 
 independent of, that organ ; but as altogether in the organ, and no- 
 where but in the organ, or in the principle of perception which feels in
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 445 
 
 that organ. When we say that the food which we eat has an agreeable 
 or disagreeable taste in every part of it, we do not thereby mean that 
 it has the feeling or sensation of taste in any part of it, but that in every 
 part of it, it has the power of exciting that feeling or sensation in our 
 palates. Though in this case we denote by the same word (in the same 
 manner, and for the same reason, as in the case of heat and cold) both 
 the sensation and the power of exciting that sensation, this ambiguity 
 of language misleads the natural judgments of mankind in the one 
 case as little as in the other. Nobody ever fancies that our food feels 
 its own agreeable or disagreeable taste. 
 
 Of the Sense of SMELLING. 
 
 EVERY smell or odour is naturally felt as in the nostrils ; not as press- 
 ing upon or resisting the organ, not as in any respect external to, or 
 independent of, the organ, but as altogether in the organ, and nowhere 
 else but in the organ, or in the principle of perception which feels in 
 that organ. We soon learn from experience, however, that this sen- 
 sation is commonly excited by some external body; by a flower, for 
 example, of which the absence removes, and the presence brings back, 
 the sensation. This external body we consider as the cause of this 
 sensation, and we denominate by the same words both the sensation 
 and the power by which the external body produces this sensation. 
 But when we say that the smell is in the flower, we do not thereby 
 mean that the flower itself has any feeling of the sensation which we 
 feel ; but that it has the power of exciting this sensation in our nostrils, 
 or in the principle of perception which feels in our nostrils. Though 
 this sensation, and the power by which it is excited, are thus denoted 
 by the same word, this ambiguity of language misleads, in this case, 
 the natural judgments of mankind as little as in the two preceding. 
 
 Of the Sense of HEARING. 
 
 EVERY sound is naturally felt as in the Ear, the organ of Hearing. 
 Sound is not naturally felt as resisting or pressing upon the organ, or 
 as in any respect external to, or independent of, the organ. We natu- 
 rally feel it as an affection of our Ear, as something which is altogether 
 in our Ear, and nowhere but in our Ear, or in the principle of percep- 
 tion which feels in our Ear. We soon learn from experience, indeed, 
 that the sensation is frequently excited by bodies at a considerable 
 distance from us ; often at a much greater distance, than those ever are 
 which excite the sensation of Smelling. We learn too from experience 
 that this sound or sensation in our Ears receives different modifications, 
 according to the distance and direction of the body which originally 
 causes it. The sensation is stronger, the sound is louder, when that 
 body is near. The sensation is weaker, the sound is lower, when that 
 body is at a distance. The sound, or sensation, too undergoes some
 
 446 FOUR CLASSES OF SECONDARY QUALITIES OF SENSATION. 
 
 variation according as the body is placed on the right hand or on the 
 left, before or behind us. In common language we frequently say, that 
 the sound seems to come from a great or from a small distance, from 
 the right hand or from the left, from before or from behind us. We 
 frequently say too that we hear a sound at a great or small distance, on 
 our right hand or on our left. The real sound, however, the sensation 
 in our ear, can never be heard or felt any where but in our ear, it can 
 never change its place, it is incapable of motion, and can come, there- 
 fore, neither from the right nor from the left, neither from before nor 
 from behind us. The Ear can feel or hear nowhere but where it is, 
 and cannot stretch out its powers of perception, either to a great or to 
 a small distance, either to the right or to the left. By all such phrases 
 we in reality mean nothing but to express our opinion concerning either 
 the distance or the direction of the body which excites the sensation 
 of sound. When we say that the sound is in the bell, we do not mean 
 that the bell hears its own sound, or that any thing like our sensation 
 is in the bell, but that it possesses the power of exciting that sensation 
 in our organ of Hearing. Though in this, as well as in some other 
 cases, we express by the same word, both the Sensation, and the Power 
 of exciting that Sensation ; this ambiguity of language occasions scarce 
 any confusion in the thought, and when the different meanings of the 
 word are properly distinguished, the opinions of the vulgar, and those 
 of the philosopher, though apparently opposite, on examination turn 
 out to be exactly the same. 
 
 These four classes of secondary qualities, as philosophers have called 
 them, or to speak more properly, these four classes of Sensations ; Heat 
 and Cold, Taste, Smell, and Sound ; being felt, not as resisting or 
 pressing upon the organ, but as in the organ, are not naturally per- 
 ceived as external and independent substances ; or even as qualities of 
 such substances ; but as mere affections of the organ, and what can 
 exist nowhere but in the organ. 
 
 They do not possess, nor can we even conceive them as capable of 
 possessing, any one of the qualities, which we consider as essential to, 
 and inseparable from, external solid and independent substances. 
 
 First, They have no extension. They are neither long nor short ; 
 they are neither broad nor narrow ; they are neither deep nor shallow. 
 The bodies which excite them, the spaces within which they may be 
 perceived, may possess any of those dimensions ; but the Sensations 
 themselves can possess none of them. When we say of a Note in 
 Music, that it is long or short, we mean that it is so in point of dura- 
 tion. In point of extension we cannot even conceive, that it should be 
 either the one or the other. 
 
 Secondly, Those Sensations have no figure. They are neither round 
 nor square, though the bodies which excite 4hem, though the spaces 
 within which they may be perceived, may be either the one or the other.
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 447 
 
 Thirdly, Those Sensations are incapable of motion. The bodies 
 which excite them may be moved to a greater or to a smaller distance. 
 The Sensations become fainter in the one case, and stronger in the 
 other. Those bodies may change their direction with regard to the 
 organ of Sensation. If the change be considerable, the Sensations 
 undergo some sensible variation in consequence of it. But still we 
 never ascribe motion to the Sensations. Even when the person who 
 feels any of those Sensations, and consequently the organ by which he 
 feels them, changes his situation, we never, even in this case, say, that 
 the Sensation moves, or is moved. It seems to exist always, where 
 alone it is capable of existing, in the organ which feels it. We nev er 
 even ascribe to those Sensations the attribute of rest; because we 
 never say that any thing is at rest, unless we suppose it capable of 
 motion. We never say that any thing does not change its situation 
 with regard to other things, unless we can suppose it to be capable of 
 changing that situation. 
 
 Fourthly, Those Sensations, as they have no extension, so they can 
 have no divisibility. We cannot even conceive that a degree of Heat 
 or Cold, that a Smell, a Taste, or a Sound, should be divided (in the 
 same manner as the solid and extended substance may be divided) into 
 two halves, or into four quarters, or into any number of parts. 
 
 But though all these Sensations are equally incapable of division ; 
 there are three of them, Taste, Smell, and Sound ; which seem capable 
 of a certain composition and decomposition. A skilful cook will, by 
 his taste, perhaps, sometimes distinguish the different ingredients, 
 which enter into the composition of a new sauce, and of which the 
 simple tastes make up the compound one of the sauce. A skilful per- 
 fumer may, perhaps, sometimes be able to do the same thing with 
 regard to a new scent. In a concert of vocal and instrumental music, 
 an acute and experienced Ear readily distinguishes all the different 
 sounds which strike upon it at the same time, and which may, there- 
 fore, be considered as making up one compound sound. 
 
 Is it by nature, or by experience, that we learn to distinguish between 
 simple and compound Sensations of this kind ? I am disposed to 
 believe that it is altogether by experience ; and that naturally all Tastes, 
 Smells, and Sounds, which affect the organ of Sensation at the same 
 time, are felt as simple and uncompounded Sensations. It is altogether 
 by experience, I think, that we learn to observe the different affinities 
 and resemblances which the compound Sensation bears to the different 
 simple ones, which compose it, and to judge that the different causes, 
 which excite those different simple Sensations, enter into the composi- 
 tion of that cause which excites the compounded one. 
 
 It is sufficiently evident that this composition and decomposition is 
 altogether different from that union and separation of parts, which con- 
 stitutes the divisibility of solid extension.
 
 448 THE AXIOM THAT NOTHING CAN ACT WHERE IT IS NOT. 
 
 The Sensations of Heat and Cold seem incapable even of this species 
 of composition and decomposition. The Sensations of Heat and Cold 
 may be stronger at one time and weaker at another. They may differ 
 in degree, but they cannot differ in kind. The Sensations of Taste, 
 Smell, and Sound, frequently differ, not only in degree, but in kind. 
 They are not only stronger and weaker, but some Tastes are sweet and 
 some bitter ; some Smells are agreeable, and some offensive ; some 
 Sounds are acute, and some grave ; and each of these different kinds 
 or qualities, too, is capable of an immense variety of modifications. It 
 is the combination of such simple Sensations, as differ not only in de- 
 gree but in kind, which constitutes the compounded Sensation. 
 
 These four classes of Sensations, therefore, having none of the 
 qualities which are essential to, and inseparable from, the solid, 
 external, and independent substances which excite them, cannot be 
 qualities or modifications of those substances. In reality we do not 
 naturally consider them as such ; though in the way in which we 
 express ourselves on the subject, there is frequently a good deal of 
 ambiguity and confusion. When the different meanings of words, 
 however, are fairly distinguished, these Sensations are, even by the 
 most ignorant and illiterate, understood to be, not the qualities, but 
 merely the effects of the solid, external, and independent substances 
 upon the sensible and living organ, or upon the principle of perception 
 which feels in that organ. 
 
