The Theory of Moral Sentiments

f the beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon all the productions of art, and of the extensive influence of this species of beauty.

That utility is one of the principal sources

of beauty has been observed by every body, who

has considered with any attention what constitutes

the nature of beauty. The conveniency of a

house gives pleasure to the spectator as well as its

regularity, and he is as much hurt when he observes

the contrary defect, as when he sees the correspondent

windows of different forms, or the door not

placed exactly in the middle of the building. That

the fitness of any system or machine to produce the

end for which it was intended, bestows a certain

propriety and beauty upon the whole, and renders

the very thought and contemplation of it agreeable,

is so very obvious that nobody has overlooked it.

238The cause too, why utility pleases, has of late

been assigned by an ingenious and agreeable philosopher,

who joins the greatest depth of thought to

the greatest elegance of expression, and possesses the

singular and happy talent of treating the abstrusest

subjects not only with the most perfect perspicuity,

but with the most lively eloquence. The utility of

any object, according to him, pleases the master by

perpetually suggesting to him the pleasure or conveniency

which it is fitted to promote. Every time he

looks at it, he is put in mind of this pleasure; and

the object in this manner becomes a source of perpetual

satisfaction and enjoyment. The spectator

enters by sympathy into the sentiments of the master,

and necessarily views the object under the same agreeable

aspect. When we visit the palaces of the great,

we cannot help conceiving the satisfaction we should

enjoy if we ourselves were the masters, and were possessed

of so much artful and ingeniously contrived

accommodation. A similar account is given why

the appearance of inconveniency should render any

object disagreeable both to the owner and to the

spectator.

But that this fitness, this happy contrivance of

any production of art, should often be more valued,

than the very end for which it was intended; and

that the exact adjustment of the means for attaining

any conveniency or pleasure, should frequently be

more regarded, than that very conveniency or pleasure,

in the attainment of which their whole merit

would seem to consist, has not, so far as I know,

been yet taken notice of by any body. That this

however is very frequently the case, may be observed

239in a thousand instances, both in the most frivolous

and in the most important concerns of human life.

When a person comes into his chamber, and finds

the chairs all standing in the middle of the room, he

is angry with his servant, and rather than see them

continue in that disorder, perhaps takes the trouble

himself to set them all in their places with their backs

to the wall. The whole propriety of this new situation

arises from its superior conveniency in leaving

the floor free and disengaged. To attain this conveniency

he voluntarily puts himself to more trouble

than all he could have suffered from the want of it;

since nothing was more easy, than to have set himself

down upon one of them, which is probably

what he does when his labour is over. What he

wanted therefore, it seems, was not so much this

conveniency, as that arrangement of things which

promotes it. Yet it is this conveniency which ultimately

recommends that arrangement, and bestows

upon it the whole of its propriety and beauty.

A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind

above two minutes in a day, is despised by one curious

in watches. He sells it perhaps for a couple of

guineas, and purchases another at fifty, which will

not lose above a minute in a fortnight. The sole

use of watches however, is to tell us what o’clock

it is, and to hinder us from breaking any engagement,

or suffering any other inconveniency by our

ignorance in that particular point. But the person

so nice with regard to this machine, will not always

be found either more scrupulously punctual than

other men, or more anxiously concerned upon any

other account, to know precisely what time of day

240it is. What interests him is not so much the attainment

of this piece of knowledge, as the perfection

of the machine which serves to attain it.

How many people ruin themselves by laying out

money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What

pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility,

as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to

promote it. All their pockets are fluffed with little

conveniencies. They contrive new pockets, unknown

in the clothes of other people, in order to

carry a greater number. They walk about loaded

with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes

in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew’s-box,

some of which may sometimes be of some little

use, but all of which might at all times be very well

spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not

worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.

Nor is it only with regard to such frivolous objects

that our conduct is influenced by this principle;

it is often the secret motive of the most serious

and important pursuits of both private and public

life.

The poor man’s son, whom Heaven in its anger

has visited with ambition, when he begins to look

around him admires the condition of the rich. He

finds the cottage of his father too small for his accommodation,

and fancies he should be lodged more

at his ease in a palace. He is displeased with being

obliged to walk a-foot, or to endure the fatigue of

riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried

about in machines, and imagines that in one of

these he could travel with less inconveniency. He

241feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve

himself with his own hands as little as possible; and

judges, that a numerous retinue of servants would

save him from a great deal of trouble. He thinks

if he had attained all these, he would sit still contentedly,

and be quiet, enjoying himself in the

thought of the happiness and tranquillity of his situation.

