The Theory of Moral Sentiments

f the influence and authority of the general rules of morality, and that they are justly regarded as the laws of the Deity.

The regard to those general rules of conduct,

is what is properly called a sense of duty, a principle

of the greatest consequence in human life, and

the only principle by which the bulk of mankind are

capable of directing their actions. Many men behave

very decently, and through the whole of their

lives avoid any considerable degree of blame, who

yet, perhaps, never felt the sentiment upon the

propriety of which we found our approbation of

their conduct, but acted merely from a regard to

what they saw were the established rules of behaviour.

The man who has received great benefits

from another person, may, by the natural coldness of

his temper, feel but a very small degree of the sentiment

of gratitude. If he has been virtuously educated,

however, he will often have been made to observe

how odious those actions appear which denote a

want of this sentiment, and how amiable the contrary.

Tho’ his heart therefore is not warmed with

any grateful affection, he will strive to act as if it

was, and will endeavour to pay all those regards

and attentions to his patron which the liveliest gratitude

208could suggest. He will visit him regularly;

he will behave to him respectfully; he will never

talk of him but with expressions of the highest esteem,

and of the many obligations which he owes

to him. And what is more, he will carefully embrace

every opportunity of making a proper return

for past services. He may do all this too without

any hypocrisy or blamable dissimulation, without

any selfish intention of obtaining new favours, and

without any design of imposing either upon his benefactor

or the public. The motive of his actions

may be no other than a reverence for the established

rule of duty, a serious and earnest desire of acting,

in every respect, according to the law of gratitude.

A wife, in the same manner, may sometimes not

feel that tender regard for her husband which is suitable

to the relation that subsists between them. If

she has been virtuously educated, however, she will

endeavour to act as if she felt it, to be careful, officious,

faithful, and sincere, and to be deficient in

none of those attentions which the sentiment of conjugal

affection could have prompted her to perform.

Such a friend, and such a wife, are neither of them,

undoubtedly, the very best of their kinds; and

though both of them may have the most serious and

earnest desire to fulfil every part of their duty, yet

they will fail in many nice and delicate regards,

they will miss many opportunities of obliging, which

they could never have overlooked if they had possessed

the sentiment that is proper to their situation.

Though not the very first of their kinds, however,

they are perhaps the second; and if the regard to

the general rules of conduct has been very strongly

impressed upon them, neither of them will fail in

any essential part of their duty. None but those of

209the happiest mould are capable of suiting, with exact

justness, their sentiments and behaviour to the

smallest difference of situation, and of acting upon

all occasions with the most delicate and accurate

propriety. The coarse clay of which the bulk of

mankind are formed, cannot be wrought up to such

perfection. There is scarce any man, however,

who by discipline, education, and example, may not

be impressed with a regard to general rules, as to act

upon almost every occasion with tolerable decency,

and through the whole of his life avoid any considerable

degree of blame.

Without this sacred regard to general rules, there

is no man whose conduct can be much depended

upon. It is this which constitutes the most essential

difference between a man of principle and honour

and a worthless fellow. The one adheres, on all

occasions, steadily and resolutely to his maxims,

and preserves through the whole of his life one even

tenour of conduct. The other, acts variously and

accidentally, as humour, inclination, or interest

chance to be uppermost. Nay, such are the inequalities

of humour to which all men are subject,

that without this principle, the man who, in his cool

hours, had the most delicate sensibility to the propriety

of conduct, might often be led to act absurdly

upon the most frivolous occasions, and when

it was scarce possible to assign any serious motive for

his behaviour in this manner. Your friend makes

you a visit when you happen to be in a humour

which makes it disagreeable to receive him: in your

present mood this civility is very apt to appear an

impertinent intrusion; and if you were to give way

to the views of things which at this time occur,

210though civil in your temper, you would behave to

him with coldness and contempt. What renders

you incapable of such a rudeness, is nothing but a

regard to the general rules of civility and hospitality,

which prohibit it. That habitual reverence which

your former experience has taught you for these,

enables you to act, upon all such occasions, with

nearly equal propriety, and hinders those inequalities

of temper, to which all men are subject, from

influencing your conduct in any very sensible degree.

