Section 15 of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. When every man, even of middling understanding, so readily despises unmerited applause, how it comes to pass that unmerited reproach should often be capable of mortifying so severely, men of the soundest and best judgment may, perhaps, deserve some consideration. Pain, I have already had occasion to observe, is, in almost all cases, a more pungent sensation than the opposite and correspondent pleasure. The one almost always depresses us much more below the ordinary, or what may be called the natural state of our happiness, than the other ever raises us above it. A man of sensibility is apt to be more humiliated by just censure than he is ever elevated by just applause. Unmerited applause a wise man rejects with contempt upon all occasions, but he often feels very severely the injustice of unmerited censure. By suffering himself to be applauded for what he has not performed, by assuming a merit which does not belong to him, he feels that he is guilty of a mean falsehood, and deserves not the admiration but the contempt of those very persons who, by mistake, had been led to admire him. It may, perhaps, give him some well-founded pleasure to find that he has been, by many people, thought capable of performing what he did not perform. But though he may be obliged to his friends for their good opinion, he would think himself guilty of the greatest baseness if he did not immediately undeceive them. It gives him little pleasure to look upon himself in the light in which other people actually look upon him, when he is conscious that, if they knew the truth, they would look upon him in a very different light. A weak man, however, is often much delighted with viewing himself in this false and delusive light. He assumes the merit of every laudable action that is ascribed to him, and pretends to that of many which nobody ever thought of ascribing to him. He pretends to have done what he never did, to have written what another wrote, to have invented what another discovered, and has led into all the miserable vices of plagiarism and common lying. But though no man of middling good sense can derive much pleasure from the imputation of a laudable action which he never performed, yet a wise man may suffer great pain from the serious imputation of a crime which he never committed. Nature in this case has rendered the pain not only more pungent than the opposite and correspondent pleasure, but she has rendered it so in a much greater than the ordinary degree. A denial ridds the man at once of the foolish and ridiculous pleasure, but it will not always rid him of the pain. When he refuses the merit which is ascribed to him, nobody doubts his veracity. It may be doubted when he denies the crime which he is accused of. He is at once enraged at the falsehood of the imputation, and mortified to find that any credit should be given to it. He feels that his character is not sufficient to protect him.  He knows perfectly that he has not been guilty. He knows perfectly what he has done, but perhaps scarce any man can know perfectly what he himself is capable of doing. What the peculiar constitution of his own mind may or may not admit of is perhaps more or less a matter of doubt to every man. The trust and good opinion of his friends and neighbors tends more than anything to relieve him from this most disagreeable doubt. Their distrust and unfavorable opinion to increase it. He may think himself very confident that their unfavorable judgment is wrong, but this confidence can seldom be so great as to hinder that judgment from making some impression upon him. And the greater his sensibility, the greater his delicacy, the greater his worth, in short, this impression is likely to be the greater. The agreement or disagreement both of the sentiments and judgments of other people with our own is in all cases it must be observed of more or less importance to us, exactly in proportion as we ourselves are more or less uncertain about the propriety of our own sentiments, about the accuracy of our own judgments. A man of sensibility may sometimes feel great uneasiness, lest he should have yielded too much even to what may be called an honorable passion, to his just indignation perhaps, at the injury which may have been done either to himself or to his friend. He is anxiously afraid, lest, meaning only to act with spirit and to do justice, he may, from the two great vehemence of his emotion, have done a real injury to some other person, who, though not innocent, may not have been altogether so guilty as he at first apprehended. The opinion of other people becomes, in this case, of the utmost importance to him. Their approbation is the most healing balsam, their disapprobation, the bitterest and most tormenting poison that can be poured into his uneasy mind. When he is perfectly satisfied with every part of his own conduct, the judgment of other people is often of less importance to him. There are some very noble and beautiful arts in which the degree of excellence can be determined only by a certain nicety of taste, of which the decisions, however, appear always, in some measure, uncertain. There are others in which the success admits either of clear demonstration or very satisfactory proof. Among the candidates for excellence in those different arts, the anxiety about the public opinion is always much greater in the former than in the latter. The beauty of poetry is a matter of such nicety that a young beginner can scarce ever be certain that he has attained it. Nothing delights him so much, therefore, as the favorable judgments of his friends and of the public, and nothing mortifies him so severely as the contrary. The one establishes, the other shakes, the good opinion which he is anxious to entertain concerning his own performances. Experience and success may in time give him a little more confidence in his own judgment. He is at all times, however, liable to be most severely mortified by the unfavorable judgments of the public. One was so disgusted by the indifferent success of his fadre, the finest tragedy, perhaps, that is extant in any language, that though in the vigor of his life and at the height of his abilities he resolved to write no more for this stage. That great poet used frequently to tell his son that the most paltry and impertinent criticism had always given him more pain than the highest and just as eulogy had ever given him pleasure. The extreme sensibility of Voltaire to the slightest censure of the same kind is well known to everybody. The Dunsead of Mr. Pope is an everlasting monument of how much the most correct as well as the most elegant and harmonious of all the English poets had been hurt by the criticisms of the lowest and most contemptible authors. Gray, who joins to the sublimity of Milton the elegance and harmony of Pope, and to whom nothing is wanting to render him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have written a little more, is said to have been so much hurt by a foolish and impertinent parody of two of his finest odes that he never afterwards attempted any considerable work. Those men of letters who value themselves upon what is called fine writing and prose approach somewhat to the sensibility of poets. Mathematicians on the contrary, who may have the most perfect assurance both of the truth and of the importance of their discoveries, are frequently very indifferent about the reception which they may meet with from the public. The two greatest mathematicians that I have ever had the honor to be known to, and I believe the two greatest that have lived in my time, Dr. Robert Simpson of Glasgow and Dr. Matthew Stewart of Edinburgh, never seem to feel even the slightest uneasiness from the neglect with which the ignorance of the public received some of their most valuable works. The great work of Sir Isaac Newton, his mathematical principles of natural philosophy, I have been told, was for several years neglected by the public. The tranquility of that great man, it is probable, never suffered upon that account the interruption of a single quarter of an hour. Natural philosophers, in their independency upon the public opinion, approach nearly to mathematicians, and in their judgments concerning the merit of their own discoveries and observations enjoy some degree of the same security and tranquility. The morals of those different classes of men of letters are perhaps sometimes somewhat affected by this very great difference in their situation with regard to the public. Mathematicians and natural philosophers, from their independency upon the public opinion, have little temptation to form themselves into factions and cabals, either for the support of their own reputation or for the depression of that of their rivals. They are almost always men of the most amiable simplicity of manners, who live in good harmony with one another, are the friends of one another's reputation, enter into no intrigue in order to secure the public applause, but are pleased when their works are approved of without being either much vexed or very angry when they are neglected. It is not always the same case with poets, or with those who value themselves upon what is called fine writing. They are very apt to divide themselves into a sort of literary faction, each cabal being often avowedly and almost always secretly the mortal enemy of the reputation of every other, and employing all the mean arts of intrigue and solicitation to preoccupy the public opinion in favor of the works of its own members and against those of its enemies and rivals. In France, Dapriot and Racine did not think it below them to set themselves at the head of a literary cabal, in order to depress the reputation first of Quinneau and Perot and afterwards of Fontanel and Le Morte, and even Addison did not think it unworthy of his gentle and modest character to set himself at the head of a little cabal of the same kind in order to keep down the rising reputation of Mr. Pope. Mr. Fontanel, in writing the lives and characters of the members of the Academy of Sciences, a society of mathematicians and natural philosophers, has frequent opportunities of celebrating the amiable simplicity of their manners, a quality which, he observes, was so universal among them as to be characteristic, rather of that whole class of men of letters than of any individual, Mr. de Lambert, in writing the lives and characters of the members of the French Academy, a society of poets and fine writers, or of those who are supposed to be such, seems not to have had such frequent opportunities of making any remark of this kind, and nowhere pretends to represent this amiable quality as characteristic of that class of men of letters whom he celebrates. Our uncertainty concerning our own merit, and our anxiety to think favorably of it, should together naturally enough make us desirous to know the opinion of other people concerning it, to be more than ordinarily elevated when that opinion is favorable, and to be more than ordinarily mortified when it is otherwise, but they should not make us desirous either of obtaining the favorable or of avoiding the unfavorable opinion by intrigue and cabal. When a man has bribed all the judges the most unanimous decision of the court, though it may gain him his lawsuit, cannot give him any assurance that he was in the right, and had he carried on his lawsuit merely to satisfy himself that he was in the right, he never would have bribed the judges. But though he wished to find himself in the right, he wished likewise to gain his lawsuit, and therefore he bribed the judges. If praise were of no consequence to us but is a proof of our own praiseworthiness, we should never endeavor to obtain it by unfair means. But though to wise men it is at least in doubtful cases of principal consequence