 Philosophers, however, have not in general supposed that those 
 exciting bodies produce those Sensations immediately, but by the 
 intervention of one, two, or more intermediate causes. 
 
 In the Sensation of Taste, for example, though the exciting body 
 presses upon the organ of Sensation, this pressure is not supposed to 
 be the immediate cause of the Sensation of Taste. Certain juices of 
 the exciting body are supposed to enter the pores of the palate, and to 
 excite, in the irritable and sensible fibres of that organ, certain motions 
 or vibrations, which produce there the Sensation of Taste. But how 
 those juices should excite such motions, or how such motions should 
 produce, either in the organ, or in the principle of. perception which 
 feels in the organ, the Sensation of Taste ; or a Sensation, which not 
 only does not bear the smallest resemblance to any motion, but which 
 itself seems incapable of all motion, no philosopher has yet attempted, 
 nor probably ever will attempt, to explain to us. 
 
 The Sensations of Heat and Cold, of Smell and Sound, are frequently 
 excited by bodies at a distance, sometimes at a great distance, from 
 the organ which feels them. But it is a very ancient and well-established 
 axiom in metaphysics, that nothing can act where it is not ; and. this 
 axiom, it must, I think, be acknowledged, is at least perfectly agreeable 
 to our natural and usual habits of thinking. 
 
 The Sun, the great source of both Heat and Light, is at an immense
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 449 
 
 distance from us. His rays, however (traversing, with inconceivable 
 rapidity, the immensity of the intervening regions), as they convey the 
 Sensation of Light to our eyes, so they convey that of Heat to all the 
 sensible parts of our body. They even convey the power of exciting 
 that Sensation to all the other bodies that surround us. They warm 
 the earth and air, we say ; that is, they convey to the earth and the 
 air the power of exciting that Sensation in our bodies. A common fire 
 produces, in the same manner, all the same effects ; though the sphere 
 of its action is confined within much narrower limits. 
 
 The odoriferous body, which is generally too at some distance from 
 us, is supposed to act upon our organs by means of certain small 
 particles of matter, called Effluvia, which being sent forth in all pos- 
 sible directions, and drawn into our nostrils by the inspiration of 
 breathing, produce there the Sensation of Smell. The minuteness of 
 those small particles of matter, however, must surpass all human com- 
 prehension. Inclose in a gold box, for a few hours, a small quantity of 
 musk. Take out the musk, and clean the box with soap and water as 
 carefully as it is possible. Nothing can be supposed to remain in the 
 box, but such effluvia as, having penetrated into its interior pores, may 
 have escaped the effects of this cleansing. The box, however, will 
 retain the smell of musk for many, I do not know for how many years; 
 and these effluvia, how minute soever we may suppose them, must 
 have had the powers of subdividing themselves, and of emitting other 
 effluvia of the same kind, continually, and without any interruption, 
 during so long a period. The nicest balance, however, which human 
 art has ever been able to invent, will not show the smallest increase 
 of weight in the gold box immediately after it has been thus 
 carefully cleaned. 
 
 The Sensation of Sound is frequently felt at a much greater distance 
 from the sounding, than that of Smell ever is from the odoriferous 
 body. The vibrations of the sounding body, however, are supposed to 
 produce certain correspondent vibrations and pulses in the surrounding 
 atmosphere, which being propagated in all directions, reach our organ 
 of Hearing, and produce there the Sensation of Sound. There are not 
 many philosophical doctrines, perhaps, established upon a more pro- 
 bable foundation, than that of the propagation of Sound by means of 
 the pulses or vibrations of the air. The experiment of the bell, which, 
 in an exhausted receiver, produces no sensible Sound, would alone 
 render this doctrine somewhat more than probable. But this great 
 probability is still further confirmed by the computations of Sir Isaac 
 Newton, who has shown that, what is called the velocity of Sound, or 
 the time which passes between the commencement of the action of the 
 sounding body, and that of the Sensation in our ear, is perfectly suit- 
 able to the velocity with which the pulses and vibrations of an elastic 
 fluid of the same density with the air, are naturally propagated. Dr.
 
 450 DR. BERKLEY ON THE THEORY OF VISION, 
 
 Benjamin Franklin has made objections to this doctrine, but, I think, 
 without success. 
 
 Such are the intermediate causes by which philosophers have endea- 
 voured to connect the Sensation in our organs, with the distant bodies 
 which excite them. How those intermediate causes, by the different 
 motions and vibrations which they may be supposed to excite on our 
 organs, produce there those different Sensations, none of which bear 
 the smallest resemblance to vibration or motion of any kind, no 
 philosopher has yet attempted to explain to us. 
 
 Of the Sense of SEEING. 
 
 DR. BERKLEY, in his New Theory of Vision, one of the finest 
 examples of philosophical analysis that is to be found, either in our 
 own, or in any other language, has explained, so very distinctly, the 
 nature of the objects of Sight : their dissimilitude to, as well as their 
 correspondence and connection with those of Touch, that I have 
 scarcely any thing to add to what he has already done. It is only in 
 order to render some things, which I shall have occasion to say here- 
 after, intelligible to such readers as may not have had an opportunity 
 of studying his book, that I have presumed to treat of the same subject, 
 after so great a master. Whatever I shall say upon it, if not directly 
 borrowed from Dr. Berkley, has at least been suggested by what he 
 has already said. 
 
 That the objects of Sight are not perceived as resisting or pressing 
 upon the organ which perceives them, is sufficiently obvious. They 
 cannot therefore suggest, at least in the same manner as the objects 
 of Touch, their externality and independency of existence. 
 
 We are apt, however, to imagine that we see objects at a distance 
 from us, and that consequently the externality of their existence is im- 
 mediately perceived by our sight. But if we consider that the distance 
 of any object from the eye, is a line turned endways to it ; and that 
 this line must consequently appear to it, but as one point ; we shall be 
 sensible that distance from the eye cannot be the immediate object of 
 Sight, but that all visible objects must naturally be perceived as close 
 upon the organ, or more properly, perhaps, like all other Sensations, 
 as in the organ which perceives them. That the objects of Sight are 
 all painted in the bottom of the eye, upon a membrane called the 
 retina, pretty much in the same manner as the like objects are painted 
 in a Camera Obscura, is well known to whoever has the slightest tinc- 
 ture of the science of Optics : and the principle of perception, it is 
 probable, originally perceives them, as existing in that part of the 
 organ, and nowhere but in that part of the organ. No optician, 
 accordingly, no person who has ever bestowed any moderate degree of 
 attention upon the nature of Vision, has ever pretended that distance 
 from the eye was the immediate object of Sight. How it is that, by
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSE?. 451 
 
 means of our Sight we learn to judge of such distances Opticians have 
 endeavoured to explain in several different ways. I shall not, however, 
 at present, stop to examine their systems. 
 
 The objects of Touch are solidity, and those modifications of solidity 
 which we consider as essential to it, and inseparable from it ; solid 
 extension, figure, divisibility, and mobility. 
 
 The objects of Sight are colour, and those modifications of colour 
 which, in the same manner, we consider as essential to it, and in- 
 separable from it ; coloured extension, figure, divisibility, and mobility. 
 When we open our eyes, the sensible coloured objects, which present 
 themselves to us, must all have a certain extension, or must occupy a 
 certain portion of the visible surface which appears before us. They 
 must too have all a certain figure, or must be bounded by certain 
 visible lines, which mark upon that surface the extent of their respective 
 dimensions. Every sensible portion of this visible or coloured extension 
 must be conceived as divisible, or as separable into two, three, or more 
 parts. Every portion too of this visible or coloured surface must be 
 conceived as moveable, or as capable of changing its situation, and of 
 assuming a different arrangement with regard to the other portions of 
 the same surface. 
 
 Colour, the visible, bears no resemblance to solidity, the tangible 
 object. A man born blind, or who has lost his sight so early as to 
 have no remembrance of visible objects, can form no idea or conception 
 of colour. Touch alone can never help him to it. I have heard, in- 
 deed, of some persons who had lost their sight after the age of man- 
 hood, and who had learned to distinguish by the touch alone, the 
 different colours of cloths or silks, the goods which it happened to be 
 their business to deal in. The powers by which different bodies excite 
 in the organs of Sight the Sensations of different colours, probably 
 depend upon some difference in the nature, configuration, and arrange- 
 ment of the parts which compose their respective surfaces. This 
 difference may, to a very nice and delicate touch, make some difference 
 in the feeling, sufficient to enable a person, much interested in the 
 case, to make this distinction in some degree, though probably in a 
 very imperfect and inaccurate one. A man born blind might possibly 
 be taught to make the same distinctions. But though he might thus 
 be able to name the different colours, which those different surfaces 
 reflected, though he might thus have some imperfect notion of the 
 remote causes of the Sensations, he could have no better idea of the 
 Sensations themselves, than that other blind man, mentioned by Mr. 
 Locke, had, who said that he imagined the Colour of Scarlet resembled 
 the Sound of a Trumpet. A man born deaf may, in the same manner, 
 be taught to speak articulately. He is taught how to shape and dispose 
 of his organs, so as to pronounce each letter, syllable, and word. But 
 still, though he may have some imperfect idea of the remote causes of
 
 452 EXTENSION, FIGURE, DIVISIBILITY, AND MOBILITY OF COLOUR. 
 
 the Sounds which he himself utters, of the remote causes of the Sensa- 
 tions which he himself excites in other people ; he can have none of 
 those Sounds or Sensations themselves. 
 