But if without regard to these general rules, even

the duties of politeness, which are so easily observed,

and which can scarce have any serious motive

to violate, would yet be so frequently violated,

what would become of the duties of justice, of

truth, of chastity, of fidelity, which it is often so

difficult to observe, and which there may be so many

strong motives to violate? But upon the tolerable

observance of these duties, depends the very

existence of human society, which would crumble

into nothing if mankind were not generally impressed

with a reverence for those important rules of

conduct.

This reverence is still further enhanced by an opinion

which is first impressed by nature, and afterwards

confirmed by reasoning and philosophy, that

those important rules of morality, are the commands

and laws of the Deity, who will finally reward the

obedient, and punish the transgressors of their duty.

This opinion or apprehension, I say, seems first to

be impressed by nature. Men are naturally led to

ascribe to those mysterious beings, whatever they

are, which happen, in any country, to be the objects

211of religious fear, all their own sentiments and

passions. They have no other, they can conceive

no other to ascribe to them. Those unknown intelligences

which they imagine but see not, must

necessarily be formed with some sort of resemblance

to those intelligences of which they have experience.

During the ignorance and darkness of pagan superstition,

mankind seem to have formed the ideas of

their divinities with so little delicacy, that they ascribed

to them, indiscriminately, all the passions of

human nature, those not excepted which do the

least honour to our species, such as lust, hunger,

avarice, envy, revenge. They could not fail therefore,

to ascribe to those beings, for the excellence

of whose nature they still conceived the highest admiration,

those sentiments and qualities which are

the great ornaments of humanity, and which seem

to raise it to a resemblance of divine perfection, the

love of virtue and beneficence, and the abhorrence

of vice and injustice. The man who was injured,

called upon Jupiter to be witness of the wrong that

was done to him, and could not doubt, but that divine

being would behold it with the same indignation

which would animate the meanest of mankind,

who looked on when injustice was committed.

The man who did the injury, felt himself to be

the proper object of detestation and resentment of

mankind; and his natural fears led him to impute

the same sentiments to those awful beings, whose

presence he could not avoid, and whose power he

could not resist. These natural hopes and fears,

and suspicions, were propagated by sympathy, and

confirmed by education; and the gods were universally

represented and believed to be the rewarders

of humanity and mercy, and the avengers of perfidy

212and injustice. And thus religion, even in its

rudest form, gave a sanction to the rules of morality,

long before the age of artificial reasoning and

philosophy. That the terrors of religion should

thus enforce the natural sense of duty, was of too

much importance to the happiness of mankind, for

nature to leave it dependent upon the slowness and

uncertainty of philosophical researches.

These researches, however, when they came to

take place, confirmed those original anticipations of

nature. Upon whatever we suppose that our moral

faculties are founded, whether upon a certain modification

of reason, upon an original instinct, called a

moral sense, or upon some other principle of our

nature, it cannot be doubted, that they were given

us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They

carry along with them the most evident badges of

this authority, which denote that they were set up

within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions,

to superintend all our senses, passions, and appetites,

and to judge how far each of them was either to be

indulged or restrained. Our moral faculties are by no

means, as some have pretended, upon a level in this

respect with the other faculties and appetites of our

nature, endowed with no more right to restrain these

last, than these last are to restrain them. No other

faculty or principle of action judges of any other.

Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment

of love. Those two passions may be opposite to one

another, but cannot, with any propriety, be said to

approve or disapprove of one another. But it is the

peculiar office of those faculties now under our consideration

to judge, to bestow censure or applause

upon all the other principles of our nature. They

213may be considered as a sort of senses of which those

principles are the objects. Every sense is supreme

over its own objects. There is no appeal from the

eye with regard to the beauty of colours, nor from

the ear with regard to the harmony of sounds, nor

from the taste with regard to the agreeableness of

flavours. Each of those senses judges in the last

resort of its own objects. Whatever gratifies the

taste is sweet, whatever pleases the eye is beautiful,

whatever sooths the ear is harmonious. The very

essence of each of those qualities consists in being

fitted to please the sense to which it is addressed. It

belongs to our moral faculties, in the same manner

to determine when the ear ought to be soothed, when

the eye ought to be indulged, when the taste ought

to be gratified, when and how far every other principle

of our nature ought to be indulged or restrained.

