The Theory of Moral Sentiments

omparison of those two virtues.

Actions of a beneficent tendency, which proceed

from proper motives, seem alone to require

reward; because such alone are the approved objects

of gratitude, or excite the sympathetic gratitude

of the spectator.

Actions of a hurtful tendency, which proceed from

improper motives, seem alone to deserve punishment;

because such alone are the approved objects of

resentment, or excite the sympathetic resentment of

the spectator.

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted

by force, the mere want of it exposes to no punishment;

because the mere want of beneficence tends

to do no real positive evil. It may disappoint of the

good which might reasonably have been expected,

and upon that account it may justly excite dislike

and disapprobation: it cannot, however, provoke

120any resentment which mankind will go along with.

The man who does not recompense his benefactor,

when he has it in his power, and when his benefactor

needs his assistance, is, no doubt, guilty of the blackest

ingratitude. The heart of every impartial spectator

rejects all fellow-feeling with the selfishness of

his motives, and he is the proper object of the highest

disapprobation. But still he does no positive hurt

to any body. He only does not do that good which

in propriety he ought to have done. He is the object

of hatred, a passion which is naturally excited by

impropriety of sentiment and behaviour; not of resentment,

a passion which is never properly called forth but

by actions which tend to do real and positive hurt

to some particular persons. His want of gratitude,

therefore, cannot be punished. To oblige him by

force to perform what in gratitude he ought to perform,

and what every impartial spectator would approve

of him for performing, would if possible, be

still more improper than his neglecting to perform it.

His benefactor would dishonour himself if he attempted

by violence to constrain him to gratitude, and it

would be impertinent for any third person, who was

not the superior of either, to intermeddle. But of all

the duties of beneficence, those which gratitude recommends

to us approach nearest to what is called

a perfect and complete obligation. What friendship,

what generosity, what charity, would prompt

us to do with universal approbation, is still more free,

and can still less be extorted by force than the

duties of gratitude. We talk of the debt of gratitude,

not of charity, or generosity, nor even of friendship,

when friendship is mere esteem, and has not

been enhanced and complicated with gratitude for

good offices.

121Resentment seems to have been given us by nature

for defence, and for defence only. It is the

safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.

It prompts us to beat off the mischief which is attempted

to be done to us, and to retaliate that which

is already done; that the offender may be made to

repent of his injustice, and that others, through fear

of the like punishment, may be terrified from being

guilty of the like offence. It must be reserved

therefore for these purposes, nor can the spectator

ever go along with it when it is exerted for any

other. But the mere want of the beneficent virtues,

though it may disappoint us of the good which

might reasonably be expected, neither does, nor attempts

to do, any mischief from which we can have

occasion to defend ourselves.

There is however another virtue, of which the observance

is not left to the freedom of our own wills,

which may be extorted by force, and of which the

violation exposes to resentment, and consequently to

punishment. This virtue is justice: the violation of

justice is injury: it does real and positive hurt to

some particular persons, from motives which are naturally

disapproved of. It is, therefore, the proper

object of resentment, and of punishment, which is

the natural consequence of resentment. As mankind

go along with, and approve of, the violence

employed to avenge the hurt which is done by injustice,

so they much more go along with, and approve

of, that which is employed to prevent and

beat off the injury, and to restrain the offender

from hurting his neighbours. The person himself

who meditates an injustice is sensible of this, and

feels that force may, with the utmost propriety, be

122made use of, both by the person whom he is about

to injure, and by others, either to obstruct the execution

of his crime, or to punish him when he has

executed it. And upon this is founded that remarkable

distinction between justice and all the

other social virtues, which has of late been particularly

insisted upon by an author of very great

and original genius, that we feel ourselves to be

under a stricter obligation to act according to justice,

than agreeably to friendship, charity, or generosity;

that the practice of these last mentioned virtues

seems to be left in some measure to our own

choice, but that, somehow or other, we feel ourselves

to be in a peculiar manner tied, bound, and

obliged to the observation of justice. We feel,

that is to say, that force may, with the utmost propriety

and with the approbation of all mankind,

be made use of to constrain us to observe the rules

of the one, but not to follow the precepts of the

other.

We must always, however, carefully distinguish

what is only blamable, or the proper object of disapprobation,

from what force may be employed either

to punish or to prevent. That seems blamable

which falls short of that ordinary degree of proper

beneficence which experience teaches us to expect

of every body; and on the contrary, that seems

praise-worthy which goes beyond it. The ordinary

degree itself, seems neither blamable nor praise-worthy.