upon this account, it is likewise of some consequence upon its own account, and therefore we cannot indeed upon such occasions call them wise men, but men very much above the common level have sometimes attempted both to obtain praise and to avoid blame by very unfair means. Praise and blame express what actually are praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, what naturally ought to be the sentiments of other people with regard to our character and conduct. The love of praise is the desire of obtaining the favorable sentiments of our brethren. The love of praiseworthiness is the desire of rendering ourselves the proper objects of those sentiments. So far those two principles resemble and are akin to one another. The like affinity and resemblance take place between the dread of blame and that of blameworthiness. The man who desires to do or who actually does a praiseworthy action may likewise desire the praise which is due to it and sometimes perhaps more than is due to it. The two principles are in this case blended together. How far his conduct may have been influenced by the one and how far by the other may frequently be unknown even to himself. It must almost always be so to other people. They who are disposed to lessen the merit of his conduct impute it chiefly or altogether to the mere love of praise or to what they call mere vanity. They who are disposed to think more favorably of it impute it chiefly or altogether to the love of praiseworthiness, to the love of what is really honorable and noble in human conduct, to the desire not merely of obtaining but of deserving the approbation and applause of his brethren. The imagination of the spectator throws it either the one color or the other according either to his habits or thinking or to the favor or dislike which he may bear to the person whose conduct he is considering. Some splinotic philosophers in judging of human nature have done as peevish individuals are apt to do in judging of the conduct of one another and have imputed to the love of praise or to what they call vanity every action which ought to be ascribed to that of praiseworthiness. I shall hereafter have occasion to give an account of some of their systems and shall not at present stop to examine them. Very few men can be satisfied with their own private consciousness that they have attained those qualities or performed those actions which they admire and think praiseworthy in other people unless it is at the same time generally acknowledged that they possessed the one or have performed the other or in other words unless they have actually obtained that praise which they think do both to the one and to the other. In this respect however men differ considerably from one another. Some may seem indifferent about the praise when in their own minds they are perfectly satisfied that they have attained the praiseworthiness. Others appear much less anxious about the praiseworthiness than about the praise. No man can be completely or even tolerably satisfied with having avoided everything blameworthy in his conduct unless he is likewise avoided the blame or the reproach. A wise man may frequently neglect praise even when he has best deserved it but in all matters of serious consequence he will most carefully endeavor so to regulate his conduct as to avoid not only blameworthiness but as much as possible every probable imputation of blame. He will never indeed avoid blame by doing anything which he judges blameworthy by omitting any part of his duty or by neglecting any opportunity of doing anything which he judges to be really and greatly praiseworthy. But with these modifications he will most anxiously and carefully avoid it to show much anxiety about praise even for praiseworthy actions seldom a mark of great wisdom but generally of some degree of weakness. But in being anxious to avoid the shadow of blame or reproach there may be no weakness but frequently the most praiseworthy prudence. Many people, says Cicero, despise glory who are yet most severely mortified by unjust reproach and that most inconsistently. This inconsistency, however, seems to be founded in the unalterable principles of human nature. The all-wise author of nature has, in this manner, taught man to respect the sentiments and judgments of his brethren, to be more or less pleased when they approve of his conduct, and to be more or less hurt when they disapprove of it. He has made man, if I may say so, the immediate judge of mankind, and has, in this respect, as in many others, created him after his own image, and appointed him his vice-jeerrant upon earth to superintend the behavior of his brethren. They are taught by nature to acknowledge that power and jurisdiction which has thus been conferred upon him, to be more or less humbled and mortified when they have incurred his censure, and to be more or less elated when they have obtained his applause. But though man has, in this manner, been rendered the immediate judge of mankind, he has been rendered so only in the first instance, and in the appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tribunal, to the tribunal of their own consciousness, to that of the supposed impartial and well-informed spectator, to that of the man within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of their conduct. The jurisdictions of those two tribunals are founded upon principles which, though in some respects resembling an akin, or however, in reality different and distinct. The jurisdiction of the man without is founded altogether in the desire of actual praise, and in the aversion to actual blame. The jurisdiction of the man within is founded altogether in the desire of praiseworthiness, and in the aversion to blame worthiness, in the desire of possessing those qualities and performing those actions which we love and admire in other people, and in the dread of possessing those qualities and performing those actions which we hate and despise in other people. If the man without should applaud us, either for actions which we have not performed, or for motives which had no influence upon us, the man within can immediately humble that pride and elevation of mind which such groundless acclamations might otherwise occasion by telling us that as we know that we do not deserve them we render ourselves despicable by accepting them. If, on the contrary, the man without should reproach us, either for actions which we never performed, or for motives which had no influence upon those which we may have performed, the man within may immediately correct this false judgment and assure us that we are by no means the proper objects of that censure which has been so unjustly bestowed upon us. But in this and in some other cases the man within seems sometimes, as it were, astonished and confounded by the vehemence and clamor of the man without. The violence and loudness with which blame is sometimes poured out upon us seems to stupefy and benumb our natural sense of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. And the judgments of the man within, though not perhaps absolutely altered or perverted, are, however, so much shaken in the steadiness and firmness of their decision that their natural effect in securing the tranquility of the mind is frequently in a great measure destroyed. We scarce dare to absolve ourselves when all our brethren appear loudly to condemn us. The supposed impartial spectator of our conduct seems to give his opinion in our favor with fear and hesitation. When that of all the real spectators, when that of all those with whose eyes and from whose station he endeavors to consider it, is unanimously and violently against us. In such cases this demigod within the breast appears like the demigods of the poets, though partly of immortal, yet partly too of mortal extraction. When his judgments are steadily and firmly directed by the sense of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, he seems to act suitably to his divine extraction. But when he suffers himself to be astonished and confounded by the judgments of ignorant and weak man, he discovers his connection with mortality and appears to act suitably rather to the human than to the divine part of his origin. In such cases the only effectual consolation of humble and afflicted man lies in an appeal to a still higher tribunal, to that of the all-seeing judge of the world, whose eye can never be deceived and whose judgments can never be perverted. Affirm confidence in the unhearing rectitude of this great tribunal, before which his innocence is in due time to be declared, and his virtue to be finally rewarded, can alone support him under the weakness and despondency of his own mind, under the perturbation and astonishment of the man within the breast whom nature has set up as in this life the great guardian not only of his innocence, but of his tranquility. Our happiness in this life is thus upon many occasions dependent upon the humble hope and expectation of a life to come, a hope and expectation deeply rooted in human nature, which can alone support its lofty ideas of its own dignity, can alone illumine the dreary prospect of its continually approaching mortality and maintain its cheerfulness under all the heaviest calamities to which from the disorders of this life it may sometimes be exposed, that there is a world to come where exact justice will be done to every man, where every man will be ranked with those who, in the moral and intellectual qualities, are really his equals, where the owner of those humble talents and virtues which, from being depressed by fortune, had in this life no opportunity of displaying themselves, which were unknown not only to the public, but which he himself could scarce be sure that he possessed, and for which even the man within the breast could scarce venture to afford him any distinct and clear testimony, where that modest, silent and unknown merit will be placed upon a level and sometimes above those who, in this world, had enjoyed the highest reputation and who, from the advantage of their situation, had been enabled to perform the most splendid and dazzling actions, as a doctrine, in every respect, so venerable, so comfortable to the weakness, so flattering to the grandeur of human nature that the virtuous man who has the misfortune to doubt of it cannot possibly avoid wishing most earnestly and anxiously to believe it. It could never have been exposed to the derision of the scoffer, had not the distributions of rewards and punishments, which some of its most zealous assertors have taught us was to be made in that world to become, been too frequently in direct opposition to all our moral sentiments. That the assiduous courtier is often more favored than the faithful and active servant, that attendance and adulation are often shorter insurer roads to preferment than merit or service, and that a campaign at Versailles or St. James is often worth two, either in Germany or Flanders, is a complaint which we have all heard from many a venerable but discontented old officer. But what is considered as the greatest approach, even to the weakness of earthly sovereigns, has been ascribed as an act of justice to divine perfection, and the duties of devotion, the public and private worship of the deity, have been represented even by men of virtue and abilities as the sole virtues which can either entitle to reward or exempt from punishment in the life to come. They were the virtues perhaps most suitable to their station, and in which they themselves chiefly excelled, and we are all naturally disposed to overrate the excellencies of our own characters. In the discourse which the eloquent and philosophical Masaline pronounced on giving his benediction to the standards of the regiment at Cantonette, there is the following address to the officers. What is most deplorable in your situation, gentlemen, is that in a life hard and painful in which the services and the duties sometimes go beyond the rigor and severity of the most austere cloisters, you suffer always in vain for the life to come, and frequently even for this life. Alas, the solitary monk in his cell, obliged to mortify the flesh and to subject it to the spirit, is supported by the hope of an assured recompense, and by the secret unction of that grace which softens the yoke of the Lord.  