Section 19 of the Theory of Moral Sentiments of the Foundation of our Judgements concerning our own sentiments and conduct and of the sense of duty consisting of one section. Chapter 5 of the Influence and Authority of the General Rules of Morality, and that they are justly regarded as the laws of deity. The regard to 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 directions. 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 appropriation of their conduct, but acted merely from a regard to what they saw were the established rules of behavior. The man who has received great benefits from another person, made 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 respectfully. 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 his 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 benefactor 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 the 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 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 the 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 dependent 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 resolutely to his maxims, and preserves through the whole of his life one even tenor of conduct. The other acts variously and accidentally, as humor, inclination or interest chance to be uppermost. Nay, such are the inequalities of humor to which all men are subject, that without 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 humor 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 politeness 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 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 philosophy 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 superstition, mankind seemed to have formed the ideas of their divinities with so little delicacy that they ascribe to them indiscriminately all the passions of human nature, those not accepted which do the least honor to our species, such as lust, hunger, Everest, envy, revenge. They could not fail, therefore, to ascribe to those beings for the excellence of whose nature they still conceive the highest admiration, those sentiments 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 our 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 far 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, in doubt 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 colors, nor from the ear with regard to the harmony of sounds, nor from the taste with regard to the agreeableness of flavors. 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 suits 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 agreeable 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 five jurents which 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 examination may much more justly be denominated such. They have a much greater resemblance to what are properly called laws, those 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 to with the sanction of rewards and punishments. Those five jurents 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 tranquility of mind, with 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 intended by the author of nature when he brought them into existence. No other end seems worthy of that supreme wisdom and divine benignity 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 according to the dictates of our moral faculties, we necessarily pursue the most effectual means for promoting the happiness of mankind, and may therefore be said, in some sense, to cooperate with the deity, and to advance, as far as in our power, the plan of providence. By acting other ways 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 favor and reward in the one case, and to dread his 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 prosperity 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, the recompense which is most fit to encourage and promote 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 circumspection? 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 honors 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 confidence, the esteem and 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 and justice would rejoice, but in being trusted and believed, recompenses 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 inundation. 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 those virtues achieve the 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 nave in the same manner may escape censure or even meet with applause for a particular navery 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 mankind, 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 the school 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 honors 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 accepted 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 honors of every kind, the natural consequences of prudence, industry and application, qualities with which those virtues are not inseparably connected. Fraud, falsehood, brutality and violence, 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 good 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 favor of the knave, the natural sentiments of mankind in favor of the men of virtue. Man judges that the good qualities of the one are greatly over recompensed by the 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 trader and reward by extraordinary recompenses, the fidelity and public spirit of the improvident and careless good citizen. Thus man is by nature directed to correct, in some measure, the distribution of things which she herself would otherwise have made. The rules for which this purpose she prompts him to follow are different from those which she herself observes. She bestows upon every virtue and upon every vice that precise reward or punishment which is best visited 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 endeavor 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, those which he follows for him, but both are calculated to promote 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 favor of virtue and in opposition to vice, and like them in divors to turn away the arrow that is aimed at the head of the righteous, but to accelerate the sort 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 and divors of man. The current is too rapid and too strong for him to stop it, and though the rules which directed 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 man should prevail over a small one, that those who engage in an enterprise with forethought and all necessary preparation should prevail over such as opposed to them without any, and that every end should be acquired by those means only which nature has established for acquiring it seems to be a rule not only necessary and unavoidable in itself, but even useful and proper for rousing the industry and the tension 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 Rome 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, but 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 everyone 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 a passionate and exaggerating force of imagination, which seems to sometimes 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 reveal 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 on the distroke of a barbarous and faithless wife. From the height of his greatness ought God to behold those melancholy events as a fantastical amusement without taking any share in them, because he is great should he be weak or unjust or barbarous. Because men are little, ought they to be allowed either to be dissolute