The Theory of Moral Sentiments

f the beauty which the appearance of utility bestows upon the characters and actions of men; and how far the perception of this beauty may be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation.

The characters of men, as well as the contrivances

of art, or the institutions of civil government,

may be fitted either to promote or to disturb

the happiness both of the individual and of the society.

The prudent, the equitable, the active, resolute,

and sober character promises prosperity and

satisfaction, both to the person himself and to every

one connected with him. The rash, the insolent,

the slothful, effeminate, and voluptuous, on the

contrary, forebodes ruin to the individual, and misfortune

to all who have any thing to do with him.

The first turn of mind has at least all the beauty

251which can belong to the most perfect machine that

was ever invented for promoting the most agreeable

purpose: and the second all the deformity of the

most awkward and clumsy contrivance. What institution

of government could tend so much to promote

the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence

of wisdom and virtue? All government is

but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these.

Whatever beauty, therefore, can belong to civil government

upon account of its utility, must in a far

superior degree belong to these. On the contrary,

what civil policy can be so ruinous and destructive as

the vices of men? The fatal effects of bad government

arise from nothing, but that it does not sufficiently

guard against the mischiefs which human wickedness

gives occasion to.

This beauty and deformity which characters appear

to derive from their usefulness or inconveniency,

are apt to strike, in a peculiar manner, those who

consider, in an abstract and philosophical light, the

actions and conduct of mankind. When a philosopher

goes to examine why humanity is approved of,

or cruelty condemned, he does not always form to

himself, in a very clear and distinct manner, the conception

of any one particular action either of cruelty

or of humanity, but is commonly contented with the

vague and indeterminate idea which the general

names of those qualities suggest to him. But it is in

particular instances only that the propriety or impropriety,

the merit or demerit of actions is very obvious

and discernible. It is only when particular examples

are given that we perceive distinctly either the

concord or disagreement between our own affections

and those of the agent, or feel a social gratitude arise

252towards him in the one case, or a sympathetic resentment

in the other. When we consider virtue and

vice in an abstract and general manner, the qualities

by which they excite these several sentiments seem in

a great measure to disappear, and the sentiments

themselves become less obvious and discernible. On

the contrary, the happy effects of the one and the

fatal consequences of the other seem then to rise up

to the view, and as it were to stand out and distinguish

themselves from all the other qualities of

either.

The same ingenious and agreeable author who

first explained why utility pleases, has been so struck

with this view of things, as to resolve our whole approbation

of virtue into a perception of this species

of beauty which results from the appearance of utility.

No qualities of the mind, he observes, are approved

of as virtuous, but such as are useful or

agreeable either to the person himself or to others;

and no qualities are disapproved of as vicious but

such as have a contrary tendency. And Nature, indeed,

seems to have so happily adjusted our sentiments

of approbation and disapprobation, to the conveniency

both of the individual and of the society,

that after the strictest examination it will be found, I

believe, that this is universally the case. But still I

affirm, that it is not the view of this utility or hurtfulness

which is either the first or principal source of

our approbation and disapprobation. These sentiments

are no doubt enhanced and enlivened by the

perception of the beauty or deformity which results

from this utility or hurtfulness. But still, I say,

they are originally and essentially different from this

perception.

253For first of all, it seems impossible that the approbation

of virtue should be a sentiment of the same

kind with that by which we approve of a convenient

and well contrived building, or that we should have

no other reason for praising a man than that for

which we commend a chest of drawers.

And secondly, it will be found, upon examination,

that the usefulness of any disposition of mind is

seldom the first ground of our approbation; and that

the sentiment of approbation always involves in it a

sense of propriety quite distinct from the perception

of utility. We may observe this with regard to all

the qualities which are approved of as virtuous, both

those which, according to this system, are originally

valued as useful to ourselves, as well as those which

are esteemed on account of their usefulness to others.

The qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of

all, superior reason and understanding, by which

we are capable of discerning the remote consequences

of all our actions, and of foreseeing the advantage

or detriment which is likely to result from

them: and secondly, self-command, by which we

are enabled to abstain from present pleasure or to endure

present pain, in order to obtain a greater pleasure

or to avoid a greater pain in some future time.

In the union of those two qualities consists the virtue

of prudence, of all the virtues that which is most

useful to the individual.