 If it were possible, in the same manner, that a man could be born 
 without the Sense of Touching, that of Seeing could never alone 
 suggest to him the idea of Solidity, or enable him to form any notion 
 of the external and resisting substance. It is probable, however, not 
 only that no man, but that no animal was ever born without the Sense 
 of Touching, which seems essential to, and inseparable from, the nature 
 of animal life and existence. It is unnecessary, therefore, to throw 
 away any reasoning, or to hazard any conjectures, about what might 
 be the effects of what I look upon as altogether an impossible supposi- 
 tion. The eye when pressed upon by any external and solid substance, 
 feels, no doubt, that pressure and resistance, and suggests to us (in the 
 same manner as every other feeling part of the body) the external and 
 independent existence of that solid substance. But in this case, the 
 eye acts, not as the organ of Sight, but as an organ of Touch ; for the 
 eye possesses the Sense of Touching in common with almost all the 
 other parts of the body. 
 
 The extension, figure, divisibility, and mobility of Colour, the sole 
 object of Sight, though, on account of their correspondence and con- 
 nection with the extension, figure, divisibility, and mobility of Solidity, 
 they are called by the same name, yet seem to bear no sort of resem- 
 blance to their namesakes. As Colour and Solidity bear no sort of 
 resemblance to one another, so neither can their respective modifica- 
 tions. Dr. Berkley very justly observes, that though we can conceive 
 either a coloured or a solid line to be prolonged indefinitely, yet we 
 cannot conceive the one to be added to the other. We cannot, even in 
 imagination, conceive an object of Touch to be prolonged into an 
 object of Sight, or an object of Sight into an object of Touch. The 
 objects of Sight and those of Touch constitute two worlds, which, 
 though they have a most important correspondence and connection 
 with one another, bear no sort of resemblance to one another. The 
 tangible world, as well as all the different parts which compose it, has 
 three dimensions, Length, Breadth, and Depth. The visible world, as 
 well as all the different parts which compose it, has only two, Length 
 and Breadth. It presents to us only a plain or surface, which, by 
 certain shades and combinations of Colour, suggests and represents to 
 us (in the same manner as a picture does) certain tangible objects 
 which have no Colour, and which therefore can bear no resemblance 
 to those shades and combinations of Colour. Those shades and com- 
 binations suggest those different tangible objects as at different dis- 
 tances, according to certain rules of Perspective, which it is, perhaps, 
 not very easy to say how it is that we learn, whether by some particular 
 instinct, or by some application of either reason or experience, which
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 453 
 
 has become so perfectly habitual to us, that we are scarcely sensible 
 when we make use of it. 
 
 The distinctness of this Perspective, the precision and accuracy with 
 which, by means of it, we are capable of judging concerning the dis- 
 tance of different tangible objects, is greater or less, exactly in propor- 
 tion as this distinctness, as this precision and accuracy, are of more or 
 less importance to us. We can judge of the distance of near objects, 
 of the chairs and tables for example, in the chamber where we are 
 sitting, with the most perfect precision and accuracy ; and if in broad 
 daylight we ever stumble over any of them, it must be, not from any 
 error in the Sight, but from some defect in the attention. The pre- 
 cision and accuracy of our judgment concerning such near objects are 
 of the utmost importance to us, and constitute the great advantage 
 which a man who sees has over one who is unfortunately blind. As 
 the distance increases, the distinctness of this Perspective, the precision 
 and accuracy of our judgment gradually diminish. Of the tangible 
 objects which are even at the moderate distance of one, two, or three 
 miles from the eye, we are frequently at a loss to determine which is 
 nearest, and which remotest. It is seldom of much importance to us 
 to judge with precision concerning the situation of the tangible objects 
 which are even at this moderate distance. As the distance increases, 
 our judgments become more and more uncertain ; and at a very great 
 distance, such as that of the fixed stars, it becomes altogether uncertain. 
 The most precise knowledge of the relative situation of such objects 
 could be of no other use to the enquirer than to satisfy the most 
 unnecessary curiosity. 
 
 The distances at which different men can by Sight distinguish, with 
 some degree of precision, the situation of the tangible objects which 
 the visible ones represent, is very different ; and this difference, though 
 it, no doubt, may sometimes depend upon some difference in the original 
 configuration of their eyes, yet seems frequently to arise altogether from 
 the different customs and habits which their respective occupations 
 have led them to contract. Men of letters, who live much in their 
 closets, and have seldom occasion to look at very distant objects, are 
 seldom far-sighted. Mariners, on the contrary, almost always are; 
 those especially who have made many distant voyages, in which they 
 have been the greater part of their time out of sight of land, and have 
 in daylight been constantly looking out towards the horizon for the 
 appearance of some ship, or of some distant shore. It often astonishes 
 a landsman to observe with what precision a sailor can distinguish in 
 the offing, not only the appearance of a ship which is altogether 
 invisible to the landsman, but the number of her masts, the direction 
 of her course, and the rate of her sailing. If she is a ship of his 
 acquaintance, he frequently can tell her name, before the landsman has 
 been able to discover even the appearance of a ship.
 
 454 VISIBLE OBJECTS, AT EQUAL ANGLES, SEEM EQUALLY LARGE. 
 
 Visible objects, Colour, and all its different modifications, are in 
 themselves mere shadows or pictures, which seem to float, as it were, 
 before the organ of Sight. In themselves, and independent of their 
 connection with the tangible objects which they represent, they are of 
 no importance f o us, and can essentially neither benefit us nor hurt us. 
 Even while we see them we are seldom thinking of them. Even when 
 we appear to be looking at them with the greatest earnestness, our 
 whole attention is frequently employed, not upon them, but upon the 
 tangible objects represented by them. 
 
 It is because almost our whole attention is employed, not upon the 
 visible and representing, but upon the tangible and represented objects, 
 that in our imaginations we arc apt to ascribe to the former a degree of 
 magnitude which does not belong to them, but which belongs alto- 
 gether to the latter. If you shut one eye, and hold immediately before 
 the other a small circle of plain glass, of not more than half an inch 
 in diameter, you may see through that circle the most extensive pros- 
 pects ; lawns and woods, and arms of the sea, and distant mountains. 
 You are apt to imagine that the Landscape which is thus presented to 
 you, that the visible Picture which you thus see, is immensely great 
 and extensive. The tangible objects which this visible Picture repre- 
 sents, undoubtedly are so. But the visible Picture which represents 
 them can be no greater than the little visible circle through which you 
 see it. If while you are looking through this circle, you could conceive 
 a fairy hand and a fairy pencil to come between your eye and the glass, 
 that pencil could delineate upon that little glass the outline of all those 
 extensive lawns and woods, and arms of the sea, and distant mountains, 
 in the full and the exact dimensions with which they are really seen by 
 the naked eye. 
 
 Every visible object which covers from the eye any other visible 
 object, must appear at least as large as that other visible object. It 
 must occupy at least an equal portion of that visible plain or surface 
 which is at that time presented to the eye. Opticians accordingly tell 
 us, that all the visible objects which are seen under equal angles must 
 to the eye appear equally large. But the visible object, which covers 
 from the eye any other visible object, must necessarily be seen under 
 angles at least equally large as those under which that other object is 
 seen. When I hold up my finger, however, before my eye, it appears 
 to cover the greater part of the visible chamber in which I am sitting. 
 It should therefore appear as large as the greater part of that visible 
 chamber. But because I know that the tangible finger bears but a 
 very small proportion to the greater part of the tangible chamber, I am 
 apt to fancy that the visible finger bears but a like proportion to the 
 greater part of the visible chamber. My judgment corrects my eye- 
 sight, and, in my fancy, reduces the visible object, which represents the 
 little tangible one, below its real visible dimensions ; and, on the con-
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 455 
 
 trary, it augments the visible object which represents the great tangible 
 one a good deal beyond those dimensions. My attention being gene- 
 rally altogether occupied about the tangible and represented, and not 
 at all about the visible and representing objects, my careless fancy 
 bestows upon the latter a proportion which does not in the least belong 
 to them, but which belongs altogether to the former. 
 
 It is because the visible object which covers any other visible object 
 must always appear at least as large as that other object, that opticians 
 tell us that the sphere of our vision appears to the eye always equally 
 large ; and that when we hold our hand before our eye in such a 
 manner that we see nothing but the inside of the hand, we still see 
 precisely the same number of visible points, the sphere of our vision is 
 still as completely filled, the retina of the eye is as entirely covered 
 with the object which is thus presented to it, as when we survey 
 the most extensive horizon. 
 