without punishment or virtuous without reward? Oh 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 support of my weakness, the rewarder of my fidelity. You would then be no more than an indolent and fantastical tyrant who sacrifices mankind to his insolent 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 lifetime to come will reward the observance and punish the breach of them, they necessarily acquire a new sacredness from this consideration. That our regard to the will of the deity or to be the supreme rule of our conduct can be doubted off 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 neglect 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 propriety of those who seem deeply impressed with religious sentiments. Such persons, they imagine, act under an additional 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 same 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. In 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 fulfill all the obligations of morality, wherever men are not taught to regard frivolous observances 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 perfidae and violence, the world undoubtedly judges right in this respect and justly places a double confidence in the rectitude of the religious man's behavior. End of section 19, recording by Biddy. Section 20 of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jennifer W. The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith. Part 3, Chapter 6. In what cases the sense of duty ought to be the soul 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 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 protect the helplessness of our children nor afford support to the infirmities of our parents from natural affection. All affections for particular objects ought to be extinguished in our breast, and one great affection take place of all others, the love of the deity, the desire of rendering ourselves agreeable to him, and of directing our conduct in every respect, according to his will. We ought not to be grateful from gratitude. 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 profess 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 neighbor as we love ourselves, 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 nowhere the precept of Christianity, but that it should be the ruling and the governing one, as philosophy and, as indeed, common sense directs. It may be a question, 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? The decision of this question, which cannot perhaps be given with any 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 regard to general rules, and secondly upon the precision and exactness or the looseness and inaccuracy of the general rules themselves. 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 opt 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 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 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 performed all the duties of his situation, had nothing of that fatherly fondness which might have been expected of 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, 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 generosity of our 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 propriety of punishing than from any savage disposition to revenge. Nothing is more graceful than the behavior 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 particular offense? Who, in executing that role, feels less for what himself has suffered than for what the offender is about to suffer? Who, though in wrath, remembers mercy, and is disposed to interpret the rule in the most general and favorable 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 the 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 causes 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 awkward and sippid 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 shilling, would degrade the most vulgar tradesmen in the opinion of all his neighbors. 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 conduct. His situation may require the most severe economy and the most exact assiduity. But each particular exertion of that economy and assiduity must proceed not so much from a regard for that particular saving or gain, as for the general rule which to him prescribes, with the utmost rigor, such a tenor of conduct. His parsimony today must not arise from the desire of the particular three pence which he will save by it, nor his attendance to his shop from a passion for the particular ten pence which he will require by it. But 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 economy 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 most extraordinary and important objects of self-interest. A person appears mean-spirited who does not pursue with some degree of earnestness for their own sake. We should despise a prince who is 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 meanness or injustice. A member of Parliament who shoes no keenness about his own election is abandoned by his friends as altogether unworthy of their attachment. Even a tradesman has thought a poor spirited fellow among his neighbors who does not bestow 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 both of 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 Richelieu and Ritz, the objects of avarice and ambition 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. Two. Secondly, I say, it will depend partly upon the precision and exactness or the looseness and inaccuracy of the general rules themselves, how far our conduct ought to proceed entirely from a regard to them. The general rule of almost all the virtues, the general rules which 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 universal experience, are perhaps the best general rules which can be given about it. To effect, 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 exceptions. 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 and his, or can you fulfill the obligation of gratitude by making a return of a different kind? If you ought to attend to 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 lend him, when ought you to lend him, now or tomorrow 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 willing to lend or give to him ten times the sum which he lent you, and yet justly be accused of the blackest in gratitude, 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, generosity, are still more vague and indeterminate. There is, however, one virtue 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 me may be ascertained as accurately as the rules themselves, and which generally, 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 ought to perform it, the whole nature and circumstances of the action prescribed, all of them precisely fixed and determined. Though it may be awkward and pedantic therefore to effect too strict an adherence 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 dependent upon. Though the end of the rules of justice be to hinder us from hurting our neighbor, 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 infilable 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 abnormity 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 others are loose, vague, and indeterminate, and present us rather with the 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. There are some which may help us, in some measure, to correct and ascertain the vague ideas which we might otherwise have entertained of those perfections. And there are no rules by the knowledge of which we can infallibly be taught to act upon all occasions with prudence, 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. It may sometimes happen that with the most serious and earnest desire of acting so as to deserve approbation, we may mistake the proper rules of conduct and thus be misled by that very principle which taught to direct us. It is vain to expect that in this case mankind should entirely approve of our behavior. 