Can you dare to solicit him for any recompense? And in all the exertions that you have made, in all the violences that you have done to yourselves, what is there that he ought to place to your own account? The best days of your life, however, have been sacrificed to your profession, and ten years' service has more worn out your body than would perhaps have done a whole life of repentance and mortification. Alas, my brother, one single day of those sufferings consecrated by the Lord would perhaps have obtained you in eternal happiness, one single action, painful to nature, and offered up to him, would perhaps have secured to you the inheritance of the saints. And you have done all this, and in vain, for this world. To compare, in this manner, the feudal mortifications of a monastery to the ennobling hardships and hazards of war, to suppose that one day or one hour employed in the former should, in the eye of the great judge of the world, have more merit than a whole life spent honorably in the latter, is surely contrary to all our moral sentiments, to all the principles by which nature has taught us to regulate our contempt or admiration. It is this spirit, however, which, while it has reserved the celestial regions for monks and friars, or for those whose conduct and conversation resembled those of monks and friars, has condemned to the infernal all the heroes, all the statesmen and lawgivers, all the poets and philosophers of former ages, all those who have invented, improved, or excelled in the arts, which contribute to the subsistence, to the conveniency, or to the ornament of human life. All the great protectors, instructors, and benefactors of mankind, all those to whom our natural sense of praiseworthiness forces us to ascribe the highest merit and most exalted virtue. Can we wonder that so strange an application of this most respectable doctrine should sometimes have exposed it to contempt and derision, with those at least who had themselves, perhaps, no great taste or turn for the devout and contemplative virtues? End of section 15. Section 16 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 Soloviova. The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith. Part three of the foundation of our judgments concerning our own sentiments and conduct and of the sense of duty, consisting of one section. Chapter three of the Influences and Authority of Conscience. But though the approbation of his own conscience can scarce upon some extraordinary occasions, content the weakness of man. Though the testimony of the supposed impartial spectator of the great inmate of the breast cannot always alone support him, yet the influence and authority of this principle is upon all occasions very great. And it is only by consulting this judge within that we can ever see what relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions, or that we can ever make any proper comparison between our own interests and those of other people. As to the eye of the body, objects appear great or small, not so much according to their real dimensions as according to the nearness or distance of their situation. So do they likewise to what may be called the natural eye of the mind. And we remedy the defects of both these organs, pretty much in the same manner. In my present situation, an immense landscape of lawns and woods and distant mountains seems to do no more than cover the little window which I ride by and to be out of all proportion less than the chamber in which I am sitting. I can form a just comparison between those great objects and the little objects around me in no other way than by transporting myself at least in fancy to a different station from whence I can survey both at nearly equal distances and thereby form some judgment of their real proportions. Habit and experience have taught me to do this so easily and so readily that I am scarce, sensible that I do it. And a man must be in some measure acquainted with the philosophy of vision before he can be thoroughly convinced how little those distant objects would appear to the eye if the imagination from a knowledge of their real magnitudes did not swell and dilate them. In the same manner to the selfish and original passions of human nature, the loss or gain of a very small interest of our own appears to be a vastly more important, excites a much more passionate joy or sorrow, a much more ardent desire or aversion, than the greatest concern of another with whom we have no particular connection. His interests as long as they are surveyed from this station can never be put into the balance with our own. Can never restrain us from doing whatever may tend to promote our own. How ruin is so ever to him? Before we can make any proper comparison of those opposite interests we must change our position. We must view them neither from our own place nor yet from his, neither with our own eyes nor yet with his, but from the place and with the eyes of a third person who has no particular connection with either, and who judges with impartiality between us. Here too habit and experience have taught us to do this so easily and so readily that we are scarce, sensible that we do it, and it requires in this case too some degree of reflection and even of philosophy to convince us how little interest we should take in the greatest concerns of our neighbor, how little we should be affected by whatever relates to him if the sense of propriety and justice did not correct the otherwise natural inequality of our sentiments. Let us suppose that the great empire of China with all its myriads of inhabitants was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe who had no sort of connection with that part of the world would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people. He would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life and the vanity of all the labors of man which could thus be annihilated in the moment. He would too, perhaps if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion with the same ease and tranquility as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance.  To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren provided he had never seen them. Human nature startles with horror at the thought and the world in its greatest depravity and corruption never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves than by whatever concerns other men, what is it which prompts the generous upon all occasions and the mean upon many to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spirit of benevolence which nature has lighted up in the human heart that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who whenever we're about to act so as to affect the happiness of others calls to us with the voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude in no respect better than any other in it and that when we prefer ourselves so shameful and so blindly to others we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves and of whatever relates to ourselves and the natural misrepresentation of self love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice, the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own for the yet greater interests of others and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another in order to obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbor, it is not the love of mankind which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection which generally takes place upon such occasions. The love of what is honorable and noble of the grandeur indignity and superiority of our own characters. When the happiness or misery of others depends on any respect upon our conduct, we dare not as self love might suggest to us prefer the interest of one to that of many. The man within immediately calls to us that we value ourselves too much and other people too little and that by doing so we render ourselves the proper object of the contempt and indignation of our brethren. Neither is this sentiment confined to men of extraordinary magnanimity and virtue. It is deeply impressed upon every tolerably good soldier who feels that he would become the scorn of his companions if he could be supposed capable of shrinking from danger or of hesitating either to expose or to throw away his life when the good of the service required it. One individual must never prefer himself so much even to any other individual as to hurt or injure that other in order to benefit himself, though the benefit to the one should be much greater than the hurt or injury to the other. The poor man must neither defraud nor steal from the rich, though the acquisition might be much more beneficial to the one than the loss could be hurtful to the other. The man within immediately calls to him, in this case too, that he is no better than his neighbor and that by this unjust preference he renders himself the proper object of the contempt and indignation of mankind, as well as of the punishment which that contempt and indignation must naturally dispose them to inflict for having thus violated one of those sacred rules upon the tolerable observation of which depend the whole security and peace of human society. There is no commonly honest man who does not more dread the inward disgrace of such an action, the indelible stain which it would forever stamp upon his own mind than the greatest external calamity which without any fault of his own could possibly befall him, and who does not inwardly feel the truth of that great stoical maxim that for one man to deprive another unjustly of anything or unjustly to promote his own advantage by the loss or disadvantage of another is more contrary to nature than death and poverty than pain than all the misfortunes which can affect him either in his body or in his external circumstances. When the happiness or misery of others indeed in no respect depends upon our conduct, when our interests are altogether separated and detached from theirs so that there is neither connection nor competition between them, we do not always think it's so necessary to restrain either our natural and perhaps improper anxiety about our own affairs or our natural and perhaps equally improper indifference about those of other men. The most vulgar education teaches us to act upon all important occasions with some sort of impartiality between ourselves and others and even the ordinary commerce of the world is capable of adjusting our active principles to some degree of propriety. But it is the most artificial and refined education only it has been said which can correct the inequalities of our passive feelings and we must for this purpose it has been pretended have recourse to the severest as well as to the profoundest philosophy. Two different sets of philosophers have attempted to teach us this hardest of all the lessons of morality. One set have labored to increase our sensibility to the interests of others, another to diminish that to our own. The first would have us feel for others as we naturally feel for ourselves. The second would have us feel for ourselves as we naturally feel for others. Both perhaps have carried their doctrines a good deal beyond the just standard of nature and propriety. The first are those whiny and melancholy moralists who are perpetually reproaching us with our happiness while so many of our brethren are in misery who regard as