 A young gentleman who was born with a cataract upon each of his 
 eyes, was, in one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight, couched 
 by Mr. Cheselden, and by that means for the first time made to see 
 distinctly. ' At first/ says the operator, ' he could bear but very little 
 ' sight, and the things he saw he thought extremely large ; but upon 
 ' seeing things larger, those first seen he conceived less, never being 
 ' able to imagine any lines beyond the bounds he saw ; the room he 
 ' was in, he said, he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not 
 ' conceive that the whole house would look bigger.' It was unavoid- 
 able that he should at first conceive, that no visible object could be 
 greater, could present to his eye a greater number of visible points, or 
 could more completely fill the comprehension of that organ, than the 
 narrowest sphere of his vision. And when that sphere came to be 
 enlarged, he still could not conceive that the visible objects which it 
 presented could be larger than those which he had first seen. He 
 must probably by this time have been in some degree habituated to 
 the connection between visible and tangible objects, and enabled to 
 conceive that visible object to be small which represented a small 
 tangible object ; and that to be great, which represented a great one. 
 The great objects did not appear to his sight greater than the small 
 ones had done before ; but the small ones, which, having filled the 
 whole sphere of his vision, had before appeared as large as possible, 
 being now known to represent much smaller tangible objects, seemed 
 in his conception to grow smaller. He had begun now to employ his 
 attention more about the tangible and represented, than about the 
 visible and representing objects ; and he was beginning to ascribe to 
 the latter the proportions and dimensions which properly belonged 
 altogether to the former. 
 
 As we frequently ascribe to the objects of Sight a magnitude and 
 proportion which does not really belong to them, but to the objects of
 
 456 THE PERSPECTIVE NECESSARILY VARIES AS LOOKED ON. 
 
 Touch which they represent, so we likewise ascribe to them a steadi- 
 ness of appearance, which as little belongs to them, but which they 
 derive altogether from their connection with the same objects of Touch. 
 The chair which now stands at the farther end of the room, I am apt 
 to imagine, appears to my eye as large as it did when it stood close by 
 me, when it was seen under angles at least four times larger than those 
 under which it is seen at present, and when it must have occupied, at 
 least, sixteen times that portion which it occupies at present, of the 
 visible plain or surface which is now before my eyes. But as I know 
 that the magnitude of the tangible and represented chair, the principal 
 object of my attention, is the same in both situations, I ascribe to the 
 visible and representing chair (though now reduced to less than the 
 sixteenth part of its former dimensions) a steadiness of appearance, 
 which certainly belongs not in any respect to it, but altogether to the 
 tangible and represented one. As we approach to, or retire from, the 
 tangible object which any visible one represents, the visible object 
 gradually augments in the one case, and diminishes in the other. To 
 speak accurately, it is not the same visible object which we see at 
 different distances, but a succession of visible objects, which, though 
 they all resemble one another, those especially which follow near after 
 one another ; yet are all really different and distinct. But as we know 
 that the tangible object which they represent remains always the same, 
 we ascribe to them too a sameness which belongs altogether to it : and 
 we fancy that we see the same tree at a mile, at half a mile, and at a 
 few yards distance. At those different distances, however, the visible 
 objects are so very widely different, that we are sensible of a change in 
 their appearance. But still, as the tangible objects which they represent 
 remain invariably the same, we ascribe a sort of sameness even to 
 them too. 
 
 It has been said, that no man ever saw the same visible object 
 twice ; and this, though, no doubt, an exaggeration, is, in reality, much 
 less so than at first view it appears to be. Though I am apt to fancy 
 that all the chairs and tables, and other little pieces of furniture in the 
 room where I am sitting, appear to my eye always the same, yet their 
 appearance is in reality continually varying, not only according to 
 every variation in their situation and distance with regard to where I 
 am sitting, but according to every, even the most insensible variation 
 in the altitude of my body, in the movement of my head, or even in 
 that of my eyes. The perspective necessarily varies according to all 
 even the smallest of these variations ; and consequently the appearance 
 of the objects which that perspective presents to me. Observe what 
 difficulty a portrait painter finds, in getting the person who sits for his 
 picture to present to him precisely that view of the countenance from 
 which the first outline was drawn. The painter is scarce ever com- 
 pletely satisfied with the situation of the face which is presented to
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 457 
 
 him, and finds that it is scarcely ever precisely the same with that from 
 which he rapidly sketched the first outline. He endeavours, as well as 
 he can, to correct the difference from memory, from fancy, and from a 
 sort of art of approximation, by which he strives to express as nearly 
 as he can, the ordinary effect of the look, air, and character of the 
 person whose picture he is drawing. The person who draws from a 
 statue, which is altogether immovable, feels a difficulty, though, no 
 doubt, in a less degree, of the same kind. It arises altogether from the 
 difficulty which he finds in placing his own eye precisely in the same 
 situation during the whole time which he employs in completing his 
 drawing. This difficulty is more than doubled upon the painter who 
 draws from a living subject. The statue never is the cause of any 
 variation or unsteadiness in its own appearance. The living subject 
 frequently is. 
 
 The benevolent purpose of nature in bestowing upon us the sense of 
 seeing, is evidently to inform us concerning the situation and distance 
 of the tangible objects which surround us. Upon the knowledge of 
 this distance and situation depends the whole conduct of human life, 
 in the most trifling as well as in the most important transactions. 
 Even animal motion depends upon it ; and without it we could neither 
 move, nor even sit still, with complete security. The objects of sight, 
 as Dr. Berkley finely observes, constitute a sort of language which the 
 Author of Nature addresses to our eyes, and by which he informs us 
 of many things, which it is of the utmost importance to us to know. 
 As, in common language, the words or sounds bear no resemblance to 
 the thing which they denote, so, in this other language, the visible 
 objects bear no sort of resemblance to the tangible object which they 
 represent, and of whose relative situation, with regard both to ourselves 
 and to one another, they inform us. 
 
 He acknowledges, however, that though scarcely any word be by 
 nature better fitted to express one meaning than any other meaning, 
 yet that certain visible objects are better fitted than others to represent 
 certain tangible objects. A visible square, for example, is better fitted 
 than a visible circle to represent a tangible square. There is, perhaps, 
 strictly speaking, no such thing as either a visible cube, or a visible 
 globe, the objects of sight being all naturally presented to the eye as 
 upon one surface. But still there are certain combinations of colours 
 which are fitted to represent to the eye, both the near and the distant, 
 both the advancing and the receding lines, angles, and surfaces of the 
 tangible cube ; and there are others fitted to represent, in the same 
 manner, both the near and the receding surface of the tangible globe. 
 The combination which represents the tangible cube, would not be fit 
 to represent the tangible globe ; and that which represents the tangible 
 globe, would not be fit to represent the tangible cube. Though there 
 may, therefore, be no resemblance between visible and tangible 
 
 30
 
 45 8 THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE ADDRESSED TO OUR EYES. 
 
 objects, there seems to be some affinity or correspondence between 
 them sufficient to make each visible object fitter to represent a certain 
 precise tangible object than any other tangible object. But the greater 
 part of words seem to have no sort of affinity or correspondence with the 
 meanings or ideas which they express ; and if custom had so ordered 
 it, they might with equal propriety have been made use of to express 
 any other meanings or ideas. 
 
 Dr. Berkley, with that happiness of illustration which scarcely ever 
 deserts him, remarks, that this in reality is no more than what happens 
 in common language ; and that though letters bear no sort of resem- 
 blance to the words which they denote, yet that the same combination 
 of letters which represents one word, would not always be fit to 
 represent another; and that each word is always best represented by 
 its own proper combination of letters. The comparison, however, it 
 must be observed, is here totally changed. The connection between 
 visible and tangible objects was first illustrated by comparing it with 
 that between spoken language and the meanings or ideas which 
 spoken language suggests to us ; and it is now illustrated by the 
 connection between written language and spoken language, which is 
 altogether different. Even this second illustration, besides, will not 
 apply perfectly to the case. When custom, indeed has perfectly 
 ascertained the powers of each letter; when it has ascertained, for 
 example, that the first letter of the alphabet shall always represent 
 such a sound, and the second letter such another sound ; each word 
 comes then to be more properly represented by one certain combina- 
 tion of written letters or characters, than it could be by any other 
 combination. But still the characters themselves are altogether 
 arbitrary, and have no sort of affinity or correspondence with the 
 articulate sounds which they denote. The character which marks the 
 first letter of the alphabet, for example, if custom had so ordered it, 
 might, with perfect propriety, have been made use of to express the 
 sound which we now annex to the second, and the character of the 
 second to express that which we now annex to the first. But the 
 visible characters which represent to our eyes the tangible globe, 
 could not so well represent the tangible cube; nor could those 
 which represent the tangible cube, so properly represent the tangible 
 globe. There is evidently, therefore, a certain affinity and corres- 
 pondence between each visible object and the precise tangible 
 object represented by it, much superior to what takes place either 
 between written and spoken language, or between spoken language 
 and the ideas or meanings which it suggests. The language which 
 nature addresses to our eyes, has evidently a fitness of representation, 
 an aptitude for signifying the precise things which it denotes, much 
 superior to that of any of the artificial languages which human art 
 and ingenuity have ever been able to invent.
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 459 
 