A father, a son, a brother, who behaves

to the correspondent relation, neither better nor

worse than the greater part of men commonly do,

seems properly to deserve neither praise nor blame.

He who surprises us by extraordinary and unexpected,

123though still proper and suitable kindness, or on

the contrary, by extraordinary and unexpected, as

well as unsuitable unkindness, seems praise-worthy in

the one case, and blamable in the other.

Even the most ordinary degree of kindness or beneficence,

however, cannot, among equals, be extorted

by force. Among equals each individual is

naturally, and antecedent to the institution of civil

government, regarded as having a right both to

defend himself from injuries, and to exact a certain

degree of punishment for those which have been

done to him. Every generous spectator not only approves

of his conduct when he does this, but enters

so far into his sentiments as often to be willing to

assist him. When one man attacks, or robs, or attempts

to murder another, all the neighbours take the

alarm, and think that they do right when they run,

either to revenge the person who has been injured, or

to defend him who is in danger of being so. But when

a father fails in the ordinary degree of parental affection

towards a son, when a son seems to want that

filial reverence which might be expected to his father;

when brothers are without the usual degree of brotherly

affection; when a man shuts his breast against

compassion, and refuses to relieve the misery of his

fellow-creatures, when he can with the greatest ease;

in all these cases, though every body blames the

conduct, nobody imagines that those who might

have reason, perhaps, to expect more kindness,

have any right to extort it by force. The sufferer

can only complain, and the spectator can intermeddle

no other way than by advice and persuasion.

Upon all such occasions, for equals to use force

124against one another, would be thought the highest

degree of insolence and presumption.

A superior may, indeed, sometimes, with universal

approbation, oblige those under his jurisdiction

to behave, in this respect, with a certain degree of

propriety to one another. The laws of all civilized

nations oblige parents to maintain their children,

and children to maintain their parents, and impose

upon men many other duties of beneficence. The

civil magistrate is entrusted with the power not only

of preserving the public peace by retraining injustice,

but of promoting the prosperity of the commonwealth,

by establishing good discipline, and by

discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety;

he may prescribe rules, therefore, which not only

prohibit mutual injuries among fellow-citizens, but

command mutual good offices to a certain degree.

When the sovereign commands what is merely indifferent,

and what, antecedent to his orders, might

have been omitted without any blame, it becomes

not only blamable but punishable to disobey him.

When he commands, therefore, what, antecedent

to any such order, could not have been omitted without

the greatest blame, it surely becomes much more

punishable to be wanting in obedience. Of all the

duties of a law-giver, however, this, perhaps, is

that which it requires the greatest delicacy and reserve

to execute with propriety and judgment. To

neglect it altogether exposes the commonwealth to

many gross disorders and shocking enormities, and

to push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security,

and justice.

125Though the mere want of beneficence seems to

merit no punishment from equals, the greater exertions

of that virtue appear to deserve the highest

reward. By being productive of the greatest good,

they are the natural and approved objects of the

liveliest gratitude. Though the breach of justice,

on the contrary, exposes to punishment, the observance

of the rules of that virtue seems scarce to deserve

any reward. There is, no doubt, a propriety

in the practice of justice, and it merits, upon that

account, all the approbation which is due to propriety.

But as it does no real positive good, it is

entitled to very little gratitude. Mere justice is,

upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and

only hinders us from hurting our neighbour. The

man who barely abstains from violating either the

person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours,

has surely very little positive merit. He

fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly

called justice, and does everything which his equals

can with propriety force him to do, or which they

can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil

all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.

As every man doth, so shall it be done to him,

and retaliation seems to be the great law which is

dictated to us by Nature. Beneficence and generosity

we think due to the generous and beneficent.

Those whose hearts never open to the feelings of

humanity, should, we think, be shut out in the

same manner, from the affections of all their fellow-creatures,

and be allowed to live in the midst of society,

as in a great desert where there is nobody to

care for them, or to inquire after them. The violator

126of the laws of justice ought to be made to feel

himself that evil which he has done to another; and

since no regard to the sufferings of his brethren are

capable of restraining him, he ought to be over-awed

by the fear of his own. The man who is barely innocent,

who only observes the law of justice with

regard to others, and merely abstains from hurting

his neighbours, can merit only that his neighbours

in their turn should respect his innocence, and that

the same laws should be religiously observed with regard

to him.