With regard to the first of those qualities, it has

been observed on a former occasion, that superior

reason and understanding are originally approved of

254as just and right and accurate, and not merely as

useful or advantageous. It is in the abstruser sciences,

particularly in the higher parts of mathematics, that

the greatest and most admired exertions of human

reason have been displayed. But the utility of those

sciences, either to the individual or to the public, is

not very obvious, and to prove it requires a discussion

which is not always very easily comprehended.

It was not, therefore, their utility which first recommended

them to the public admiration. This quality

was but little insisted upon, till it became necessary

to make some reply to the reproaches of those,

who, having themselves no taste for such sublime

discoveries, endeavoured to depreciate them as useless.

That self-command, in the same manner, by which

we restrain our present appetites, in order to gratify

them more fully upon another occasion, is approved

of, as much under the aspect of propriety, as under

that of utility. When we act in this manner, the

sentiments which influence our conduct seem exactly

to coincide with those of the spectator. The spectator

does not feel the felicitations of our present appetites.

To him the pleasure which we are to enjoy a

week hence, or a year hence, is just as interesting

as that which we are to enjoy this moment. When

for the sake of the present, therefore, we sacrifice

the future, our conduct appears to him absurd and

extravagant in the highest degree, and he cannot enter

into the principles which influence it. On the

contrary, when we abstain from present pleasure, in

order to secure greater pleasure to come, when we

act as if the remote object interests us as much as

that which immediately presses upon the senses, as

255our affections exactly correspond with his own, he

cannot fail to approve of our behaviour: and as he

knows from experience, how few are capable of this

self-command, he looks upon our conduct with a

considerable degree of wonder and admiration.

Hence arises that eminent esteem with which all

men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the

practice of frugality, industry, and application,

though directed to no other purpose than the acquisition

of fortune. The resolute firmness of the person

who acts in this manner, and in order to obtain

a great though remote advantage, not only gives up

all present pleasures, but endures the greatest labour

both of mind and body, necessarily commands our

approbation. That view of his interest and happiness

which appears to regulate his conduct, exactly

tallies with the idea which we naturally form of it.

There is the most perfect correspondence between his

sentiments and our own, and at the same time, from

our experience of the common weakness of human

nature, it is a correspondence which we could not

reasonably have expected. We not only approve,

therefore, but in some measure admire his conduct,

and think it worthy of a considerable degree of applause.

It is the consciousness of this merited approbation

and esteem which is alone capable of supporting

the agent in this tenour of conduct. The pleasure

which we are to enjoy ten years hence interests

us so little in comparison with that which we may

enjoy to-day, the passion which the first excites, is

naturally so weak in comparison with that violent

emotion which the second is apt to give occasion to,

that one could never be any balance to the other, unless

it was supported by the sense of propriety, by

the consciousness that we merited the esteem and

256approbation of every body, by acting in the one

way, and that we became the proper objects of their

contempt and derision by behaving in the other.

Humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit,

are the qualities most useful to others. Wherein

consists the propriety of humanity and justice has

been explained upon a former occasion, where it

was shewn how much our esteem and approbation of

those qualities depended upon the concord between

the affections of the agent and those of the spectators.

The propriety of generosity and public spirit is

founded upon the same principle with that of justice.

Generosity is different from humanity. Those two

qualities, which at first sight seem so nearly allied,

do not always belong to the same person. Humanity

is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man.

The fair sex, who have commonly much more tenderness

than ours, have seldom so much generosity.

That women rarely make considerable donations is

an observation of the civil law[7]. Humanity consists

merely in the exquisite fellow-feeling which the spectator

entertains with the sentiments of the persons

principally concerned, so as to grieve for their sufferings,

to resent their injuries, and to rejoice at

their good fortune. The most humane actions require

no self-denial, no self-command, no great exertion

of the sense of propriety. They consist only

in doing what this exquisite sympathy would of its

own accord prompt us to do. But it is otherwise

257with generosity. We never are generous except

when in some respect we prefer some other person to

ourselves, and sacrifice some great and important interest

of our own to an equal interest of a friend or of

a superior. The man who gives up his pretensions

to an office that was the great object of his ambition,

because he imagines that the services of another are

better entitled to it, the man who exposes his life to

defend that of his friend, which he judges to be of

more importance, neither of them act from humanity,

or because they feel more exquisitely what concerns

that other person than what concerns themselves.