 That this affinity and correspondence, however, between visible and 
 tangible objects could not alone, and without the assistance of ob- 
 servation and experience, teach us, by any effort of reason, to infer 
 what was the precise tangible object which each visible one repre- 
 sented, if it is not sufficiently evident from what has been already 
 said, it must be completely so from the remarks of Mr. Cheselden 
 upon the young gentleman above-mentioned, whom he had couched 
 for a cataract. ' Though we say of this gentleman, that he was blind/ 
 observes Mr. Cheselden, ' as we do of all people who have ripe 
 ' cataracts ; yet they are never so blind from that cause but that they 
 ' can discern day from night ; and for the most part, in a strong light, 
 ' distinguish black, white, and scarlet ; but they cannot perceive the 
 ' shape of any thing ; for the light by which these perceptions are 
 ' made, being let in obliquely through aqueous humour, or the anterior 
 ' surface of the crystalline, (by which the rays cannot be brought into 
 ' a focus upon the retina,) they can discern in.no other manner than a 
 ' sound eye can through a glass of broken jelly, where a great variety 
 ' of surfaces so differently refract the light, that the several distinct 
 ' pencils of rays cannot be collected by the eye into their proper foci ; 
 'wherefore the shape of an object in such a case cannot be at all discerned 
 ' though the colour may : and thus it was with this young gentleman, 
 ' who, though he knew those colours asunder in a good light, yet when 
 ' he saw them after he was couched, the faint ideas he had of them 
 ' before were not sufficient for him to know them by afterwards ; and 
 ' therefore he did not think them the same which he had before known 
 * by those names.' This young gentleman, therefore, had some ad- 
 vantage over one who from a state of total blindness had been made 
 for the first time to see. He had some imperfect notion of the dis- 
 tinction of colours ; and he must have known that those colours had 
 some sort of connection-with the tangible objects which he had been 
 accustomed to feel. But had he emerged from total blindness, he 
 could have learnt this connection only from a very long course of 
 observation and experience. How little this advantage availed him, 
 however, we may learn partly from the passages of Mr. Cheselden's 
 narrative, already quoted, and still more from the following : 
 
 ' When he first saw/ says that ingenious operator, ' he was so far 
 'from making any judgment about distances, that he thought all 
 ' objects whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed) as what he felt 
 ' did his skin ; and thought no objects so agreeable as those which 
 ' were smooth and regular, though he could form no judgment of their 
 ' shape, or guess what it was in any object that was pleasing to him. 
 ' He knew not the shape of any thing, nor any one thing from another, 
 ' however different in shape or magnitude ; but upon being told what 
 ' things were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he would care- 
 ' fully observe, that he might know them again ; but having too many 
 
 30 *
 
 460 SENSATIONS OF THE BLIND WHEN SIGHT IS FIRST GIVEN 
 
 ' objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them ; and (as he said) at 
 ' first learned to know, and again forgot a thousand things in a day. 
 ' One particular only (though it may appear trifling) I will relate : 
 ' Having often forgot which was the cat and which was the dog, he 
 ' was ashamed to ask ; but catching the cat (which he knew by feeling) 
 ' he was observed to look at her steadfastly, and then setting her down, 
 ' said, So, puss ! I shall know you another time.' 
 
 When the young gentleman said, that the objects which he saw 
 touched his eyes, he certainly could not mean that they pressed upon 
 or resisted his eyes ; for the objects of sight never act upon the organ 
 in any way that resembles pressure or resistance. He could mean no 
 more than that they were close upon his eyes, or, to speak more 
 properly, perhaps, that they were in his eyes. A deaf man, who was 
 made all at once to hear, might in the same manner naturally enough 
 say, that the sounds which he heard touched his ears, meaning that 
 he felt them as close upon his ears, or, to speak perhaps more 
 properly, as in his ears. 
 
 Mr. Cheselden adds afterwards: 'We thought he soon knew what 
 ' pictures represented which were showed to him, but we found after- 
 ' wards we were mistaken ; for about two months after he was couched, 
 ' he discovered at once they represented solid bodies, when to that 
 ' time, he considered them only as party-coloured planes, or surfaces 
 ' diversified with variety of paints ; but even then he was no less sur- 
 ' prised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they repre- 
 ' sented, and was amazed when he found those parts, which by their 
 ' light and shadow appeared now round and uneven, felt only flat like 
 'the rest; and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing?' 
 
 Painting, though, by combinations of light and shade, similar to those 
 which Nature makes use of in the visible objects which she presents 
 to our eyes, it endeavours to imitate those objects ; yet it never has 
 been able to equal the perspective of Nature, or to give to its pro- 
 ductions that force and distinctness of relief and rejection which 
 Nature bestows upon hers. When the young gentleman was just be- 
 ginning to understand the strong and distinct perspective of Nature, 
 the faint and feeble perspective of Painting made no impression upon 
 him, and the picture appeared to him what it really was, a plain sur- 
 face bedaubed with different colours. When he became more familiar 
 with the perspective of Nature, the inferiority of that of Painting did 
 not hinder him from discovering its resemblance to that of Nature. In 
 the perspective of Nature, he had always found that the situation and 
 distance of the tangible and represented objects, corresponded exactly 
 to what the visible and representing ones suggested to him. He ex- 
 pected to find the same thing in the similar, though inferior perspective 
 of Painting, and was disappointed when he found that the visible and 
 tangible objects had not, in this case, their usual correspondence.
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 461 
 
 ' In a year after seeing,' adds Mr. Cheselden, ' the young gentleman 
 ' being carried upon Epsom-downs, and observing a large prospect, he 
 ' was exceedingly delighted with it, and called it a new kind of seeing.' 
 He had now, it is evident, come to understand completely the language 
 of Vision. The visible objects which this noble prospect presented to him 
 did not now appear as touching, or as close upon his eye. They did not 
 now appear of the same magnitude with those small objects to which, 
 for some time after the operation, he had been accustomed, in the little 
 chamber where he was confined. Those new visible objects at once, 
 and as it were of their own accord, assumed both the distance and the 
 magnitude of the great tangible objects which they represented. He 
 had now, therefore, it would seem, become completely master of the 
 language of Vision, and he had become so in the course of a year; a 
 much shorter period than that in which any person, arrived at the age 
 of manhood, could completely acquire any foreign language. It would 
 appear too, that he had made very considerable progress even in the 
 two first months. He began at that early period to understand even 
 the feeble perspective of Painting; and though at first he could not 
 distinguish it from the strong perspective of Nature, yet he could not 
 have been thus imposed upon by so imperfect an imitation, if the great 
 principles of Vision had not beforehand been deeply impressed upon 
 his mind, and if he had not, either by the association of ideas, or by 
 some other unknown principle, been strongly determined to expect 
 certain tangible objects in consequence of the visible ones which had 
 been presented to him. This rapid progress, however, may, perhaps, 
 be accounted for from that fitness of representation, which has already 
 been taken notice of, between visible and tangible objects. In this 
 language of Nature, it may be said, the analogies are more perfect ; 
 the etymologies, the declensions, and conjugations, if one may say so, 
 are more regular than those of any human language. The rules are 
 fewer, and those rules admit of no exceptions. 
 
 But though it may have been altogether by the slow paces of obser- 
 vation and experience that this young gentleman acquired the know- 
 ledge of the connection between visible and tangible objects ; we cannot 
 from thence with certainty infer, that young children have not some 
 instinctive perception of the same kind. In him this instinctive power, 
 not having been exerted at the proper season, may, from disuse, have 
 gone gradually to decay, and at last have been completely obliterated. 
 Or, perhaps (what seems likewise very possible), some feeble and un- 
 observed remains of it may have somewhat facilitated his acquisition 
 of what he might otherwise have found it much more difficult to 
 acquire a knowledge of. 
 
 That, antecedent to all experience, the young of at least the greater 
 part of animals possess some instinctive perception of this kind, seems 
 abundantly evident. The hen never feeds her young by dropping the
 
 462 THE SIGHT OF BIRDS IS PROMPT AND ACUTE. 
 
 food into their bills, as the linnet and thrush feed theirs. Almost as 
 soon as her chickens are hatched, she does not feed them, but carries 
 them to the field to feed, where they walk about at their ease, it would 
 seem, and appear to have the most distinct perception of all the tan- 
 gible objects which surround them. We may often see them, accord- 
 ingly, by the straightest road, run to and pick up any little grains 
 which she shows them, even at the distance of several yards ; and they 
 no sooner come into the light than they seem to understand this lan- 
 guage of Vision as well as they ever do aftenvards. The young of the 
 partridge and of the grouse seem to have, at the same early period, the 
 most distinct perceptions of the same kind. The young partridge, 
 almost as soon as it comes from the shell, runs about among long grass 
 and corn ; the young grouse among long heath, and would both most 
 essentially hurt themselves if they had not the most acute, as well as 
 distinct perception of the tangible objects which not only surround 
 them but press upon them on all sides. This is the case too with the 
 young of the goose, of the duck, and, so far as I have been able to ob- 
 serve, with those of at least the greater part of the birds which make 
 their nests upon the ground, with the greater part of those which are 
 ranked by Linnaeus in the orders of the hen and the goose, and of 
 many of those long-shanked and wading birds which he places in the 
 order that he distinguishes by the name of Grallae. 
 