impious the natural joy of prosperity which does not think of the many wretches that are at every instant laboring under all sorts of calamities in the laying birth poverty in the agony of disease in the horrors of death under the insults and oppression of their enemies. Commiseration for those miseries which we never saw which we never heard of but which we may be assured are at all times infesting such numbers of our fellow creatures ought they think to damp the pleasures of the fortunate and to render a certain melancholy dejection habitual to all men but first of all this extreme sympathy with misfortunes which we know nothing about seems altogether absurd and unreasonable. Take the whole earth at an average for one man who suffers pain or misery you will find twenty in prosperity and joy or at least in intolerable circumstances. No reason surely can be assigned why we should rather weep with the one than rejoice with the twenty. This artificial commiseration besides is not only absurd but seems altogether unattainable and those who affect this character have commonly nothing but a certain affected and sentimental sadness which without reaching the heart serves only to render the countenance and conversation impertinently dismal and disagreeable. And last of all this disposition of mind though it could be attained would be perfectly useless and could serve no other purpose than to render miserable the person who possessed it. Whatever interest we take in the fortune of those with whom we have no acquaintance or connection and who are placed altogether out of the sphere of our activity can produce only anxiety in ourselves without any manner of advantage to them. To what purpose should we trouble ourselves about the world in the moon? All men, even those at the greatest distance, are no doubt entitled to our good wishes and our good wishes we naturally give them but if not withstanding they should be unfortunate to give ourselves any anxiety upon that account seems to be no part of our duty that we should be but little interested therefore in the fortune of those whom we can neither serve nor hurt and who are in every respect so very remote from us seems wisely ordered by nature and if it were possible to alter in this respect the original constitution of our frame we could get gained nothing by the change it is never objected to us that we have too little fellow feeling with the joy of success wherever envy does not prevent it the favor which we bear to prosperity is rather apt to be too great and the same moralists who blame us for want of sufficient sympathy with the miserable reproach as for the levity with which we are too apt to admire and almost to worship the fortunate the powerful and the rich among the moralists who endeavor to correct the natural inequality of our passive feelings by diminishing our sensibility to what peculiarly concerns ourselves we may count all the ancient sects of philosophers but particularly the ancient stoics man according to the stoics ought to regard himself not as something separated and detached but as a citizen of the world a member of the vast commonwealth of nature to the interest of this great community he ought at all times to be willing that his own little interest should be sacrificed whatever concerns himself ought to affect him no more than whatever concerns any other equally important part of this immense system we should view ourselves not in the light in which our own selfish passions are apt to place us but in the light in which any other citizen of the world would view us would be falls ourselves we should regard as what befalls our neighbor or what comes to the same thing as our neighbor regards what befalls us when our neighbor says epictetus loses his wife or his son there is nobody who is not sensible that this is a human calamity a natural event altogether according to the ordinary course of things but when the same thing happens to ourselves then we cry out as if we had suffered the most dreadful misfortune we ought however to remember how we were affected when this accident happened to another and such as we were in his case such ought we to be in our own those private misfortunes for which our feelings are apt to go beyond the bounds of propriety are of two different kinds they're either such as affect us only indirectly by affecting in the first place some other persons who are particularly dear to us such as our parents our children our brothers and sisters our intimate friends or they're such as affect ourselves immediately and directly either in our body in our fortune or in our reputation such as pain sickness approaching death poverty disgrace etc in misfortunes of the first kind our emotions may no doubt go very much beyond what exact propriety will admit of but they may likewise fall short of it and they frequently do so the man who should feel no more for the death or distress of his own father or son than for those of any other man's father or son would appear neither a good son nor a good father such a natural indifference far from exciting our applause would incur our highest disapprobation of those domestic affections however some are most apt to offend by their excess and others by their defect nature for the wisest purposes has rendered the most men perhaps in all men parental tenderness a much stronger affection than filial piety the continuance and propagation of the species depend altogether upon the former and not upon the latter in ordinary cases the existence and preservation of the child depend altogether upon the care of the parents those of the parents seldom depend upon that of the child nature therefore has rendered the former affection so strong that it generally requires not to be excited but to be moderated and more or less seldom endeavor to teach us how to indulge but generally how to restrain our fondness our excessive attachment the unjust preference which we're disposed to give to our own children above those of other people they exhort us on the contrary to an affectionate attention to our parents and to make a proper return to them in their old age for the kindness which they had shown to us in our infancy and youth in the decalogue we're commanded to honor our fathers and mothers no mention is made of the love of our children nature had sufficiently prepared us for the performance of this letter duty men are seldom accused of affecting to be fonder of their children than they really are they have sometimes been suspected of displaying their piety to their parents with too much ostentation the ostentatious sorrow of widows has for a like reason been suspected of insincerity we should respect could we believe it's sincere even the excessive such kind of actions and though we might not perfectly approve we should not severely condemn it that it appears praiseworthy at least in the eyes of those who affected the very affectation is a proof even the excessive those kind of actions which are most apt to offend by their excess though it may appear blameable never appears odious we blame the excessive fondness and anxiety of a parent as something which may in the end prove hurtful to the child and which in the meantime is excessively inconvenient to the parent but we easily pardon it and never regarded with hatred and detestation but the defect of this usually excessive affection appears always peculiarly odious the man who appears to feel nothing for his own children but who treats them upon all occasions with unmerited severity and harshness seems of all brews the most detestable the sense of propriety so far from requiring us to eradicate altogether that extraordinary sensibility which we naturally feel for the misfortunes of our nearest connections is always much more offended by the defect than it ever is by the excess of that sensibility the stoical apathy is in such cases never agreeable and all the metaphysical sophisms by which it is supported can seldom serve any other purpose than to blow up the hard insensibility of a coxcomb to ten times its native impertinence the poets and romance writers who best paint the refinements and delicacies of love and friendship and of all other private and domestic affections Bressine and Voltaire Richardson Morivot and Riccoboni are in such cases much better instructors than Zeno, Crispus, or Epictetus that moderated sensibility to the misfortunes of others which does not disqualify us for the performance of any duty the melancholy and affectionate remembrance of our departed friends the paying as gray says to secret sorrow dear are by no means undilicious sensations though they outwardly wear the features of pain and grief they're all inwardly stamped with a noblin characters of virtue and self-approbation it is otherwise in the misfortunes which affect ourselves immediately and directly either in our body in our fortune or in our reputation the sense of propriety is much more apt to be offended by the excess than by the defect of our sensibility and there are very few cases in which we can approach to near to the stoical apathy and indifference that we have very little fellow feeling with any of the passions which take their origin from the body has already been observed that pain which is occasioned by an evident cause such as the cutting or tearing of the flesh is perhaps the affection of the body with which the spectator feels the most lively sympathy the approaching death of his neighbor to seldom fails to affect him a good deal in both cases however he feels so very little in comparison of what the person principally concerned feels that the latter can scarce ever offend the former by appearing to suffer with too much ease the mere want of fortune mere poverty excites little compassion its complaints are too apt to be the objects rather of contempt than a fellow feeling we despise a beggar and though his opportunities may extort an arms from us he is scarce ever the object of any serious commissuration the fall from riches to poverty as it commonly occasions the most real distress to the sufferer so it seldom fails to excite the most sincere commiseration in the spectator though in the present state of society this misfortune can seldom happen without some misconduct and some very considerable misconduct too in the sufferer yet he is almost always so much pitied that his scarce ever allowed to fall into the lowest state of poverty but by the means of his friends frequently by the indulgence of those very creditors who have much reason to complain of his imprudence is almost always supported in some degree of decent though humble mediocrity to persons under such misfortunes we could perhaps easily pardon some degree of weakness but at the same time they who carry the firmest countenance who accommodate themselves with the greatest ease to their new situation who seem to feel no humiliation from the change but to rest their rank in the society not upon their fortune but upon their character and conduct are always the most approved of and never fail to command our highest and most affectionate admiration as of all the external misfortunes which can affect an innocent man immediately and directly the undeserved loss of reputation is certainly the greatest so a considerable degree of sensibility to whatever can bring on so great a calamity does not always appear ungraceful or disagreeable we often esteem a young man the more when he resents though with some degree of violence any unjust reproach that may have been thrown upon his character or his honor the affliction of an innocent young lady on account of the groundless surmises which may have been circulated concerning her conduct appears often perfectly amiable persons of an advanced age whom long experience of the folly and injustice of the world has taught to pay little regard either to its censure or to its