What is agreeable to our moral faculties, is fit,

and right, and proper to be done; the contrary

wrong, unfit, and improper. The sentiments which

they approve of, are graceful and unbecoming. The

very words, right, wrong, fit, improper, graceful,

unbecoming, mean only what pleases or displeases

those faculties.

Since these, therefore, were plainly intended to be

the governing principles of human nature, the rules

which they prescribe, are to be regarded as the commands

and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those

vicegerents which he has thus set up within us. All

general rules are commonly denominated laws: thus

the general rules which bodies observe in the communication

of motion, are called the laws of motion.

But those general rules which our moral faculties

observe in approving or condemning whatever sentiment

214or action is subjected to their examination, may

much more justly be denominated such. They have

a much greater resemblance to what are properly called

laws, those general rules which the sovereign lays

down to direct the conduct of his subjects. Like

them they are rules to direct the free actions of men:

they are prescribed most surely by a lawful superior,

and are attended to in the sanction of rewards and

punishments. Those vicegerents of God within us,

never fail to punish the violation of them, by the torments

of inward shame, and self-condemnation;

and on the contrary, always reward obedience with

tranquillity of mind, with contentment, and self-satisfaction.

There are innumerable other considerations which

serve to confirm the same conclusion. The happiness

of mankind, as well as of all other rational

creatures, seems to have been the original purpose

intended by the Author of nature, when he

brought them into existence. No other end seems

worthy of that supreme wisdom and divine benignity

which we necessarily ascribe to him; and this

opinion, which we are led to by the abstract consideration

of his infinite perfections, is still more confirmed

by the examination of the works of nature,

which seem all intended to promote happiness, and

to guard against misery. But by acting according

to the dictates of our moral faculties, we necessarily

pursue the most effectual means for promoting the

happiness of mankind, and may therefore be said,

in some sense, to co-operate with the Deity, and to

advance as far as in our power the plan of Providence.

By acting otherways, on the contrary, we

seem to obstruct, in some measure, the scheme

which the Author of nature has established for the

215happiness and perfection of the world, and to declare

ourselves, if I may say so, in some measure the

enemies of God. Hence we are naturally encouraged

to hope for his extraordinary favour and reward

in the one case, and to dread his vengeance

and punishment in the other.

There are besides many other reasons, and many

other natural principles, which all tend to confirm

and inculcate the same salutary doctrine. If we consider

the general rules by which external prosperity

and adversity are commonly distributed in this life,

we shall find, that notwithstanding the disorder in

which all things appear to be in this world, yet even

here every virtue naturally meets with its proper reward,

with the recompense which is most fit to encourage

and promote it; and this too so surely, that

it requires a very extraordinary concurrence of circumstances

entirely to disappoint it. What is the

reward most proper for encouraging industry, prudence,

and circumspection? Success in every sort

of business. And is it possible that in the whole of

life these virtues should fail of attaining it? Wealth

and external honours are their proper recompense,

and the recompense which they can seldom fail of

acquiring. What reward is most proper for promoting

the practice of truth, justice, and humanity?

The confidence, the esteem, and love of those we

live with. Humanity does not desire to be great,

but to be beloved. It is not in being rich that truth

and justice would rejoice, but in being trusted and

believed, recompenses which those virtues must almost

always acquire. By some very extraordinary

and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come

to be suspected of a crime of which he was altogether

216incapable, and upon that account be most unjustly

exposed for the remaining part of his life to

the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident

of this kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding

his integrity and justice; in the same

manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his utmost

circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake

or an inundation. Accidents of the first

kind, however, are perhaps still more rare, and still

more contrary to the common course of things than

those of the second; and still it remains true, that the

practice of truth, justice, and humanity, is a certain

and almost infallible method of acquiring what those

virtues chiefly aim at, the confidence and love of

those we live with. A person may be very easily

misrepresented with regard to a particular action;

but it is scarce possible that he should be so with regard

to the general tenor of his conduct. An innocent

man may be believed to have done wrong:

this, however, will rarely happen. On the contrary,

the established opinion of the innocence of his

manners, will often lead us to absolve him where he

has really been in the fault, notwithstanding very

strong presumptions. A knave, in the same manner

may escape censure, or even meet applause, for

a particular knavery, in which his conduct is not

understood. But no man was ever habitually such,

without being almost universally known to be so,

and without being even frequently suspected of

guilt, when he was in reality perfectly innocent.