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 respectable in the character and behavior of one who is thus betrayed in device by a wrong sense of duty or by what is called an erroneous conscience. How fatally soever he may be 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 laboring after perfection and endeavoring 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 them 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 exquisite propriety of conduct, yet to something which is not very far from it, and provided we are in earnest desires to do well, our behavior will always upon the whole be praise worthy. 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 wildly from one another. In this therefore the greatest mutual forbearance and toleration is due, and though the deference of society requires the crime should be punished from what ever motives they proceed, yet a good man will always punish them with reluctance when they evidently proceed from false notions of religious duty.  In the tragedy of Muhammad, 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 endures them the more to us a mutual fondness from 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 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 they are about executing this crime they are tortured with all the agonies which can arise from the struggle between the idea of the indispensableness of religious duty on one side, and compassion, gratitude, reverence for the age, and love for the humanity and virtue of the person whom they are going to destroy on the other. The representation of this exhibits one of the most interesting and perhaps the most instructive spectacle that was ever introduced upon any theater. The sense of duty, however, it 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 Syed and Palmyra, 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 pretense of it, which is made a cover to some of the worst human passions. As a person may act wrong 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 anything that approaches to complete approbation. A bigoted Roman Catholic who, during the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, has been so overcome by compassion is to save some unhappy Protestants whom he thought it his duty to destroy would not seem to be entitled to that high applause which we should have bestowed upon him had he exerted the same generosity with complete self-approbation. We might be pleased with the humanity of his temper, but we should still regard him with the 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 go so far to forget his literal interpretation of our Savior'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 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. End of section 20. Section 21 of the theory of moral sentiments. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Ariadna Solovyova. Part 4 of the effect of utility upon the sentiment of approbation consisting of one section. Chapter 1 of the beauty which the appearance of utility bestows upon all 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 everybody who has considered with any attention what constitutes the nature of beauty. The convenience of a house gives pleasure to the spectator as well as its regularity and he is as much heard when he observes the contrary defect as when he sees the corresponding windows 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 very obvious that nobody has overlooked 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 singular 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 perpetually suggesting to him the pleasure or convenience 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 agreeable 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 contrived accommodation. A similar account is given by the appearance of inconvenience 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 intended and that the exact adjustment of the means for attaining any convenience or pleasure should frequently be more regarded than that very convenience or pleasure in the attainment of which their whole merit would seem to consist has not so far as I know been get taken notice of by anybody 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 continuing their 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 convenience in leaving the floor free and disengaged. To attain this convenience 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 labor is over. What he wanted therefore it seems was not so much this convenience as that arrangement of things which promotes it. Yet it is this convenience which ultimately recommends 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 a clock it is and to hinder us from breaking any engagement or suffering any other inconvenience by our ignorance in that particular 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 attainment of this piece of knowledge as the perfection of the machine which serves 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 contrive 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 juice 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 certainly 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 motif 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 accommodation 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 inconvenience. 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 happiness and tranquility of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy like the life of some superior rank of beings and in order to arrive at it he devotes himself forever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To obtain the conveniences 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 that 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 labors day and night to acquire talents superior to all his competitors. He endeavors next to bring these 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 tranquility that is at all times in his power and which if in the extremity 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 drags 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 ungratitude 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 tranquility 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 commodities 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 conveniences strikes everybody they do not require that their master 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're fitted to afford him but the curiosity of a toothpick of a near picker of a machine for cutting the nails or 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 conveniences 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 other 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 admiration the condition of the rich and the great we shall find that it is not so much upon account of the superior ease or pleasure which they're supposed to enjoy as of the numberless artificial and elegant contrivances for promoting this ease or pleasure he does not even imagine that they're 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're no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they