The Theory of Moral Sentiments

f the causes of this influence of fortune.

The causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they

are, or however they operate, seem to be the objects,

which, in all animals, immediately excite those two

passions of gratitude and resentment. They are excited

by inanimated, as well as by animated objects.

We are angry, for a moment, even at the stone that

hurts us. A child beats it, a dog barks at it, a choleric

man is apt to curse it. The least reflection, indeed,

corrects this sentiment, and we soon become

sensible, that what has no feeling is a very improper

object of revenge. When the mischief, however,

is very great, the object which caused it becomes

disagreeable to us ever after, and we take pleasure

to burn or destroy it. We should treat, in this manner,

the instrument which had accidentally been the

cause of the death of a friend, and we should often

think ourselves guilty of a sort of inhumanity, if

we neglected to vent this absurd sort of vengeance

upon it.

We conceive, in the same manner, a sort of gratitude

for those inanimated objects, which have been

the causes of great, or frequent pleasure to us. The

sailor, who, as soon as he got ashore, should mend

his fire with the plank upon which he had just escaped

149from a shipwreck, would seem to be guilty

of an unnatural action. We should expect that he

would rather preserve it with care and affection, as

a monument that was, in some measure, dear to

him. A man grows fond of a snuff-box, of a pen-knife,

of a staff which he has long made use of, and

conceives something like a real love and affection

for them. If he breaks or loses them, he is vexed

out of all proportion to the value of the damage.

The house which we have long lived in, the tree,

whose verdure and shade we have long enjoyed,

are both looked upon with a sort of respect that

seems due to such benefactors. The decay of the

one, or the ruin of the other, affects us with a kind

of melancholy, though we should sustain no loss by

it. The Dryads and the Lares of the ancients, a

sort of genii of trees and houses, were probably first

suggested by this sort of affection, which the authors

of those superstitions felt for such objects, and which

seemed unreasonable, if there was nothing animated

about them.

But, before any thing can be the proper object of

gratitude or resentment, it must not only be the

cause of pleasure or pain, it must likewise be capable

of feeling them. Without this other quality,

those passions cannot vent themselves with any sort

of satisfaction upon it. As they are excited by the

causes of pleasure and pain, so their gratification

consists in retaliating those sensations upon what

gave occasion to them; which it is to no purpose to

attempt upon what has no sensibility. Animals,

therefore, are less improper objects of gratitude and

resentment than inanimated objects. The dog that

bites, the ox that gores, are both of them punished.

150If they have been the causes of the death of any person,

neither the public, nor the relations of the slain,

can be satisfied, unless they are put to death in their

turn: nor is this merely for the security of the living,

but in some measure, to revenge the injury of

the dead. Those animals, on the contrary, that

have been remarkably serviceable to their masters,

become the objects of a very lively gratitude. We

are shocked at the brutality of that officer, mentioned

in the Turkish Spy, who stabbed the horse that

had carried him a-cross an arm of the sea, lest that

animal should afterwards distinguish some other person

by a similar adventure.

But, though animals are not only the causes of

pleasure and pain, but are also capable of feeling

those sensations, they are still far from being complete

and perfect objects, either of gratitude or resentment;

and those passions still feel, that there is

something wanting to their entire gratification. What

gratitude chiefly desires, is not only to make the

benefactor feel pleasure in his turn, but to make him

conscious that he meets with this reward on account

of his past conduct, to make him pleased with that

conduct, and to satisfy him that the person upon

whom he bestowed his good offices was not unworthy

of them. What most of all charms us in our

benefactor, is the concord between his sentiments

and our own, with regard to what interests us so nearly

as the worth of our own character, and the esteem

that is due to us. We are delighted to find a person

who values us as well as we value ourselves, and

distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an

attention not unlike that with which we distinguish

ourselves. To maintain in him these agreeable and flattering

151sentiments, is one of the chief ends proposed

by the returns we are disposed to make to him. A

generous mind often disdains the interested thought

of extorting new favours from its benefactor, by

what may be called the importunities of its gratitude.

But to preserve and to increase his esteem,

is an interest which the greatest mind does not think

unworthy of its attention. And this is the foundation

of what I formerly observed, that when we

cannot enter into the motives of our benefactor,

when his conduct and character appear unworthy of

our approbation, let his services have been ever so

great, our gratitude is always sensibly diminished.

We are less flattered by the distinction; and to preserve

the esteem of so weak, or so worthless a patron,

seems to be an object which does not deserve

to be pursued for its own sake.

The object, on the contrary, which resentment

is chiefly intent upon, is not so much to make our

enemy feel pain in his turn, as to make him conscious

that he feels it upon account of his past conduct,

to make him repent of that conduct, and to

make him sensible, that the person whom he injured

did not deserve to be treated in that manner.

What chiefly enrages us against the man who injures

or insults us, is the little account which he

seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference

which he gives to himself above us, and that absurd

self-love, by which he seems to imagine, that other

people may be sacrificed at any time, to his conveniency

or his humour. The glaring impropriety of

this conduct, the gross insolence and injustice which

it seems to involve in it, often shock and exasperate

us more than all the mischief which we have suffered.

152To bring him back to a more just sense of what is

due to other people, to make him sensible of what

he owes us, and of the wrong that he has done to

us, is frequently the principal end proposed in our

revenge, which is always imperfect when it cannot

accomplish this. When our enemy appears to have

done us no injury, when we are sensible that he acted

quite properly, that, in his situation, we should

have done the same thing, and that we deserved

from him all the mischief we met with; in that case,

if we have the least spark either of candour or justice,

we can entertain no sort of resentment.

Before any thing, therefore, can be the complete

and proper object, either of gratitude or resentment,

it must possess three different qualifications.

First, it must be the cause of pleasure in the one case,

and of pain in the other. Secondly, it must be capable

of feeling those sensations. And, thirdly, it

must not only have produced those sensations, but

it must have produced them from design, and from

a design that is approved of in the one case, and

disapproved of in the other. It is by the first qualification,

that any object is capable of exciting those

passions: it is by the second, that it is in any respect

capable of gratifying them: the third qualification is

both necessary for their complete satisfaction, and as

it gives a pleasure or pain that is both exquisite and

peculiar, it is likewise an additional exciting cause of

those passions.

As what gives pleasure or pain, therefore, either

in one way or another, is the sole exciting cause of

gratitude and resentment; though the intentions of

any person should be ever so proper and beneficent,

153on the one hand, or ever so improper and malevolent

on the other; yet, if he has failed in producing

either the good or evil which he intended, as

one of the exciting causes is wanting in both cases,

less gratitude seems due to him in the one, and less

resentment in the other. And, on the contrary,

though in the intentions of any person, there was

either no laudable degree of benevolence on the one

hand, or no blamable degree of malice on the other;

yet, if his actions should produce either great good

or great evil, as one of the exciting causes takes

place upon both these occasions, some gratitude is

apt to arise towards him in the one, and some resentment

in the other. A shadow of merit seems to

fall upon him in the first, a shadow of demerit in the

second. And, as the consequences of actions are altogether

under the empire of Fortune, hence arises

her influence upon the sentiments of mankind, with

regard to merit and demerit.

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