And so far as vice and virtue can be either punished

or rewarded by the sentiments and opinions of mankind,

they both, according to the common course

of things, meet even here with something more

than exact and impartial justice.

217But though the general rules by which prosperity

and adversity are commonly distributed, when considered

in this cool and philosophical light, appear to

be perfectly suited to the situation of mankind in

this life, yet they are by no means suited to some of

our natural sentiments. Our natural love and admiration

for some virtues is such, that we should

wish to bestow on them all sorts of honours and rewards,

even those which we must acknowledge to

be the proper recompenses of other qualities with

which those virtues are not always accompanied.

Our detestation, on the contrary, for some vices is

such, that we should desire to heap upon them every

sort of disgrace and disaster, those not excepted

which are the natural consequences of very different

qualities. Magnanimity, generosity, and justice

command so high a degree of admiration, that we

desire to see them crowned with wealth, and power,

and honours of every kind, the natural consequences

of prudence, industry, and application; qualities

with which those virtues are not inseparably connected.

Fraud, falsehood, brutality, and violence, on

the other hand, excite in every human breast such

scorn and abhorrence, that our indignation rouses to

see them possess those advantages which they may in

some sense be said to have merited, by the diligence

and industry with which they are sometimes attended.

The industrious knave cultivates the soil; the indolent

good man leaves it uncultivated. Who ought

to reap the harvest? Who starve, and who live in

plenty? The natural course of things decides it in

favour of the knave: the natural sentiments of mankind

in favour of the man of virtue. Man judges,

that the good qualities of the one are greatly over-recompensed

by those advantages which they tend to

218procure him, and that the omissions of the other are

by far too severely punished by the distress which

they naturally bring upon him; and human laws,

the consequences of human sentiments, forfeit the

life and the estate of the industrious and cautious

traitor, and reward, by extraordinary recompenses,

the fidelity and public spirit of the improvident and

careless good citizen. Thus man is by Nature directed

to correct, in some measure, that distribution

of things which she herself would otherwise have

made. The rules which for this purpose she prompts

him to follow, are different from those which she

herself observes. She bestows upon every virtue, and

upon every vice, that precise reward or punishment

which is best fitted to encourage the one, or to restrain

the other. She is directed by this sole consideration,

and pays little regard to the different degrees

of merit and demerit, which they may seem to possess

in the sentiments and passions of man. Man, on

the contrary, pays regard to this only, and would

endeavour to render the state of every virtue precisely

proportioned to that degree of love and esteem, and

of every vice to that degree of contempt and abhorrence,

which he himself conceives for it. The rules

which she follows are fit for her, those which he follows

for him: but both are calculated to promote the

same great end, the order of the world, and the perfection

and happiness of human nature.

But though man is thus employed to alter that

distribution of things which natural events would

make, if left to themselves; though, like the gods

of the poets, he is perpetually interposing, by extraordinary

means, in favour of virtue, and in opposition

to vice, and like them, endeavours to turn away

219the arrow that is aimed at the head of the righteous,

but accelerates the sword of destruction that is lifted

up against the wicked; yet he is by no means able

to render the fortune of either quite suitable to his

own sentiments and wishes. The natural course of

things cannot be entirely controuled by the impotent

endeavours of man: the current is too rapid and

too strong for him to stop it; and though the rules

which direct it appear to have been established for

the wisest and best purposes, they sometimes produce

effects which shock all his natural sentiments.

That a great combination of men, should prevail

over a small one; that those who engage in an enterprise

with fore-thought and all necessary preparation,

should prevail over such as oppose them without

any; and that every end should be acquired by

those means only which Nature has established for

acquiring it, seems to be a rule not only necessary

and unavoidable in itself, but even useful and proper

for rousing the industry and attention of mankind.