applause neglect and despise obliquely and do not even deign to honor its futile authors with any serious resentment this indifference which is founded all together on a firm confidence in their own well tried and well established character would be disagreeable in young people who neither can nor ought to have any such confidence it might in them be supposed to forebode in their advancing years almost improper insensibility to real honor and infamy in all other private misfortunes which affect ourselves immediately and directly we can very seldom offend by appearing to be too little affected we frequently remember our sensibility to the misfortunes of others with pleasure and satisfaction we can seldom remember that to our own without some degree of shame and humiliation if we examine the different shades and gradations of weakness and self-command as we meet with them in common life we shall very easily satisfy ourselves that this control of our passive feelings must be acquired not from the obstruous syllogisms of a quibbling dialectic but from that great discipline which nature has established for the acquisition of this and of every other virtue a regard to the sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct a very young child has no self-command but whatever are its emotions whether fear or grief or anger it endeavors always by the violence of its outcries to alarm as much as it can the attention of its nurse or of its parents while it remains under the custody of such partial protectors its anger is the first and perhaps the only passion which it is taught to moderate by noise and threatening they are for their own ease often obliged to frighten it into good temper and the passion which incites it to attack is restrained by that which teaches it to attend to its own safety when it is old enough to go to school or to mix with its equals it soon finds that they have no such indulgent partiality it naturally wishes to gain their favor and to avoid their hatred or contempt regarding to its own safety teaches it to do so and soon finds that it can do so in no other way than by moderating not only its anger but all its other passions to the degree which its play fellows and companions are likely to be pleased with it does enters into the great school of self-command it studies to be more and more master of itself and begins to exercise over its own feelings a discipline which the practice of the longest life is very seldom sufficient to bring to complete perfection in all private misfortunes in pain and sickness in sorrow the weakest man when his friend and still more when a stranger visits him is immediately impressed with the view in which they're likely to look upon his situation their view calls off his attention from his own view and his breast is in some measure be calmed the moment they come into his presence this effect is produced instantaneously and as it were mechanically but with a weak man it is not of long continuance his own view of his situation immediately recurs upon him he abandons himself as before to size and tears of lamentations and endeavors like a child that has not yet gone to school to produce some sort of harmony between his own grief and the compassion of the spectator not by moderating the former but by importantly calling upon the latter with a man of a little more firmness the effect is somewhat more permanent he endeavors as much as he can to fix his attention upon the view which the company are likely to take of his situation he feels at the same time the esteem and approbation which they naturally conceive for him when he thus preserves his tranquility and though under the pressure of some recent and great calamity appears to feel for himself no more than what they really feel for him he approves and applauds himself by sympathy with their approbation and the pleasure which he derives from this sentiment supports and enables him more easily to continue this generous effort in most cases he avoids mentioning his own misfortune and his company either tolerably well-bred are careful to say nothing which can put him in mind of it he endeavors to entertain them in his usual way upon indifferent subjects or if he feels himself strong enough to venture to mention his misfortune he endeavors to talk of it as he thinks they're capable of talking of it and even to feel it no further than they're capable of feeling it if he has not however been well endured to the hard discipline of self command he soon grows weary of this restraint a long visit fatigues him and towards the end of it he is constantly in danger of doing what he never fails to do the moment it is over of abandoning himself to all the weakness of excessive sorrow modern good manners which are extremely indulgent to human weakness forbid for some time the visits of strangers to persons under great family distress and permit those only of the nearest relations and most intimate friends the presence of the latter it is thought will impose less restraint than that of the former and the sufferers can more easily accommodate themselves to the feelings of those from whom they have reason to expect a more indulgent sympathy secret enemies who fancy that they're not known to be such are frequently fond of making those charitable visits as early as the most intimate friends the weakest man in the world in this case endeavors to support his manly countenance and from indignation and contempt of their malice to behave with as much gaiety and ease as he can the man of real constancy and firmness the wise and just man who has been thoroughly bred in the great school of self-command in the bustling business of the world exposed perhaps to the violence and injustice of faction and to the hardships and hazards of war maintains this control of his passive feelings upon all occasions and whether in solitude or in society whereas nearly the same countenance and is affected very nearly in the same manner in success and in disappointment in prosperity and in adversity before friends and before enemies he has often been under the necessity of supporting this manhood he has never dared to forget for one moment the judgment which the impartial spectator would pass upon his sentiments and conduct he has never dared to suffer the man within the breast to be absent one moment from his attention with the eyes of this great inmate he has always been accustomed to regard whatever relates to himself this habit has become perfectly familiar to him he has been in the constant practice and indeed under the constant necessity of modeling or of endeavoring to model not only his outward conduct and behavior but as much as he can even his inward sentiments and feelings according to those of this awful and respectable judge he does not merely affect the sentiments of the impartial spectator he really adopts them he almost identifies himself with he almost becomes himself that impartial spectator and scarce even feels but as that great arbiter of his conduct directs him to feel the degree of the self-approbation with which every man upon such occasions surveys his own conduct is higher or lower exactly in proportion to the degree of self-command which is necessary in order to obtain that self-approbation where little self-command is necessary little self-approbation is due the man who has only scratched his finger cannot much applaud himself though he should immediately appear to have forgot this paltry misfortune the man who has lost his leg by a cannon shot and who the moment after speaks and acts with his usual coolness and tranquility as he exerts a much higher degree of self-command so he naturally feels a much higher degree of self-approbation with most men upon such an accident their own natural view of their own misfortune would force itself upon them with such a vivacity and strength of coloring as would entirely face all thought of every other view they would feel nothing they could attend to nothing but their own pain and their own fear and not only the judgment of the ideal man within the breast but that of the real spectator who might happen to be present would be entirely overlooked and disregarded the reward which nature bestows upon good behavior under misfortune is thus exactly proportioned to the degree of that good behavior the only compensation she could possibly make for the bitterness of pain and distress is thus to unequal degrees of good behavior exactly proportioned to the degree of that pain and distress in proportion to the degree of the self-command which is necessary in order to conquer our natural sensibility the pleasure and pride of the conquest are so much the greater and this pleasure and pride are so great that no man can be altogether unhappy who completely enjoys them misery and wretchedness can never enter the breast in which dwells complete self-satisfaction and though it may be too much perhaps to say with the stoics that under such an accident as that above mentioned the happiness of a wise man is in every respect equal to what it could have been under any other circumstances yet it must be acknowledged at least that this complete enjoyment of his own self-applauses though it may not altogether extinguish must certainly very much alleviate his sense of his own sufferings end of section 16 recorded by Ariadna Solovyova section 17 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 the theory of moral sentiments part three of the foundation of our judgments concerning our own sentiments and conduct and of the sense of duty consisting of one section chapter three continued of the influences and authority of conscience in such paroxysms of distress if I may be allowed to call them so the wisest and firmest man in order to preserve his equanimity is obliged I imagine to make a considerable and even a painful exertion his own natural feeling of his own distress his own natural view of his own situation presses hard upon him and he cannot without a very great effort fix his attention upon that of the impartial spectator both views present themselves to him at the same time his sense of honor his regard to his own dignity directs him to fix his whole attention upon the one view his natural his untaught and undisciplined feelings are continually calling it off to the other he does not in this case perfectly identify himself with the ideal man within the breast he does not become himself the impartial spectator of his own conduct the different views of both characters exist in his mind separate and distinct from one another in each directing him to a behavior different from that to which the other directs him when he follows that view which honor and dignity point out to him nature does not indeed leave him without a recompense he enjoys his own complete self-approbation and the applause of every candidate an impartial spectator by her unalterable laws however he still suffers and the recompense which she bestows though very considerable is not sufficient completely to compensate the sufferings which those laws inflict neither is it fit that it should if it did completely compensate them he could from self-interest have no motive for avoiding an accident which must necessarily diminish his utility both to himself and to society and nature from her parental care both meant that she should anxiously avoid all such accidents he suffers therefore and though in the agony of the paroxysm he maintains not only the manhood of his countenance but the sedateness and sobriety of his judgment it requires his utmost and most fatiguing exertions to do so by the constitution of human nature however agony can never be permanent and if he survives the paroxysm he soon comes without any effort to enjoy his ordinary tranquility a man with a wooden leg suffers no doubt and foresees that he must continue to suffer during the reminder of his