 The young of those birds that build their nests in bushes, upon trees, 
 in the holes and crevices of high walls, upon high rocks and precipices, 
 and other places of difficult access ; of the greater part of those ranked 
 by Linnaeus in the orders of the hawk, the magpie, and the sparrow, 
 seem to come blind from the shell, and to continue so for at least some 
 days thereafter. Till they are able to fly they are fed by the joint 
 labour of both parents. As soon as that period arrives, however, and 
 probably for some time before, they evidently enjoy all the powers of 
 Vision in the most complete perfection, and can distinguish with most 
 exact precision the shape and proportion of the tangible objects which 
 every visible one represents. In so short a period they cannot be sup- 
 posed to have acquired those powers from experience, and must there- 
 fore derive them from some instinctive suggestion. The sight of birds 
 seems to be both more prompt and more acute than that of any other 
 animals. Without hurting themselves they dart into the thickest and 
 most thorny bushes, fly with the utmost rapidity through the most 
 intricate forests, and while they are soaring aloft in the air, discover 
 upon the ground the insects and grains upon which they feed. 
 
 The young of several sorts of quadrupeds seem, like those of the 
 greater part of birds which make their nests upon the ground, to enjoy 
 as soon as they come into the world the faculty of seeing as completely 
 as they ever do afterwards. The day, or the day after they are dropped, 
 the calf follows the cow, and the foal the mare, to the field ; and though
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 463 
 
 from timidity they seldom remove far from the mother, yet they seem 
 to walk about at their ease ; which they could not do unless they could 
 distinguish, with some degree of precision, the shape and proportion of 
 the tangible objects which each visible one represents. The degree of 
 precision, however, with which the horse is capable of making this dis- 
 tinction, seems at no period of his life to be very complete. He is at 
 all times apt to startle at many visible objects, which, if they distinctly 
 suggested to him the real shape and proportion of the tangible objects 
 which they represent, could not be the objects of fear ; at the trunk or 
 root of an old tree, for example, which happens to be laid by the road- 
 side, at a great stone, or the fragment of a rock which happens to lie 
 near the way where he is going. To reconcile him, even to a single 
 object of this kind, which has once alarmed him, frequently requires 
 some skill, as well as much patience and good temper in the rider. 
 Such powers of sight, however, as Nature has thought proper to render 
 him capable of acquiring, he seems to enjoy from the beginning, in as 
 great perfection as he ever does afterwards. 
 
 The young of other quadrupeds, like those of the birds which make 
 their nests in places of difficult access, come blind into the world. 
 Their sight, however, soon opens, and as soon as it does so, they seem 
 to enjoy it in the most complete perfection, as we may all observe in 
 the puppy and the kitten. The same thing, I believe, may be said of 
 all other beasts of prey, at least of all those concerning which I have 
 been able to collect any distinct information. They come blind into 
 the world ; but as soon as their sight opens, they appear to enjoy it in 
 the most complete perfection. 
 
 It seems difficult to suppose that man is the only animal of which 
 the young are not endowed with some instinctive perception of this 
 kind. The young of the human species, however, continue so long in 
 a state of entire dependency, they must be so long carried about in the 
 arms of their mothers or of their nurses, that such an instinctive per- 
 ception may seem less necessary to them than to any other race of 
 animals. Before it could be of any use to them, observation and ex- 
 perience may, by the known principle of the association of ideas, have 
 sufficiently connected in their young minds each visible object with the 
 corresponding tangible one which it is fitted to represent. Nature, it 
 may be said, never bestows upon any animal any faculty which is not 
 either necessary or useful, and an instinct of this kind would be alto- 
 gether useless to an animal which must necessarily acquire the know- 
 ledge which the instinct is given to supply, long before that instinct 
 could be of any use to it. Children, however, appear at so very early 
 a period to know the distance, the shape, and magnitude of the different 
 tangible objects which are presented to them, that I am disposed to 
 believe that even they may have some instinctive perception of this 
 kind; though possibly in a much weaker degree than the greater part
 
 464 THE INFANT AND THE LOOKING GLASS. 
 
 of other animals. A child that is scarcely a month old, stretches out 
 its hands to feel any little plaything that is presented to it. It dis- 
 tinguishes its nurse, and the other people who are much about it, from 
 strangers. It clings to the former, and turns away from the latter. 
 Hold a small looking-glass before a child of not more than two or three 
 months old, and it will stretch out its little arms behind the glass, in 
 order to feel the child which it sees, and which it imagines is at the 
 back of the glass. It is deceived, no doubt; but even this sort of de- 
 ception sufficiently demonstrates that it has a tolerably distinct appre- 
 hension of the ordinary perspective of Vision, which it cannot well 
 have learnt from observation and experience. 
 
 Do any of our other senses, antecedently to such observation and 
 experience, instinctively suggest to us some conception of the solid and 
 resisting substances which excite their respective sensations, though 
 these sensations bear no sort of resemblance to those substances? 
 
 The sense of Tasting certainly does not. Before we can feel the sen- 
 sation, the solid and resisting substance which excites it must be 
 pressed against the organs of Taste, and must consequently be per- 
 ceived by them. Antecedently to observation and experience, there- 
 fore, the sense of Tasting can never be said instinctively to suggest 
 some conception of that substance. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be otherwise with the sense of Smelling. The 
 young of all suckling animals, (of the Mammalia of Linnaeus,) whether 
 they are born with sight or without it, yet as soon as they come into 
 the world apply to the nipple of the mother in order to suck. In doing 
 this they are evidently directed by the Smell. The Smell appears 
 either to excite the appetite for the proper food, or at least to direct the 
 new-born animal to the place where that food is to be found. It may 
 perhaps do both the one and the other. 
 
 That when the stomach is empty, the Smell of agreeable food excites 
 and irritates the appetite, is what we all must have frequently expe- 
 rienced. But the stomach of every new-born animal is necessarily 
 empty. While in the womb it is nourished, not by the mouth, but by 
 the navel-string. Children have been born apparently in the most 
 perfect health and vigour, and have applied to suck in the usual 
 manner ; but immediately, or soon after, have thrown up the milk, and 
 in the course of a few hours have died vomiting and in convulsions. 
 Upon opening their bodies it has been found that the intestinal tube 
 or canal had never been opened or pierced in the whole extent of its 
 length ; but, like a sack, admitted of no passage beyond a particular 
 place. It could not have been in any respect by the mouth, therefore, 
 but altogether by the navel-string, that such children had been nou- 
 rished and fed up to the degree of health and vigour in which they 
 were born. Every animal, while in the womb, seems to draw its 
 nourishment, more like a vegetable, from the root, than like an animal
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 465 
 
 from the mouth ; and that nourishment seems to be conveyed to all the 
 different parts of the body by tubes and canals in many respects 
 different from those which afterwards perform the same function. As 
 soon as it comes into the world, this new set of tubes and canals which 
 the providential care of Nature had for a long time before been 
 gradually preparing, is all at once and instantaneously opened. They 
 are all empty, and they require to be filled. An uneasy sensation 
 accompanies the one situation, and an agreeable one the other. The 
 smell of the substance which is fitted for filling them, increases and 
 irritates that uneasy sensation, and produces in the infant hunger, 
 or the appetite for food. 
 
 But all the appetites which take their origin from a certain state of 
 the body, seem to suggest the means of their own gratification ; and, 
 even long before experience, some anticipation or preconception of the 
 pleasure which attends that gratification. In the appetite for sex, 
 which frequently, I am disposed to believe almost always, comes a long 
 time before the age of puberty, this is perfectly and distinctly evident. 
 The appetite for food suggests to the new-born infant the operation of 
 sucking, the only means by which it can possibly gratifying that 
 appetite. It is continually sucking. It sucks whatever is presented to 
 its mouth. It sucks even when there is nothing presented to its mouth, 
 and some anticipation or preconception of the pleasure which it is to 
 enjoy in sucking, seems to make it delight in putting its mouth into the 
 shape and configuration by which it alone can enjoy that pleasure. 
 There are other appetites in which the most unexperienced imagination 
 produces a similar effect upon the organs which Nature has provided 
 for their gratification. 
 
 The smell not only excites the appetite, but directs to the object 
 which can alone gratify that appetite. But by suggesting the direction 
 towards that object, the Smell must necessarily suggest some notion of 
 distance and externality, which are necessarily involved in the idea of 
 direction ; in the idea of the line of motion by which the distance can 
 best be overcome, and the mouth brought into contact with the unknown 
 substance which is the object of the appetite. That the Smell should 
 alone suggest any preconception of the shape or magnitude of the 
 external body to which it directs, seems not very probable. The sen- 
 sation of Smell seems to have no sort of affinity or correspondence 
 with shape or magnitude ; and whatever preconception the infant may 
 have of these, (and it may very probably have some such preconcep- 
 tion.) is likely to be suggested, not so much directly by the Smell, and 
 indirectly by the appetite excited by that Smell ; as by the principle 
 which teaches the child to mould its mouth into the conformation and 
 action of sucking, even before it reaches the object to which alone that 
 conformation and action can be usefully applied. 
 
 The Smell, however, as it suggests the direction by which the external
 
 466 SMELL MADE BY NATURE THE DIRECTOR OF TASTE. 
 
 body must be approached, must suggest at least some vague idea or 
 preconception of the existence of that body ; of the thing to which it 
 directs, though not perhaps of the precise shape and magnitude of that 
 thing. The infant, too, feeling its mouth attracted and drawn as it 
 were towards that external body, must conceive the Smell which thus 
 draws and attracts it, as something belonging to or proceeding from 
 that body, or what is afterwards denominated and obscurely understood 
 to be as a sort of quality or attribute of that body. 
 