Yet, when, in consequence of this rule, violence and

artifice prevail over sincerity and justice, what indignation

does it not excite in the breast of every humane

spectator? What sorrow and compassion for the

sufferings of the innocent, and what furious resentment

against the success of the oppressor? We are

equally grieved and enraged, at the wrong that is

done, but often find it altogether out of our power

to redress it. When we thus despair of finding any

force upon earth which can check the triumph of

injustice, we naturally appeal to Heaven, and hope,

that the great Author of our nature will himself execute

hereafter, what all the principles which he has

given us for the direction of our conduct, prompt us

to attempt even here; that he will complete the

220plan which he himself has thus taught us to begin;

and will, in a life to come, render to every one according

to the works which he has performed in this

world. And thus we are led to the belief of a future

state, not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and

fears of human nature, but by the noblest and best

principles which belong to it, by the love of virtue,

and by the abhorrence of vice and injustice.

“Does it suit the greatness of God,” says the eloquent

and philosophical bishop of Clermont, with

that passionate and exaggerating force of imagination,

which seems sometimes to exceed the bounds of

decorum; “does it suit the greatness of God, to

leave the world which he has created in so universal

a disorder? To see the wicked prevail almost

always over the just; the innocent dethroned

by the usurper; the father become the victim of

the ambition of an unnatural son; the husband

expiring under the stroke of a barbarous and faithless

wife? From the height of his greatness ought

God to behold those melancholy events as a fantastical

amusement, without taking any share in

them? Because he is great, should he be weak,

or unjust, or barbarous? Because men are little,

ought they to be allowed either to be dissolute

without punishment, or virtuous without reward?

O God! if this is the character of your Supreme

Being; if it is you whom we adore under such

dreadful ideas; I can no longer acknowledge you

for my father, for my protector, for the comforter

of my sorrow, the support of my weakness, the

rewarder of my fidelity. You would then be no

more than an indolent and fantastical tyrant, who

sacrifices mankind to his insolent vanity, and who

221has brought them out of nothing, only to make

them serve for the sport of his leisure, and of his

caprice.”

When the general rules which determine the merit

and demerit of actions, come thus to be regarded,

as the laws of an All-powerful Being, who watches

over our conduct, and who, in a life to come, will

reward the observance, and punish the breach of

them; they necessarily acquire a new sacredness from

this consideration. That our regard to the will of

the Deity, ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct,

can be doubted of by no body who believes

his existence. The very thought of disobedience

appears to involve in it the most shocking impropriety.

How vain, how absurd would it be for man,

either to oppose or to neglect the commands that

were laid upon him by Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite

Power! How unnatural, how impiously ungrateful

not to reverence the precepts that were prescribed

to him by the infinite goodness of his Creator,

even though no punishment was to follow their violation.

The sense of propriety too is here well supported

by the strongest motives of self-interest.

The idea that, however we may escape the observation

of man, or be placed above the reach of human

punishment, yet we are always acting under the eye,

and exposed to the punishment of God, the great

avenger of injustice, is a motive capable of restraining

the most headstrong passions, with those at least

who, by constant reflection, have rendered it familiar

to them.

It is in this manner that religion enforces the natural

sense of duty: and hence it is, that mankind

222are generally disposed to place great confidence in

the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with

religious sentiments. Such persons, they imagine,

act under an additional tye, besides those which regulate

the conduct of other men. The regard to the

propriety of action as well as to reputation, the regard

to the applause of his own breast, as well as that

of others, are motives which they suppose have the

same influence over the religious man, as over the

man of the world. But the former lies under another

restraint, and never acts deliberately but as in

the presence of that Great Superior who is finally to

recompense him according to his deeds. A greater

trust is reposed, upon this account, in the regularity

and exactness of his conduct. And wherever the

natural principles of religion are not corrupted by the

factious and party zeal of some worthless cabal;

wherever the first duty which it requires, is to fulfil

all the obligations of morality; wherever men are not

taught to regard frivolous observances, as more immediate

duties of religion, than acts of justice and

beneficence; and to imagine, that by sacrifices, and

ceremonies, and vain supplications, they can bargain

with the Deity for fraud, and perfidy, and violence,

the world undoubtedly judges right in this respect,

and justly places a double confidence in the rectitude

of the religious man’s behaviour.

223