life a very considerable inconvenience he soon comes to view it however exactly as every impartial spectator views it as an inconvenience under which he can enjoy all the ordinary pleasures both of solitude and of society he soon identifies himself with the ideal man within the breast he soon becomes himself the impartial spectator of his own situation he no longer weeps he no longer laments he no longer grieves over it as a weak man may sometimes do in the beginning the view of the impartial spectator becomes so perfectly habitual to him that without any effort without any exertion he never thinks of surveying his misfortune in any other view the never-failing certainty with which all men sooner or later accommodate themselves to whatever becomes their permanent situation may perhaps induce us to think that the Stoics were at least thus far very nearly in the right that between one permanent situation and another there was with regard to real happiness no essential difference or that if there were any difference it was no more than just sufficient to render some of them the objects of simple choice or preference but not of any earnest or anxious desire and others of simple rejection as being fit to be set aside or avoided but not of any earnest or anxious aversion happiness consists in tranquility and enjoyment without tranquility there can be no enjoyment and where there is perfect tranquility there is scarce anything which is not capable of amusing but in every permanent situation where there is no expectation of change the mind of every man in a longer or shorter time returns to its natural and usual state of tranquility in prosperity after a certain time it falls back to that state in adversity after a certain time it rises up to it in the confinement and solitude of the Bastille after a certain time the fashionable and frivolous count the Lausanne recovered tranquility enough to be capable of amusing himself with feeding a spider a mind better furnished would perhaps have both sooner recovered its tranquility and sooner found in its own thoughts a much better amusement the great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from overrating the difference between one permanent situation and another Everest overrates the difference between poverty and riches ambition that between a private and a public station vain glory that between obscurity and extensive reputation the person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions is not only miserable in his actual situation but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires the slightest observation however might satisfy him that in all the ordinary situations of human life a well-disposed mind may be equally calm equally cheerful and equally contented some of those situations may no doubt deserve to be preferred to others but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or justice or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice wherever prudence does not direct wherever justice does not permit the attempt to change our situation the man who does attempt it plays at the most unequal of all games of hazard and stakes everything against scarce anything what the favorite of the king of Epirus said to his master may be applied to men in all the ordinary situations of human life when the king had recounted to him in their proper order all the conquests which he proposed to make and had come to the last of them and what does your majesty propose to do then said the favorite I propose then said the king to enjoy myself with my friends and endeavor to be good company over a bottle and what hinders your majesty from doing so now replied the favored in the most glittering and exalted situation that our idle fancy can hold out to us the pleasures from which we propose to derive our real happiness are almost always the same with those which in our actual though humble station we have at all times at hand and in our power except the frivolous pleasures of vanity and superiority we may find in the most humble station where there is only personal liberty every other which the most exalted can afford and the pleasures of vanity and superiority are seldom consistent with perfect tranquility the principle and foundation of all real and satisfactory enjoyment neither is it always certain that in this splendid situation which we aim at those real and satisfactory pleasures can be enjoyed with the same security as in the humble one which we're so very eager to abandon examine the records of history recollect what has happened within the circle of your own experience consider with attention what has been the conduct of almost all the greatly unfortunate either in private or public life whom you may have either read of or heard of or remember and you will find that the misfortunes of by far the greater part of them have arisen from their not knowing when they were well when it was proper for them to sit still and to be contented the inscription upon the tombstone of the man who had endeavored to mend a tolerable constitution by taking physique I was well I wished to be better here I am may generally be applied with great justice to the distress of disappointed avarice and ambition it may be thought a singular but I believe it to be a just observation that in the misfortunes which admit of some remedy the greater part of men do not either so readily or so universally recover their natural and usual tranquility as in those which plainly admit of none in misfortunes of the latter kind it is chiefly in what may be called the paroxysm or in the first attack that we can discover any sensible difference between the sentiments and behavior of the wise and those of the weak man in the end time the great and universal comforter gradually composes the weak man to the same degree of tranquility which you regard to his own dignity and manhood teaches the wise man to assume in the beginning the case of the man with the wooden leg is an obvious example of this in the irreparable misfortunes occasioned by the death of children or of friends and relations even a wise man may for some time indulge himself in some degree of moderated sorrow and affectionate but weak woman is often upon such occasions almost perfectly distracted time however in a longer or shorter period never fails to compose the weakest woman to the same degree of tranquility as the strongest man in all the irreparable calamities which affect himself immediately and directly a wise man endeavors from the beginning to anticipate and to enjoy beforehand that tranquility which he foresees the course of a few months or a few years will certainly restore to him in the end in the misfortunes for which the nature of things admits or seems to admit of a remedy but in which the means of applying that remedy are not within the reach of the sufferer his vain and fruitless attempts to restore himself to his former situation his continual anxiety for their success his repeated disappointments upon their miscarriage are what chiefly hinder him from resuming his natural tranquility and frequently rendered miserable during the whole of his life a man to whom a greater misfortune but which plainly admitted of no remedy would not have given a fortnight's disturbance in the fall from royal favor to disgrace from power to insignificancy from riches to poverty from liberty to confinement from strong health to some lingering chronicle and perhaps incurable disease the man who struggles the least who most easily and readily acquiesces in the fortune which has fallen to him very soon recovers his usual and natural tranquility and surveys the most disagreeable circumstances of his actual situation in the same light or perhaps in a much less unfavorable light than that in which the most indifferent spectator is disposed to survey them faction intrigue and cabal disturb the quiet of the unfortunate statesmen extravagant projects visions of gold mines interrupt the repose of the ruined bankrupt the prisoner who is continually plotting to escape from his confinement cannot enjoy that careless security which even a prison can afford him the medicines of the physician are often the greatest torment of the incurable patient the monk who in order to comfort Joanna of Castile upon the death of her husband Philip told her of a king who 14 years after his disease had been restored to life again by the prayers of his afflicted queen was not likely by his legendary tale to restore sedateness to the distempered mind of that unhappy princess she endeavored to repeat the same experiment in hopes of the same success resisted for a long time the burial of her husband soon after raised his body from the grave attended it almost constantly herself and watched with all the impatient anxiety of frantic expectation the happy moment when her wishes were to be gratified by the revival of her beloved Philip our sensibility to the feelings of others so far from being inconsistent with the manhood of self-command is the very principle upon which that manhood is founded the very same principle or instinct which in the misfortune of our neighbor prompts us to compassionate his sorrow in our own misfortune prompts us to restrain the abject and miserable lamentations of our own sorrow the same principle or instinct which in his prosperity and success prompts us to congratulate his joy in our own prosperity and success prompts us to restrain the levity and intemperance of our own joy in both cases the propriety of our own sentiments and feelings seems to be exactly in proportion to the vivacity and force with which we enter into and conceive his sentiments and feelings the man of the most perfect virtue the man whom we naturally love and revere the most is he who joins to the most perfect command of his own original and selfish feelings the most exquisite sensibility both to the original and sympathetic feelings of others the man who to all the soft the amiable and the gentle virtues joins all the great the awful and the respectable must surely be the natural and proper object of our highest love and admiration the person best fitted by nature for acquiring the former of those two sets of virtues is likewise best fitted for acquiring the latter the man who feels the most for the joys and sorrows of others is best fitted for acquiring the most complete control of his own joys and sorrows the man of the most exquisite humanity is naturally the most capable of acquiring the highest degree of self-command he may not however always have acquired it and it very frequently happens that he has not he may have lived too much in ease and tranquility he may have never been exposed to the violence of faction or to the hardships and hazards of war he may have never experienced the insolence of his superiors the jealous and malignant envy of his equals or the pilfering injustice of his inferiors when in an advanced age some accidental change of fortune exposes him to all these they all make too great an impression upon him he has the disposition which fits him for acquiring the most perfect self-command but he has never had the opportunity of acquiring it exercise and practice have been wanting and without these no habit can ever be tolerably established hardships, dangers, injuries, misfortunes are the only masters under whom we can learn the exercise of this virtue but these are all masters to whom nobody willingly puts himself to school the situations in which the gentle virtue of humanity can be most happily cultivated are by no means the same with those which are best fitted for forming the austere virtue of self-command the man who is himself at ease can best attend to the distress of others the man who is himself exposed to hardships is most immediately called upon to attend to and to control his own feelings in the mild sunshine of undisturbed