had formally engaged him in his heart he curses ambition and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth pleasures which are fled forever 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 reduced either by spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation and to consider what it is that is really wanting to his happiness power and riches appear then to be what they are enormous and opera rose machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniences to the body consisting of springs the most nice and delicate which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention in which in spite of all our care already every moment to burst into pieces and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor they are immense fabrics which it requires the labor of a life to raise which threaten every moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them in which while they stand though they may save him from some smaller inconveniences can protect him from none of the severe inclinancies 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 planetary 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 humor 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 everything around us we are then charmed with the beauty of that accommodation which reigns in the palaces and economy of the great and admire how everything is adapted to promote 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 economy by means of which it is produced the pleasures of wealth and greatness when considered in this complex view strike the imagination 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 common wealth and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts which ennoble and embellish human life which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence and the great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth the earth by these labors of mankind has been obliged to redouble her natural fertility and to maintain a greater multitude of inhabitants it is to no purpose that the proud and unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields and without a thought for the wants of his brethren an 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 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 economy of the greatness all of whom thus derived from his luxury and caprice that share of the necessaries of life which they wouldn't then have expected from his humanity or his justice the produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining the rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable they consume little more than the poor and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity though they mean only their own conveniency though the sole end which they propose from the labors of the thousands whom they employ be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements they are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life which would have been made had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants and thus without intending it without knowing it advance the interest of the society and afford means to the multiplication of the species when providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seem to have been left out in the partition these last two enjoy their share of all that it produces in what constitutes the real happiness of human life they are no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them in ease of body and peace of mind all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who sons himself by the side of the highway possesses that security which kings are fighting for the same principle the same love of system the same regard to the beauty of order of art and contrivance frequently serves to recommend those institutions which tend to promote the public welfare when a patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any part of the public police his conduct does not always arise from pure sympathy with the happiness of those who are to reap the benefit of it it is not commonly from a fellow feeling with carriers and wagoners that a public spirited man encourages the mending of high roads when the legislature establishes premiums and other encouragements to advance the linen or woolen manufacturers its conduct seldom proceeds from pure sympathy with the bearer or cheaper fine cloth and much less from that with the manufacturer or merchant the perfection of police the extension of trade and manufacturers 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 take pleasure in beholding the perfection of so beautiful and grand a system and we are uneasy till we remove any obstruction that can in the least disturb or encumber the regularity of its motions all constitutions of government however are valued only in proportion as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them this is their sole use and end from a certain spirit of system however from a certain love of art and contrivance we sometimes seem to value the means more than the end and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fellow creatures rather from a view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system than for many 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 muskvy 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're seldom hungry that they're seldom cold and that they're 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 convenience and arrangement of the different apartments in their palaces you must explain to him the propriety of their acupages and point out to him the number the order in the different offices of all their attendance if anything is capable of making impression upon him this will yet all these things tend only to keep off the sun and the rain to 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're better lodged that they're better clothed that they're better fed these considerations will commonly make no great impression you will be more likely to persuade if you describe the great system of public police which procures these advantages if you explain the connections and dependencies of its several parts their mutual subordination to one another and their general subservience 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 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 the moment feel some desire to remove those obstructions and to put into motion so beautiful and so orderly a machine nothing tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of politics of the several systems of civil government their advantages and disadvantages of the constitution of our own country its situation and interest with regard to foreign nations its commerce its defense its disadvantages it labors 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 dispositions if just and reasonable and practicable are of all the works of speculation the most useful even the weakest and the worst of them are not altogether without their utility they serve at least to animate the public passions of men and rouse them to seek out the means of promoting the happiness of the society end of section 21 recorded by Ariadna Solovyova section 22 of the theory of moral sentiments this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Ariadna Solovyova part four of the effect of utility upon the sentiment of approbation consisting of one section chapter two of the beauty which the appearance of utility bestows upon the characters and actions of men and how far the perception of this beauty may