He is enchanted with the distant idea of this

felicity. It appears in his fancy like the life of some

superior rank of beings, and in order to arrive at it,

he devotes himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth

and greatness. To obtain the conveniencies which

these afford, he submits in the first year, nay in the

first month of his application, to more fatigue of

body and more uneasiness of mind than he could

have suffered through the whole of his life from the

want of them. He studies to distinguish himself in

some laborious profession. With the most unrelenting

industry he labours night and day to acquire

talents superior to all his competitors. He endeavours

next to bring those talents into public view,

and with equal assiduity solicits every opportunity of

employment. For this purpose he makes his court

to all mankind, he serves those whom he hates, and

is obsequious to those whom he despises. Through

the whole of his life he pursues the idea of a certain

artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive

at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquillity

that is at all times in his power, and which, if in

the extremity of old age he should at last attain to

it, he will find to be in no respect preferable to that

humble security and contentment which he had abandoned

for it. It is then, in the last dregs of life,

his body wailed with toil and diseases, his mind

galled and ruffled by the memory of a thousand

242injuries and disappointments which he imagines

he has met with from the injustice of his enemies,

or from the perfidy and ingratitude of his friends,

that he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness

are mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more

adapted for procuring ease of body or tranquillity

of mind than the tweezer-cases of the lover of toys;

and like them too, more troublesome to the person

who carries them about with him than all the advantages

they can afford him are commodious.

There is no other real difference between them, except

that the conveniencies of the one are somewhat

more observable than those of the other. The palaces,

the gardens, the equipage, the retinue of the

great are objects of which the obvious conveniency

strikes every body. They do not require that their

masters should point out to us wherein consists their

utility. Of our own accord we readily enter into it,

and by sympathy enjoy and thereby applaud the satisfaction

which they are fitted to afford him. But

the curiosity of a tooth-pick, of an ear-picker, of a

machine for cutting the nails, or of any other trinket

of the same kind, is not so obvious. Their convenience

may perhaps be equally great, but it is not so

striking, and we do not so readily enter into the satisfaction

of the man who possesses them. They are

therefore less reasonable subjects of vanity than the

magnificence of wealth and greatness; and in this

consists the sole advantage of these last. They more

effectually gratify that love of distinction so natural

to man. To one who was to live alone in a desolate

island it might be a matter of doubt, perhaps, whether

a palace, or a collection of such small conveniencies

as are commonly contained in a tweezer-case,

would contribute most to his happiness and enjoyment.

243If he is to live in society, indeed, there can

be no comparison, because in this, as in all other

cases, we constantly pay more regard to the sentiments

of the spectator, than to those of the person

principally concerned, and consider rather how his

situation will appear to other people, than how it

will appear to himself. If we examine, however,

why the spectator distinguishes with such admiration

the condition of the rich and the great, we shall find

that it is not so much upon account of the superior

ease or pleasure which they are supposed to enjoy, as

of the numberless artificial and elegant contrivances

for promoting this ease or pleasure. He does not

even imagine that they are really happier than other

people: but he imagines that they possess more

means of happiness. And it is the ingenious and

artful adjustment of those means to the end for

which they were intended, that is the principal

source of his admiration. But in the languor of

disease, and the weariness of old age, the pleasures

of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear.

To one, in this situation, they are no

longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits

in which they had formerly engaged him. In

his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the

ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are

fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed for

what, when he has got it, can afford him no real

satisfaction. In this miserable aspect does greatness

appear to every man when reduced either by spleen

or disease to observe with attention his own situation,

and to consider what it is that is really wanting to

his happiness. Power and riches appear then to be

what they are, enormous and operose machines

contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to

244the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate,

which must be kept in order with the most

anxious attention, and which in spite of all our care

are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to

crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. They

are immense fabrics, which it requires the labour of a

life to raise, which threaten every moment to overwhelm

the person that dwells in them, and which

while they stand, though they may save him from some

smaller inconveniencies, can protect him from none

of the severer inclemencies of the season. They keep

off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but

leave him always as much, and sometimes more exposed

than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow;

to diseases, to danger, and to death.

But though this splenetic philosophy, which in

time of sickness or low spirits is familiar to every

man, thus entirely depreciates those great objects of

human desire, when in better health and in better

humour, we never fail to regard them under a

more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which

in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and

cooped up within our own persons, in times of

ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing

around us. We are then charmed with the beauty

of that accommodation which reigns in the palaces

and œconomy of the great; and admire how every

thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent

their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse

and entertain their most frivolous desires. If we

consider the real satisfaction which all these things

are capable of affording, by itself and separated

from the beauty of that arrangement which is fitted

to promote it, it will always appear in the highest

245degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely

view it in this abstract and philosophical light. We

naturally confound it in our imagination with the

order, the regular and harmonious movement of the

system, the machine or œconomy by means of which

it is produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness,

when considered in this complex view, strike

the imagination as something grand and beautiful and

noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the

toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow

upon it.

And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this

manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps

in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is

this which first prompted them to cultivate the

ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths,

and to invent and improve all the

sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human

life; which have entirely changed the whole

face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of

nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the

trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence,

and the great high road of communication to the

different nations of the earth. The earth by these

labours of mankind has been obliged to redouble her

natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude

of inhabitants. It is to no purpose, that the proud

and unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields,

and without a thought for the wants of his brethren,

in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest

that grows upon them. The homely and vulgar

proverb, that the eye is larger than the belly, never

was more fully verified than with regard to him.

The capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to

246the immensity of his desires, and will receive no

more than that of the meanest peasant. The rest he

is obliged to distribute among those, who prepare,

in the nicest manner, that little which he himself

makes use of, among those who sit up the palace in

which this little is to be consumed, among those

who provide and keep in order all the different baubles

and trinkets, which are employed in the œconomy

of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his

luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of

life, which they would in vain have expected from

his humanity or his justice. The produce of the soil

maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants,

which it is capable of maintaining. The rich

only select from the heap what is most precious and

agreeable. They consume little more than the poor,

and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity,

though they mean only their own conveniency,

though the sole end which they propose from the

labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be

the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires,

they divide with the poor the produce of all

their improvements. They are led by an invisible

hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries

of life, which would have been made,

had the earth been divided into equal portions among

all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it,

without knowing it, advance the interest of the

society, and afford means to the multiplication of

the species. When Providence divided the earth

among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor

abandoned those who seemed to have been left

out in the partition. These last too enjoy their

share of all that it produces. In what constitutes

247the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect

inferior to those who would seem so much above

them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the

different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and

the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway,

possesses that security which kings are fighting

for.

The same principle, the same love of system, the

same regard to the beauty of order, of art and contrivance,

frequently serves to recommend those institutions,

which tend to promote the public welfare.

When a patriot exerts himself for the improvement

of any part of the public police, his conduct does

not always arise from pure sympathy with the happiness

of those who are to reap the benefit of it. It

is not commonly from a fellow-feeling with carriers

and waggoners that a public-spirited man encourages

the mending of high roads. When the legislature

establishes premiums and other encouragements to

advance the linen or woollen manufactures, its conduct

seldom proceeds from pure sympathy with the

wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much less from

that with the manufacturer, or merchant. The perfection

of police, the extension of trade and manufactures,

are noble and magnificent objects. The

contemplation of them pleases us, and we are interested

in whatever can tend to advance them. They

make part of the great system of government, and

the wheels of the political machine seem to move

with more harmony and ease by means of them.

We take pleasure in beholding the perfection of so

beautiful and grand a system, and we are uneasy till

we remove any obstruction that can in the least disturb

or encumber the regularity of its motions. All

248constitutions of government, however, are valued

only in proportion, as they tend to promote the happiness

of those who live under them. This is their

sole use and end. From a certain spirit of system,

however, from a certain love of art and contrivance,

we sometimes seem to value the means more than the

end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of

our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to perfect

and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system,

than from any immediate sense or feeling of what

they either suffer or enjoy. There have been men of

the greatest public spirit, who have shewn themselves

in other respects not very sensible to the feelings of

humanity. And on the contrary, there have been

men of the greatest humanity, who seem to have

been entirely devoid of public spirit. Every man

may find in the circle of his acquaintance instances

both of the one kind and the other. Who had ever

less humanity, or more public spirit, than the celebrated

legislator of Muscovy? The social and well

natured James the First of Great Britain seems, on

the contrary, to have had scarce any passion, either

for the glory, or the interest of his country. Would

you awaken the industry of the man, who seems almost

dead to ambition, it will often be to no purpose

to describe to him the happiness of the rich and the

great; to tell him that they are generally sheltered

from the sun and the rain, that they are seldom hungry,

that they are seldom cold, and that they are rarely

exposed to weariness, or to want of any kind.

The most eloquent exhortation of this kind will have

little effect upon him. If you would hope to succeed,

you must describe to him the conveniency and

arrangement of the different apartments in their

palaces, you must explain to him the propriety of

249their equipages, and point out to him the number,

the order, and the different offices of all their attendants.

If any thing is capable of making impression

upon him, this will. Yet all these things tend only

to keep off the sun and the rain, to save them from

hunger and cold, from want and weariness. In the

same manner, if you would implant public virtue in

the breast of him, who seems heedless of the interest

of his country, it will often be to no purpose to tell

him, what superior advantages the subjects of a well-governed

state enjoy; that they are better lodged,

that they are better clothed, that they are better fed.

These considerations will commonly make no great

impression. You will be more likely to persuade,

if you describe the great system of public police

which procures these advantages, if you explain the

connexions and dependencies of its several parts,

their mutual subordination to one another, and their

general subserviency to the happiness of the society;

if you show how this system might be introduced into

his own country, what it is that hinders it from taking

place there at present, how those obstructions

might be removed, and all the several wheels of the

machine of government be made to move with more

harmony and smoothness, without grating upon one

another, or mutually retarding one another’s motions.

It is scarce possible that a man should listen to

a discourse of this kind, and not feel himself animated

to some degree of public spirit. He will, at

least for the moment, feel some desire to remove those

obstructions, and to put into motion so beautiful and

so orderly a machine. Nothing tends so much to

promote public spirit as the study of politics, of the

several systems of civil government, their advantages

and disadvantages, of the constitution of our own

250country, its situation, and interest with regard to

foreign nations, its commerce, its defence, the disadvantages

it labours under, the dangers to which it

may be exposed, how to remove the one, and how

to guard against the other. Upon this account political

disquisitions, if just and reasonable, and practicable,

are of all the works of speculation the most

useful. Even the weakest and the worst of them are not

altogether without their utility. They serve at least

to animate the public passions of men, and rouse them

to seek out the means of promoting the happiness of

the society.