 The Smell, too, may very probably suggest some even tolerably 
 distinct perception of the Taste of the food to which it directs. The 
 respective objects of our different external senses seem, indeed, the 
 greater part of them, to bear no sort of resemblance to one another. 
 Colour bears no sort of resemblance to Solidity, nor to Heat, nor to 
 Cold, nor to Sound, nor to Smell, nor to Taste. To this general rule, 
 however, there seems to be one, and perhaps but one exception. The 
 sensations of Smell and Taste seem evidently to bear some sort of 
 resemblance to one another. Smell appears to have been given to us 
 by Nature as the director of Taste. It announces, as it were, before 
 trial, what is likely to be the Taste of the food which is set before us. 
 Though perceived by a different organ, it seems in many cases to be 
 but a weaker sensation nearly of the same kind with that of the Taste 
 which that announces. It is very natural to suppose, therefore, that 
 the Smell may suggest to the infant some tolerably distinct preconcep- 
 tion of the Taste of the food which it announces, and may, even before 
 experience, make its mouth, as we say, water for that food. 
 
 That numerous division of animals which Linnaeus ranks under the 
 class of worms, have, scarcely any of them, any head. They neither 
 see nor hear, have neither eyes nor ears ; but many of them have the 
 power of self-motion, and appear to move about in search of their food. 
 They can be directed in this search by no other sense than that of 
 Smelling. The most accurate microscopical observations, however, 
 have never been able to discover in such animals any distinct organ of 
 Smell. They have a mouth and a stomach, but no nostrils. The 
 organ of Taste, it is probable, has in them a sensibility of the same 
 kind with that which the olfactory nerves have in more perfect animals. 
 They may, as it were, taste at a distance, and be attracted to their food 
 by an affection of the same organ by which they afterwards enjoy it ; 
 and Smell and Taste may in them be no otherwise distinguished than 
 as weaker or stronger sensations derived from the same organ. 
 
 The sensations of Heat and Cold, when excited by the pressure of 
 some body either heated or cooled beyond the actual temperature of 
 our own organs, cannot be said, antecedently to observation and expe- 
 rience, instinctively to suggest any conception of the solid and resisting 
 substance which excites them. What was said of the sense of Taste 
 may very properly be said here. Before we can feel those sensations,
 
 ADAM SMITH ON THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 467 
 
 the pressure of the external body which excites them must necessarily 
 suggest, not only some conception, but the most distinct conviction of 
 its own external and independent existence. 
 
 It may be otherwise, perhaps, when those sensations are either of 
 them excited by the temperature of the external air. In a calm day 
 when there is no wind, we scarcely perceive the external air as a solid 
 body ; and the sensations of Heat and Cold, it may be thought, are 
 then felt merely as affections of our own body, without any reference to 
 any thing external. Several cases, however, may be conceived, in 
 which it must be allowed, I imagine, that those sensations, even when 
 excited in this manner, must suggest some vague notion of some ex- 
 ternal thing or substance which excites them. A new-born animal, 
 which had the power of self-motion, and which felt its body, either 
 agreeably or disagreeably, more heated or more cooled on the one side 
 than on the other, would, I imagine, instinctively and antecedently to 
 all observation and experience, endeavour to move towards the side in 
 which it felt the agreeable, and to withdraw from that in which it felt 
 the disagreeable sensation. But the very desire of motion supposes 
 some notion or preconception of externality ; and the desire to move 
 towards the side of the agreeable, or from that of the disagreeable sen- 
 sation, supposes at least some vague notion of some external thing or 
 place which is the cause of those respective sensations. 
 
 The degrees of Heat and Cold which are agreeable, it has been found 
 from experience, are likewise healthful ; and those which are disagree- 
 able, unwholesome. The degree of their unwholesomeness, too, seems 
 to be pretty much in proportion to that of their disagreeableness. If 
 either of them is so disagreeable as to be painful, it is generally 
 destructive ; and, that, too, in a very short period of time. Those sen- 
 sations appear to have been given us for the preservation of our own 
 bodies. They necessarily excite the desire of changing our situation 
 when it is unwholesome or destructive ; and when it is healthy, they 
 allow us, or rather they entice us, to remain in it. But the desire of 
 changing our situation necessarily supposes some idea of externality ; 
 or of motion into a place different from that in which we actually are ; 
 and even the desire of remaining in the same place supposes some idea 
 of at least the possibility of changing. Those sensations could not 
 well have answered the intention of Nature, had they not thus instinct- 
 ively suggested some vague notion of external existence. 
 
 That Sound, the object of the sense of Hearing, though perceived 
 itself as in the ear, and nowhere but in the ear, may likewise, instinct- 
 ively, and antecedently to all observation and experience, obscurely 
 suggest some vague notion of some external substance or thing which 
 excites it, I am much disposed to believe. I acknowledge, however, 
 that I have not been able to recollect any one instance in which this 
 sense seems so distinctly to produce this effect, as that of Seeing, that
 
 468 THE ADVANTAGES OF SEEING, HEARING, AND SMELLING. 
 
 of Smelling, and even that of Heat and Cold, appear to do in some 
 particular cases. Unusual and unexpected Sound alarms always, and 
 disposes us to look about for some external substance or thing as the 
 cause which excites it, or from which it proceeds. Sound, however, 
 considered merely as a sensation, or as an affection of the organ of 
 Hearing, can in most cases neither benefit nor hurt us. It may be 
 agreeable or disagreeable, but in its own nature it does not seem to 
 announce any thing beyond the immediate feeling. It should not 
 therefore excite any alarm. Alarm is always the fear of some uncertain 
 evil beyond what is immediately felt, and from some unknown and 
 external cause. But all animals, and men among the rest, feel some 
 degree of this alarm, start, are roused and rendered circumspect and 
 attentive by unusual and unexpected Sound. This effect, too, is pro- 
 duced so readily and so instantaneously that it bears every mark of an 
 instinctive suggestion of an impression immediately struck by the hand 
 of Nature, which does not wait for any recollection of past observation 
 and experience. The hare, and all those other timid animals to whom 
 flight is the only defence, are supposed to possess the sense of Hearing 
 in the highest degree of activeness. It seems to be the sense in which 
 cowards are very likely to excel. 
 
 The three senses of Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling, seem to be given 
 to us by Nature, not so much in order to inform us concerning the 
 actual situation of our bodies, as concerning that of those other 
 external bodies, which, though at some distance from us, may sooner 
 or later affect the actual situation, and eventually either benefit or 
 hurt us, 
 
 OF THE AFFINITY 
 
 BETWEEN CERTAIN 
 
 ENGLISH AND ITALIAN VERSES. 
 
 THE measure of the verses, of which the octave of the Italians, their 
 terzetti, and the greater part of their sonnets, are composed, seems to 
 be as nearly the same with that of the English Heroic Rhyme, as the 
 different genius and pronunciation of the two languages will permit. 
 
 The English Heroic Rhyme is supposed to consist sometimes of ten, 
 and sometimes of eleven syllables : of ten, when the verse ends with a 
 single, and of eleven, when it ends with a double rhyme. 
 
 The correspondent Italian verse is supposed to consist sometimes of
 
 SMITH ON CERTAIN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN VERSES. 469 
 
 ten, sometimes of eleven, and sometimes of twelve syllables, according 
 as it happens to end with a single, a double, or a triple rhyme. 
 
 The rhyme ought naturally to fall upon the last syllable of the verse ; 
 it is proper likewise that it should fall upon an accented syllable, in 
 order to render it more sensible. When, therefore, the accent happens 
 to fall, not upon the last syllable, but upon that immediately before it, 
 the rhyme must fall both upon the accented syllable and upon that 
 which is not accented. It must be a double rhyme. 
 
 In the Italian language, when the accent falls neither upon the last 
 syllable, nor upon that immediately before it, but upon the third syl- 
 lable from the end, the rhyme must fall upon all the three. It must 
 be a triple rhyme, and the verse is supposed to consist of twelve 
 syllables : 
 
 Forsi era ver, nonperd credllile, &c. 
 
 Triple rhymes are not admitted into English Heroic Verse. 
 
 In the Italian language the accent falls much more rarely, either upon 
 the third syllable from the end of a word, or upon the last syllable, 
 than it does upon the one immediately before the last. In reality, this 
 second syllable from the end seems, in that language, to be its most 
 common and natural place. The Italian Heroic Poetry, therefore, is 
 composed principally of double rhymes, or of verses supposed to consist 
 of eleven syllables. Triple rhymes occur but seldom, and single rhymes 
 still more seldom. 
 
 In the English language the accent falls frequently upon the last 
 syllable of the word. Our language, besides, abounds in words of one 
 syllable, the greater part of which do (for there are few which do not) 
 admit of being accented. Words of one syllable are most frequently 
 the concluding words of English rhymes. For both these reasons, 
 English Heroic Rhyme is principally composed of single rhymes, or of 
 verses supposed to consist of ten syllables. Double Rhymes occur 
 almost as rarely in it, as either single or triple do in the Italian. 
 