be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation the characters of men as well as the contrivances of art or the institutions of civil government may be fitted either to promote or to disturb the happiness both of the individual and of the society the prudent, the equitable, the active, resolute and sober character promises prosperity and satisfaction both to the person himself and to everyone connected with him the rash, the insolent, the slothful, effeminate and voluptuous on the contrary forbodes ruin to the individual and misfortune to all who have anything to do with him the first turn of mind has at least all the beauty which can belong to the most perfect machine that was ever invented for promoting the most agreeable purpose and the second all the deformity of the most awkward and clumsy contrivance what institution of government could tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of wisdom and virtue all government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these whatever beauty therefore can belong to civil government upon account of its utility must in a far superior degree belong to these on the contrary what civil policy can be so ruinous and destructive as the vices of men the fatal effects of bad government arise from nothing but that it does not sufficiently guard against the mischiefs which human wickedness gives occasion to this beauty and deformity which characters appear to derive from their usefulness or inconvenience 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 isn't 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 own 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 convenience both of the individual and of the society that after the strictest examination it will be found I believe that this is universally the case but still I affirm that it is not the view of this utility or hurtfulness which is either the first or principal source of our approbation and disapprobation these sentiments are no doubt enhanced and enlivened by the perception of the beauty or deformity which results from this utility or hurtfulness but still I say they are 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 and secondly it will be found upon examination that the usefulness of any disposition of mind is seldom the first ground of our approbation and that the sentiment of approbation always involves in it a sense of propriety quite distinct from the perception of utility we may observe this with regard to all the qualities which are approved of as virtuous both those which according to this system are originally valued as useful to ourselves as well as those which are esteemed on account of their usefulness to others the qualities most useful to ourselves are first of all superior reason and understanding by which we are capable of discerning the remote consequences of all our actions and of foreseeing the advantage or detriment which is likely to result from them and secondly self-command by which we are unable 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 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 obstrucer 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 approaches of those who having themselves no taste for such sublime discoveries endeavored 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 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 affections exactly correspond with his own he cannot fail to approve of our behavior 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 imminent esteem with which all men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the practice of frugality industry and application though directed to no other purpose than the acquisition of fortune the resolute firmness of the person who acts in this manner and in order to obtain a great though remote advantage not only gives up all present pleasures but endures the greatest labor both of mind and body necessarily commands our approbation that view of his interest and happiness which appears to regulate his conduct exactly tallies with the idea which we naturally form of it there is the most perfect correspondence between his sentiments and our own and at the same time from our experience of the common weakness of human nature it is a correspondence which we could not reasonably have expected we not only approve therefore but in some measure admire his conduct and think it worthy of a considerable degree of applause it is the consciousness of this merited approbation and esteem which is alone capable of supporting the agent in this tenor of conduct the pleasure which we are to enjoy 10 years hence interests us so little in comparison with that which we may enjoy today the passion which the first excites is naturally so weak in comparison with that violent emotion which the second is apt to give occasion to that the one could never be any balance to the other unless it was supported by the sense of propriety by the consciousness that we merited the esteem and approbation of everybody by acting in the one way and that we became the proper objects of their contempt and derision by behaving in the other humanity justice generosity and public spirit are the qualities most useful to others wherein consists the propriety of humanity and justice has been explained upon a former occasion where it was shown how much our esteem and approbation of these qualities depended upon the concord between the affections of the agent and those of the spectators the propriety of generosity and public spirit is founded upon the same principle with that of justice generosity is different from humanity those two qualities which at first sight seem so nearly allied do not always belong to the same person humanity is the virtue of a woman generosity of a man the fair sex who have commonly much more tenderness than ours have seldom so much generosity that women rarely make considerable donations is an observation of the civil law humanity consists merely in the exquisite fellow feeling which the spectator entertains with the sentiments of the person's principally concerned so as to grieve for their sufferings to resent their injuries and to rejoice at their good fortune the most humane actions require no self-denial no self-command no great exertion of the sense of propriety they consist only in doing what this exquisite sympathy would of its own accord prompt us to do but it is otherwise with generosity we never are generous except when in some respect we prefer some other person to ourselves and sacrifice some great and important interest of our own to an equal interest of a friend or of a superior the man who gives up his pretensions to an office that was the great object of his ambition because he imagines that the services of another are better entitled to it the man who exposes his life to defend that of his friend which he judges to be of more importance neither of them act from humanity or because they feel more exquisitely what concerns that other person than what concerns themselves they both consider those opposite interests not in the light in which they naturally appear to themselves but in that in which they appear to others to every bystander the success or preservation of this other person may justly be more interesting than their own but it cannot be so to themselves when to the interest of this other person therefore they sacrifice their own they accommodate themselves to the sentiments of the spectator and by an effort of magnanimity act according to those views of things which they feel must naturally occur to any third person the soldier