tranquility in the calm retirement of undissipated and philosophical leisure the soft virtue of humanity flourishes the most and is capable of the highest improvement but in such situations the greatest and noblest exertions of self-command have little exercise under the boisterous and stormy sky of war and faction of public tumult and confusion the sturdy severity of self-command prospers the most and can be the most successfully cultivated but in such situations the strongest suggestions of humanity must frequently be stifled or neglected and every such neglect necessarily tends to weaken the principle of humanity as it may frequently be the duty of a soldier not to take so it may sometimes be his duty not to give quarter and the humanity of the man who has been several times under the necessity of submitting to this disagreeable duty can scarce fail to suffer a considerable diminution for his own ease he is too apt to learn to make light of the misfortunes which he is so often under the necessity of occasioning and the situations which call forth the noblest exertions of self-command by imposing the necessity of violating sometimes the property and sometimes the life of our neighbor always tend to diminish and too often to extinguish altogether that sacred regard to both which is the foundation of justice and humanity it is upon this account that we so frequently find in the world men of great humanity who have little self-command but who are indolent and irresolute and easily disheartened either by difficulty or danger from the most honorable pursuit and on the contrary men of the most perfect self-command whom no difficulty can discourage no danger appalled and who are at all times ready for the most daring desperate enterprises but who at the same time seem to be hardened against all sense either of justice or humanity in solitude we are apt to feel too strongly whatever relates to ourselves we're apt to overrate the good offices we may have done and the injuries we may have suffered we are apt to be too much elated by our own good and too much dejected by our own bad fortune the conversation of a friend brings us to a better that of a stranger to a still better temper the man within the breast the abstract and ideal spectator of our sentiments and conduct requires often to be awakened and put in mind of his duty by the presence of the real spectator and it is always from that spectator from whom we can expect the least sympathy and indulgence that we are likely to learn the most complete lesson of self-command are you in adversity do not mourn in the darkness of solitude do not regulate your sorrow according to the indulgence sympathy of your intimate friends return as soon as possible to the daylight of the world and of society live with strangers with those who know nothing or care nothing about your misfortune do not even shun the company of enemies but give yourself the pleasure of mortifying their malignant joy by making them feel how little you are affected by your calamity and how much you are above it are you in prosperity do not confine the enjoyment of your good fortune to your own house to the company of your own friends perhaps of your flatteries of those who build upon your fortune the hopes of mending their own frequent those who are independent of you who can value you only for your character and conduct and not for your fortune neither seek nor shun neither intrude yourself into nor run away from the society of those who are once your superiors and who may be heard at finding you their equal or perhaps even their superior the impertinence of their pride may perhaps render their company too disagreeable but if it should not be assured that it is the best company you can possibly keep and if by the simplicity of your unassuming demeanor you can gain their favor and kindness you may rest satisfied that you're modest enough and that your head has been in no respect turned by your good fortune the propriety of our moral sentiments is never so apt to be corrupted as when the indulgent and partial spectator is at hand while the indifferent and impartial one is at a great distance of the conduct of one independent nation towards another neutral nations are the only indifferent and impartial spectators but they're placed at so great a distance that they're almost quite out of sight when two nations are at a variance the citizen of each pays little regard to the sentiments which foreign nations may entertain concerning his conduct his whole ambition is to obtain the approbation of his own fellow citizens and as they are all animated by the same hostile people which animate himself he can never please them so much as by enraging and offending their enemies the partial spectator is at hand the impartial one at a great distance in war and negotiation therefore the laws of justice are very seldom observed truth and fair dealing are almost totally disregarded treaties are violated and the violation if some advantage is gained by it shed scares any dishonor upon the violator the ambassador who dupes the minister of a foreign nation is admired and applauded the just man who disdains either to take or to give any advantage who would think it less dishonorable to give them to take one the man who in all private transactions would be the most beloved and the most esteemed in those public transactions is regarded as a fool and an idiot who does not understand his business and he incurs always the contempt and sometimes even the detestation of his fellow citizens in war not only what are called the laws of nations are frequently violated without bringing among his own fellow citizens whose judgments he only regards any considerable dishonor upon the violator but those laws themselves are the greater part of them laid down with very little regard to the plainest and most obvious rules of justice that the innocent though they may have some connection or dependency upon the guilty which perhaps they themselves cannot help should not upon that account suffer or be punished for the guilty is one of the plainest and most obvious rules of justice in the most unjust war however it is commonly the sovereign of the rulers only who are guilty the subjects are almost always perfectly innocent whenever it suits the convenience of a public enemy however the goods of the peaceable citizens are seized both at land and at sea their lands are laid waste their houses are burnt and they themselves if they presume to make any resistance are murdered or led into captivity and all this in the most perfect conformity to what are called the laws of nations the animosity of hostile factions whether civil or ecclesiastical is often still more furious than that of hostile nations and their conduct toward one another is often still more atrocious what may be called the laws of faction have often been laid down by grave authors with still less regard to the rules of justice than what are called the laws of nations the most ferocious patriot never stated it as a serious question whether faith ought to be kept with public enemies whether faith ought to be kept with rebels whether faith ought to be kept with heretics are questions which have been often furiously agitated by celebrated doctors both civil and ecclesiastical it is needless to observe I presume that both rebels and heretics are those unlucky persons who when things have come to a certain degree of violence have the misfortune to be of the weaker party in a nation distracted by faction there are no doubt always a few though commonly but a very few who preserve their judgment untainted by the general contagion they seldom amount to more than here and there a solitary individual without any influence excluded by his own candor from the confidence of either party and who though he may be one of the wisest is necessarily upon that very account one of the most insignificant men in the society all such people are held in contempt and derision frequently in detestation by the furious zealots of both parties a true party man hates and despises candor and in reality there is no vice which could so effectually disqualify him for the trade of a party man as that single virtue the real revered and impartial spectator therefore is upon no occasion at a greater distance than amidst the violence and rage of contending parties to them it may be said that such a spectator's cares exist anywhere in the universe even to the great judge of the universe they impute all their own prejudices and often view that divine being is animated by all their own vindictive and implacable passions of all the corrupters of moral sentiments therefore faction and fanaticism have always been by far the greatest concerning the subject of self command I shall only observe further that our admiration for the man who under the heaviest and most unexpected misfortunes continues to behave with fortitude and firmness always supposes that his sensibility to those misfortunes is very great and such as it requires a very great effort to conquer or command the man who was altogether insensible to bodily pain could deserve no applause from enduring the torture with the most perfect patience and equanimity the man who had been created without the natural fear of death could claim no merit from preserving his coolness and presence of mind in the midst of the most dreadful dangers it is one of the extravagancies of Seneca that the stoical wise man was in this respect superior even to a god that the security of the god was altogether the benefit of nature which had exempted him from suffering but that the security of the wise man was his own benefit and derived altogether from himself and from his own exertions the sensibility of some men however to some of the objects which immediately affect themselves is sometimes so strong as to render all self-command impossible no sense of honor can control the fears of the man who is weak enough to faint or to fall into convulsions upon the approach of danger whether such weakness of nerves as it has been called may not by gradual exercise and proper discipline admit of some cure may perhaps be doubtful it seems certain that it ought never to be trusted or employed End of section 17 Recording by Ariadna Solovyova Section 18 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 The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith Part 3 Of the foundation of our judgments concerning our own sentiments and conduct and of the sense of duty consisting of one section Chapter 4 Of the nature of self-deceit and of the origin and use of general rules In order to revert the rectitude of our own judgments concerning the propriety of our own conduct it is not always necessary that the real and impartial spectator should be at a great distance When he is at hand when he is present the violence and injustice of our own selfish passions are sometimes sufficient to induce the man within the breast to make a report very different from what the real circumstances of the case are capable of authorizing There are two different occasions upon which we examine our own conduct and endeavor to view it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it First, when we are about to act and secondly after we have acted Our views are apt to be very partial in both cases but they are apt to be most partial when it is of most importance that they should be otherwise When we are about to act the eagerness of passion will seldom allow us to consider what we are doing with the candor of an indifferent person The violent emotions which at the time agitate us discolor our views of things even when we are endeavoring to place ourselves in the situation of another and to regard the objects that interest us in the light in which they will naturally appear to him The fury of our own passions constantly calls us back