 The rarity of double rhymes in English Heroic Verse makes them 
 appear odd, and awkward, and even ludicrous, when they occur. By 
 the best writers, theretore, they are reserved for light and ludicrous 
 occasions ; when, in order to humour their subject, they stoop to a 
 more familiar style than usual. When Mr. Pope says; 
 
 Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow ; 
 The rest is all but leather or prunello ; 
 
 he means, in compliance with his subject, to condescend a good deal 
 below the stateliness of his diction on the Essay on Man. Double 
 rhymes abound more in Dryden than in Pope, and in Butler's Hudibras 
 more than in Dryden. 
 
 The rarity both of single and of triple rhyme in Italian Heroic Verse, 
 gives them the same odd and ludicrous air which double rhymes have
 
 470 SINGLE RHYMES OCCUR VERY RARELY IN ARIOSTO. 
 
 in English Verse. In Italian, triple rhymes occur more frequently 
 than single rhymes. The slippery, or if I may be allowed to use a 
 very low, but a very expressive word, the glib pronunciation of the 
 triple rhyme (verso sotrucdolo) seems to depart less from the ordinary 
 movement of the double rhyme, than the abrupt ending of the single 
 rhyme (verso tronco e cadente), of the verse that appears to be cut off 
 and to fall short of the usual measure. Single rhymes accordingly 
 appear in Italian verse much more burlesque than triple rhymes. 
 Single rhymes occur very rarely in Ariosto ; but frequently in the more 
 burlesque poem of Ricciardetto. Triple rhymes occur much oftener in 
 all the best writers. It is thus, that what in English appears to be the 
 verse of the greatest gravity and dignity, appears in Italian to be the 
 most burlesque and ludicrous ; for no other reason, I apprehend, but 
 because in the one language it is the ordinary verse, whereas in the 
 other it departs most from the movements of ordinary verse. 
 
 The common Italian Heroic Poetry being composed of double 
 rhymes, it can admit both of single and of triple rhymes ; which seem 
 to recede from the common movement on opposite sides to nearly 
 equal distances. The common English Heroic Poetry, consisting of 
 single rhymes, it can admit of double ; but it cannot admit of triple 
 rhymes, which would recede so far from the common movements as to 
 appear perfectly burlesque and ridiculous. In English, when a word 
 accented upon the third syllable from the end happens to make the 
 last word of a verse, the rhyme falls upon the last syllable only. It is 
 a single rhyme, and the verse consists of no more than ten syllables : 
 but as the last syllable is not accented, it is an imperfect rhyme, which, 
 however, when confined to the second verse of the couplet, and even 
 there introduced but rarely, may have a very agreeable grace, and the 
 line may even seem to run more easy and natural by means of it : 
 
 But of this frame, the bearings, and the ties. 
 The strict connections, nice dependencies, &c. 
 
 When by a well accented syllable in the end of the first lihe of a 
 couplet, it has once been clearly ascertained what the rhyme is to be, a 
 very slight allusion to it, such as can be made by a syllable of the same 
 termination that is not accented, may often be sufficient to mark the 
 coincidence in the second line ; a word of this kind in the end of the 
 first line seldom succeeds so well : 
 
 Th" inhabitants of old Jerusalem 
 
 Were Jebusites ; the town so called from them. 
 
 A couplet in which both verses were terminated in this manner, would 
 be extremely disagreeable and offensive. 
 
 In counting the syllables, even of verses which to the ear appear 
 sufficiently correct, a considerable indulgence must frequently be given,
 
 SMITH ON CERTAIN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN VERSES. 471 
 
 before they can, in either language, be reduced to the precise number of 
 ten, eleven, or twelve, according to the nature of the rhyme. In the 
 following couplet, for example, there are, strictly speaking, fourteen 
 syllables in the first line, and twelve in the second. 
 
 And many a humourous, many an amorous lay, 
 Was sung by many a bard, on many a day. 
 
 By the rapidity, however, or, if I may use a very low word a second 
 time, by the glibness of the pronunciation, those fourteen syllables in 
 the first line, and those twelve in the second, appear to take up the 
 time but of ten ordinary syllables. The words many a, though they 
 plainly consist of three distinct syllables, or sounds, which are all pro- 
 nounced successively, or the one after the other, yet pass as but two 
 syllables ; as do likewise these words, humourous, and amorous. The 
 words heaven and given, in the same manner, consist each of them of 
 two syllables, which, how rapidly so ever they may be pronounced, can- 
 not be pronounced but successively, or the one after the other. In verse, 
 however, they are considered as consisting but of one syllable. 
 
 In counting the syllables of the Italian Heroic Verse, still greater 
 indulgences must be allowed : three vowels must there frequently be 
 counted as making but one syllable, though they are all pronounced, 
 rapidly indeed, but in succession, or the one after the other, and though 
 no two of them are supposed to make a diphthong. In these licenses too, 
 the Italians seem not to be very regular, and the same concourse of 
 vowels which in one place makes but one syllable, will in another some- 
 times make two. There are even some words which in the end of a 
 verse are constantly counted for two syllables, but which in any other 
 part of it are never counted for more than one; such as the words 
 suo, tuo, suoi, tuoi. 
 
 Ruscelli observes, that in the Italian Heroic Verse the accent ought 
 to fall upon the fourth, the sixth, the eighth, and the tenth syllables ; 
 and that if it falls upon the third, the fifth, the seventh, or the ninth 
 syllables, it will spoil the verse. 
 
 In English, if the accent falls upon any of the above-mentioned odd 
 syllables, it equally spoils the verse. 
 
 Bow'd their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts, 
 
 though a line of Milton, has not the ordinary movement of an English 
 Heroic Verse, the accent falls upon the third and sixth syllables. 
 
 In Italian frequently, and in English sometimes, an accent is with 
 great grace thrown upon the first syllable, in which case it seldom 
 happens that any other syllable is accented before the fourth ; 
 
 Cdnto Varm pietdse e'l capitdno. 
 
 First in these fields I try the sylvan strains. 
 
 Both in English and in Italian the second syllable may be accented
 
 472 IN ENGLISH THE GRAVE AND ACUTE ACCENTS ARE ALIKE. 
 
 with great grace, and it generally is so when the first syllable is not 
 accented : 
 
 E iu -van I inferno a! lui s' oppose; e in vano 
 S' artnd d' Asia, e di Libia ilpopol mists, &C. 
 Let us, since life can little more supply 
 Than just to look about us, and to die, &c. 
 
 Both in English and in Italian Verse, an accent, though it must 
 never be misplaced, may sometimes be omitted with great grace. In 
 the last of the above-quoted English Verses there is no accent upon 
 the eighth syllable; the conjunction and not admitting of any. In the 
 following Italian Verse there is no accent upon the sixth syllable : 
 
 O Musa, tu, die di caduchi allori, &c. 
 
 The preposition di will as little admit of an accent as the conjunction 
 and. In this case, however, when the even syllable is not accented, 
 neither of the odd syllables immediately before or behind it must be 
 accented. 
 
 Neither in English nor in Italian can two accents running be omitted. 
 
 It must be observed, that in Italian there are two accents, the grave 
 and the acute : the grave accent is always marked by a slight stroke 
 over the syllable to which it belongs ; the acute accent has no mark. 
 
 The English language knows no distinction between the grave and 
 the acute accents. 
 
 The same author observes, that in the Italian Verse the Pause, or 
 what the grammarians call the Cesura, may with propriety be intro- 
 duced after either the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, or the 
 seventh syllables. The like observations have been made by several 
 different writers upon the English Heroic Verse. Dobie admires par- 
 ticularly the verse in which there are two pauses ; one after the fifth, 
 and another after the ninth syllable. The example he gives is from 
 Petrarch : 
 
 Ncl dolce tempo de la prima etade, &c. 
 
 In this verse, the second pause, which he says comes after the ninth 
 syllable, in reality comes in between the two vowels, which, in the 
 Italian way of counting syllables, compose the ninth syllable. It may 
 be doubtful, therefore, whether this pause may not be considered as 
 coming after the eighth syllable. I do not recollect any good English 
 Verse in which the pause comes in after the ninth syllable. We have 
 many in which it comes in after the eighth : 
 
 Yet oft, before his infant eyes, would run, &c. 
 
 In which verse there are two pauses ; one after the second, and the 
 other after the eighth syllable. I have observed many Italian Verses in 
 which the pause comes after the second syllable. 
 
 Both the English and the Italian Heroic Verse, perhaps, are not so
 
 SMITH ON CERTAIN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN VERSES. 473 
 
 properly composed of a certain number of syllables, which vary accord- 
 ing to the nature of the rhyme ; as of a certain number of intervals, 
 (of five invariably,) each of which is equal in length, or time, to two 
 ordinary distinct syllables, though it may sometimes contain more, of 
 which the extraordinary shortness compensates the extraordinary 
 number. The close frequently of each of those intervals, but always 
 of every second interval, is marked by a distinct accent. This ac- 
 cent may frequently, with great grace, fall upon the beginning of the 
 first interval ; after which, it cannot, without spoiling the verse, fall 
 any where but upon the close of an interval. The syllable or syl- 
 lables which come after the accent that closes the fifth interval are 
 never accented. They make no distinct interval, but are considered 
 as a sort of excrescence of the verse, and are in a manner counted 
 for nothing. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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