who throws away his life in order to defend that of his officer would perhaps be but little affected by the death of that officer if it should happen without any fault of his own and a very small disaster which had befallen himself might excite a much more lively sorrow but when he endeavors to act so as to deserve applause and to make the impartial spectator enter into the principles of his conduct he feels that to everybody but himself his own life is a trifle compared with that of his officer in that when he sacrifices them on to the other he acts quite properly and agreeably to what would be the natural apprehensions of every impartial bystander it is the same case with the greater exertions of public spirit when a young officer exposes his life to acquire some inconsiderable addition to the dominions of his sovereign it is not because the acquisition of the new territory is to himself an object more desirable than the preservation of his own life to him his own life is of infinitely more value than the conquest of a whole kingdom for the state which he serves but when he compares those two objects with one another he does not view them in the light in which they naturally appear to himself but in that in which they appear to the nation he fights for to them the success of the war is of the highest importance the life of a private person of scarce any consequence when he puts himself in their situation he immediately feels that he cannot be too prodigal of his blood if by shedding it he can promote so valuable a purpose in thus thwarting from a sense of duty and propriety the strongest of 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 Menorca who yet had it been in his power to defend that fortress would have sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than through his fault have let it fall into the hands of the enemy when the first Brutus led forth his own sons to a capital punishment because they had conspired against the rising liberty of Rome he sacrificed what if he had consulted his own breast only would appear to be the stronger to the weaker affection Brutus ought naturally to have felt much more for the death of his own sons than for all that probably Rome could have suffered from the want of so great an example but he viewed them not with the eyes of a father but with those of a Roman citizen he entered so thoroughly into the sentiments of this last character that he paid no regard to that tie by which he himself was connected with them and to a Roman citizen the sons even of Brutus seemed contemptible when put into the balance with the smallest interest of Rome in these and in all other cases of this kind our admiration is not so much founded upon the utility as upon the unexpected and on that account the great the noble and exalted propriety of such actions this utility when we come to view it bestows upon them undoubtedly a new beauty and upon that account still further recommends them to our approbation this beauty however is chiefly perceived by men of reflection and speculation and 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 not withstanding 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 contact and a deformity in the opposite behavior he might view his own temper and character with that sort of satisfaction with which we consider a well-contrived machine in the one case or with that sort of distaste and dissatisfaction with which we regard a very awkward and clumsy contrivance in the other as these perceptions however are merely a matter of taste and have all the feebleness and delicacy of that species of perceptions upon the justness of which what is properly called taste is founded they probably would not be much attended to by one in this 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 connection with society which they would have in consequence of that connection he would not be cast down within word shame at the thought of this deformity nor would he be elevated with secret triumph of mind from the consciousness of the contrary beauty he would not exelt 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-appluse or the shame of self-condemnation end of section 22 section 23 of The Theory of Moral Sentiments this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Leon Meyer The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith part 5 of The Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments of Moral Approbation and Disapprobation consisting of one section chapter 1 of The Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our notions of beauty and deformity there are other principles besides those already enumerated which have a considerable influence upon the moral sentiments of mankind and are the chief causes of the many irregular and discordant opinions which prevail in different ages and nations concerning what is blamable or praiseworthy these principles are custom and fashion principles which extend their dominion over our judgments concerning beauty of every kind when two objects have frequently been seen together the imagination acquires a habit of passing easily from the one to the other if the first appear we lay our account that the second is to follow of their own accord they put us in mind of one another and the attention glides easily along them though independent of custom there should be no real beauty in their union yet when custom has thus connected them together we feel an impropriety in their separation the one we think is awkward when it appears without its usual companion we miss something which we expected to find and the habitual arrangement of our ideas is disturbed by the disappointment a suit of clothes for example seems to want something if they are without the most insignificant ornament which usually accompanies them and we find a meanness or awkwardness in the absence even of a haunch button when there is any natural propriety in the union custom increases our sense of it and makes a different arrangement appear still more disagreeable than it would otherwise seem to be those who have been accustomed to see things in a good taste are more disgusted by whatever is clumsy or awkward where the conjunction is improper custom either diminishes or takes away altogether our sense of the impropriety those who have been accustomed to slovenly disorder lose all sense of neatness or elegance the modes of furniture or dress which seem ridiculous to strangers give no offense to the people who are used to them fashion is different from custom or rather is a particular species of it that is not the fashion which everybody 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 appeared to possess before and being now used only by the inferior ranks of people seems to have something of their meanness and 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 today which was admired five years ago we are experimentally convinced that it owed its vogue chiefly or entirely to custom and fashion clothes and furniture are not made of very durable materials a well-fancyed coat is done in a 12 month and cannot continue longer to propagate as the fashion that form according to which it was made the modes of furniture change less rapidly than those of dress because furniture is commonly more durable in five or six years however it generally undergoes an entire revolution and every man in his own time sees the fashion in this respect change many different ways the productions of the other arts are much more lasting and when happily imagined may continue to propagate the fashion of their make