to our own place where everything appears magnified and misrepresented by self-love Of the manner in which those objects would appear to another of the view which he would take of them we can obtain if I may say so but instantaneous glimpses which vanish in a moment and which, even while they last, are not altogether just We cannot even for that moment divest ourselves entirely of the heat and keenness with which our peculiar situation inspires us nor consider what we are about to do with the complete impartiality of an equitable judge The passions upon this account, as Father Malabronk says all justify themselves and seem reasonable in proportion to their objects as long as we continue to feel them When the action is over, indeed, and the passions which prompted it have subsided we can enter more coolly into the sentiments of the indifferent spectator What before interested us is now become almost as indifferent to us as it always was to him and we can now examine our own conduct with his candor in impartiality The manner of today is no longer agitated by the same passions which distracted the manner of yesterday and when the paroxym of emotion in the same manner as when the paroxym of distress is fairly over we can identify ourselves, as it were, with the ideal man within the breast and in our own character view, as in the one case, our own situation so in the other, our own conduct with the severe eyes of the most impartial spectator But our judgments now are often of little importance in comparison of what they were before and can frequently produce nothing but vain regret and unavailing repentance without always securing us from the like errors in time to come It is seldom, however, that they are quite candid even in this case The opinion which we entertain of our own character depends entirely on our judgments concerning our past conduct It is so disagreeable to think ill of ourselves that we often purposely turn away our view from those circumstances which might render that judgment unfavorable He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person and he is often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of self-delusion which covers from his view the deformities of his own conduct Rather than see our own behavior under so disagreeable an aspect we too often foolishly and weakly endeavor to exasperate and new those unjust passions which had formerly misled us We endeavor by artifice to awaken our old hatreds and irritate afresh our most forgotten resentments We even exert ourselves for this miserable purpose and thus persevere in injustice merely because we were once unjust and because we are ashamed and afraid to see that we were so So partial are the views of mankind with regard to the propriety of their own conduct both at the time of action and after it and so difficult is it for them to view it in the light in which any indifferent spectator would consider it But if it was by a peculiar faculty such as the moral sense is supposed to be that they judged of their own conduct if they were imbued with a particular power of perception which distinguished the beauty or deformity of passions and affections as their own passions would be more immediately exposed to the view of this faculty it would judge with more accuracy concerning them than concerning those of other men of which it had only a more distant prospect This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind is the source of half the disorders of human life If we saw ourselves in the light in which others see us or in which they would see us if they knew all a reformation would generally be unavoidable we could not otherwise endure the sight Nature, however, has not left this weakness which is of so much importance altogether without a remedy nor has she abandoned us entirely to the delusions of self-love Our continual observations upon the conduct of others insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments We hear everybody about us express the like detestation against them This still further confirms and even exasperates our natural sense of their deformity It satisfies us that we view them in the proper light when we see other people view them in the same light We resolve never to be guilty of the like nor ever upon any account to render ourselves in this manner the objects of universal disapprobation We thus naturally lay down to ourselves a general rule that all such actions are to be avoided as tending to render us odious, contemptible, or punishable the objects of all those sentiments for which we have the greatest dread in aversion Other actions on the contrary call forth our approbation and we hear everybody around us express the same favorable opinion concerning them Everybody is eager to honor and reward them They excite all those sentiments for which we have by nature the strongest desire the love, the gratitude, the admiration of mankind We become ambitious of performing the like and thus naturally lay down to ourselves a rule of another kind that every opportunity of acting in this manner is carefully to be sought after It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety approve or disapprove of We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions because upon examination they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with the general rule The general rule on the contrary is formed by finding from experience that all actions of a certain kind or circumstance in a certain manner are approved or disapproved of To the man who first saw an inhuman murder committed from avarice, envy, or unjust resentment and upon one too that loved and trusted the murderer who beheld the last agonies of the dying person who hurt him with his expiring breath complained more of the perfidy and ingratitude of his false friend than of the violence which had been done to him there could be no occasion in order to conceive how horrible such an action was that he should reflect that one of the most sacred rules of conduct was what prohibited the taking away the life of an innocent person that this was a plain violation of that rule and consequently a very blameable action His detestation of this crime, it is evident, would arise instantaneously an antecedent to his having formed to himself any such general rule The general rule on the contrary which he might afterwards form would be founded upon the detestation which he felt necessarily arise in his own breast at the thought of this and every other particular action of the same kind When we read in history or romance the account of actions either of generosity or of baseness the admiration which we conceive for the one and the contempt which we feel for the other neither of them arise from reflecting that there are certain general rules which declare all actions of the one kind admirable and all actions of the other contemptible those general rules on the contrary are all formed from the experience we have had of the effects which actions of all different kinds naturally produce upon us an amiable action a respectable action and horrid action are all of them actions which naturally excite for the person who performs them the love the respect or the horror of the spectator the general rules which determine what actions are and what are not the objects of each of those sentiments can be formed no other way than by observing what actions actually and in fact excite them When these general rules indeed have been formed when they are universally acknowledged and established by the concurring sentiments of mankind we frequently appeal to them as to the standards of judgment in debating concerning the degree of praise or blame that is due to certain actions of a complicated and dubious nature they are upon these occasions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of what is just and unjust in human conduct and this circumstance seems to have misled several very eminent authors to draw up their systems in such a manner as if they had supposed that the original judgments of mankind with regard to right and wrong were formed like the decisions of a court of judicatory by considering first the general rule and then secondly whether the particular action under consideration fell properly within its comprehension those general rules of conduct when they have been fixed in our mind by habitual reflection are of great use in correcting the misrepresentations of self-love concerning what is fit and proper to be done in our particular situation the man of furious resentment if he was to listen to the dictates of that passion would perhaps regard the death of his enemy as but a small compensation for the wrong he imagines he has received which however may be no more than a very slight provocation but his observations upon the conduct of others have taught him how horrible all such sanguinary revenges appear unless his education has been very singular he has laid it down to himself as an inviolable rule to abstain from them upon all occasions this rule preserves its authority with him and renders him incapable of being guilty of such a violence yet the fury of his own temper may be such that had this been the first time in which he considered such an action he would undoubtedly have determined it to be quite just and proper and what every impartial spectator would approve of but that reverence for the rule which past experience has impressed upon him checks the impetuosity of his passion and helps him to correct the two partial views which self-love might otherwise suggest of what was proper to be done in his situation if he should allow himself to be so far transported by passion as to violate this rule yet even in this case he cannot throw off altogether the awe and respect with which he has been accustomed to regard it at the very time of acting at the moment in which passion mounts the highest he hesitates and trembles at the thought of what he is about to do he is secretly conscious to himself that he is breaking through those measures of conduct which in all his cool hours he had resolved never to infringe which he had never seen infringed by others without the highest disapprobation and of which the infringement his own mind forbodes must soon render him the object of the same disagreeable sentiments before he can take the last fatal resolution he is tormented with all the agonies of doubt and uncertainty he is terrified at the thought of violating so sacred a rule and at the same time is urged and goaded on by the fury of his desires to violate it he changes his purpose every moment sometimes he resolves to adhere to his principle and not indulge a passion which may corrupt the remaining part of his life with the horrors of shame and repentance and a momentary calm takes possession of his breast from the prospect of that security and tranquility which he will enjoy when he thus determines not to expose himself to the hazard of a contrary conduct but he immediately the passion rouses anew and with fresh fury drives him on to commit what he had the instant before resolved to abstain from weary and distracted with those continual irresolutions he at length from a sort of despair makes the last fatal and irrecoverable step but with that terror and amazement with which one flying from an enemy throws himself over a precipice where he is sure of meeting with more certain destruction than from anything that pursues him from behind such are his sentiments even at the time of acting though he is then no doubt less sensible of the impropriety of his own conduct than afterwards when his passion being gratified and pauled he begins to view what he has done in the light in which others are apt to view it and actually feels what he had only foreseen very imperfectly before the stings of remorse and repentance begin to agitate and torment him end of section 18