for a much longer time a well-contrived building may endure many centuries a beautiful air may be delivered down by a sort of tradition through many success of 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 within partiality 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 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 however may convince them of the contrary and satisfy them that the influence of custom and fashion over dress and furniture is not more absolute than over architecture poetry and music can any reason for example be assigned why the Doric capital should be appropriated to a pillar whose height is equal to eight diameters the Ionic volute to one of nine and the Corinthian foliage to one of ten the propriety of each of these appropriations can be founded upon nothing but habit and custom the I having been used to see a particular proportion connected with a particular ornament would be offended if they were not joined together each of the five orders has its peculiar ornaments which cannot be changed for any other without giving offense to all those who know anything of the rules of architecture according to some architects indeed such as 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 500 others which antecedent to established custom would have fitted them equally well when custom however has established particular rules of building provided they are not absolutely unreasonable it is absurd to think of altering them for others which are only equally good or even for others which in point of elegance and beauty have naturally some little advantage over them a man would be ridiculous who should appear in public with a suit of clothes quite different from those which are commonly worn though the new dress should in itself be ever so graceful or convenient and there seems to be an absurdity of the same kind in ornamenting a house after a quite different manner from that which custom and fashion have prescribed though the new ornaments should in themselves be somewhat superior to the common ones according to the ancient rhetoricians a certain measure of 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 in propriety 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 Henriade of Voltaire are nearly in the same verse with let me have your advice and await the affair the burlesque verse in French on the contrary is pretty much the same with the heroic verse of 10 syllables in English custom has made the one nation associate the ideas of gravity sublimity and seriousness to that measure which the other has connected with whatever is gay flippant and ludicrous nothing would appear more absurd in English than a tragedy written in the alexandrine verses of the French or in French then a work of the same kind in verses of 10 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 so ever 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 practices the taste of the Italians and music and architecture has within these 50 years undergone a considerable change from imitating the peculiarities of some eminent masters in each of those arts Seneca is accused by Quintillion of having corrupted the taste of the Romans and of having introduced a frivolous prettiness in the room of majestic reason and masculine eloquence Salis Tintasidis 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 labored 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 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 practiced before into all works that are written in rhyme the one in long verses the other in short the quaintness of Butler has given place to the plainness of Swift the rambling freedom of Dryden and the correct but often tedious and prosaic languor of Addison are no longer the objects of imitation but all long verses are now written after the manner of the nervous precision of Mr. Pope neither is it only over the productions of the arts that custom and fashion exert their dominion they influence our judgments in the same manner with regard to the beauty of natural objects what various and opposite forms are deemed beautiful in different species of things the proportions which are admired in one animal are altogether different from those which are esteemed in another every class of things has its own peculiar confirmation which is approved of and has a beauty of its own distinct from that of every other species it is upon this account that a learned Jesuit Father Bufia has determined that the beauty of every object consists in that form and color 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 the mall 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 the mall the most singular and odd will be those which are most wide of it and though very few will copy it exactly yet the most accurate delineations will bear a greater resemblance to the most careless than the careless ones will bear to one another in the same manner in each species of creatures what is most beautiful bears the strongest characters of the general fabric of the species and has the strongest resemblance to the greater part of the individuals with which it is classed monsters on the contrary or what is perfectly deformed are always most singular and odd and have the least resemblance to the generality of that species to which they belong and thus the beauty of each species though in one sense the rarest of all things because few individuals hit this middle form exactly yet and 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 nowhere in the middle and most usual form consists the nicest judgment concerning the beauty of the human species will not help us to judge 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 confirmation 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 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 around the heads of their children and thus squeeze them while the bones are tender and gristly into a form that is almost perfectly square Europeans are astonished at the absurd barbarity of this practice to which some missionaries have imputed the singular stupidity of those nations among whom it prevails but when they condemn those savages they do not reflect that the ladies in Europe had till within these very few years been endeavoring for near a century past to squeeze the beautiful roundness of their natural shape into a square form of the same kind and that notwithstanding the many distortions and diseases which this practice was known to occasion custom had rendered it agreeable among some of the most civilized nations which perhaps the world 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 colors are more agreeable than others and give more delight to the eye the first time it ever beholds them a smooth surface is more agreeable than a rough one variety is more pleasing than a tedious undiversified uniformity connected variety in which each new appearance seems to be introduced by what went before it and in which all the adjoining parts seem to have some natural relation to one another is more agreeable than a disjointed and disorderly assemblage of unconnected objects but though I cannot admit that custom is the sole principle of beauty yet I can so far allow the truth of this ingenious system as to grant that there is scarce any one external form so beautiful as to please if quite contrary to custom and unlike whatever we have been used to in that particular species of things or so deformed as not to be agreeable if custom uniformly supports it and habituates us to see it in every single individual of the kind end of section 23