They both consider those opposite interests not in the

light in which they naturally appear to themselves,

but in that in which they appear to others. To every

by-stander, the success or preservation of this other

person may justly be more interesting than their own;

but it cannot be so to themselves. When to the interest

of this other person, therefore, they sacrifice

their own, they accommodate themselves to the sentiments

of the spectator, and by an effort of magnanimity

act according to those views of things which

they feel, must naturally occur to any third person.

The soldier who throws away his life in order to defend

that of his officer, would perhaps be but little

affected by the death of that officer, if it should

happen without any fault of his own; and a very

small disaster which had befallen himself might excite

a much more lively sorrow. But when he endeavours

to act so as to deserve applause, and to

make the impartial spectator enter into the principles

of his conduct, he feels, that to every body but

himself, his own life is a trifle compared with that of

his officer, and that when he sacrifices the one to the

other, he acts quite properly and agreeably to what

258would be the natural apprehensions of every impartial

by-stander.

7. Raro mulieres donare solent.

It is the same case with the greater exertions of

public spirit. When a young officer exposes his life

to acquire some inconsiderable addition to the dominions

of his sovereign, it is not, because the acquisition

of the new territory is, to himself, an object

more desireable than the preservation of his own

life. To him his own life is of infinitely more value

than the conquest of a whole kingdom for the

state which he serves. But when he compares those

two objects with one another, he does not view them

in the light in which they naturally appear to himself,

but in that in which they appear to the nation

he fights for. To them the success of the war

is of the highest importance; the life of a private

person of scarce any consequence. When he

puts himself in their situation, he immediately feels

that he cannot be too prodigal of his blood, if by

shedding it, he can promote so valuable a purpose.

In thus thwarting, from a sense of duty and propriety,

the strongest of all natural propensities, consists

the heroism of his conduct. There is many an honest

Englishman, who, in his private station, would

be more seriously disturbed by the loss of a guinea,

than by the national loss of Minorca, who yet, had

it been in his power to defend that fortress, would

have sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than,

through his fault, have let it fall into the hands of

the enemy. When the first Brutus led forth his

own sons to a capital punishment, because they had

conspired against the rising liberty of Rome, he sacrificed

what, if he had consulted his own breast

only, would appear to be the stronger to the weaker

259affection. Brutus ought naturally to have felt much

more for the death of his own sons, than for all that

probably Rome could have suffered from the want of

so great an example. But he viewed them, not with

the eyes of a father, but with those of a Roman citizen.

He entered so thoroughly into the sentiments of this

last character, that he paid no regard to that tye,

by which he himself was connected with them; and

to a Roman citizen, the sons even of Brutus seemed

contemptible, when put into the balance with the

smallest interest of Rome. In these and in all other

cases of this kind, our admiration is not so much

founded upon the utility, as upon the unexpected,

and on that account the great, the noble, and exalted

propriety of such actions. This utility, when we

come to view it, bestows upon them, undoubtedly,

a new beauty, and upon that account still further

recommends them, to our approbation. This beauty,

however, is chiefly perceived by men of reflection

and speculation, and is by no means the quality

which first recommends such actions to the natural

sentiments of the bulk of mankind.

It is to be observed, that so far as the sentiment

of approbation arises from the perception of this

beauty of utility, it has no reference of any kind to

the sentiments of others. If it was possible, therefore,

that a person should grow up to manhood without

any communication with society, his own actions

might, notwithstanding, be agreeable or disagreeable

to him on account of their tendency to his happiness

or disadvantage. He might perceive a beauty of

this kind in prudence, temperance, and good conduct,

and a deformity in the opposite behaviour:

He might view his own temper and character with

260that sort of satisfaction with which we consider a well

contrived machine, in the one case; or with that

sort of distaste and dissatisfaction with which we regard

a very awkward and clumsy contrivance, in the

other. As these perceptions, however, are merely a

matter of taste, and have all the feebleness and delicacy

of that species of perceptions, upon the justness

of which what is properly called taste is founded,

they probably would not be much attended to by one

in his solitary and miserable condition. Even though

they should occur to him, they would by no means have

the same effect upon him, antecedent to his connexion

with society, which they would have in consequence

of that connexion. He would not be cast

down with inward shame at the thought of this deformity;

nor would he be elevated with secret triumph

of mind from the consciousness of the contrary

beauty. He would not exult from the notion of deserving

reward in the one case, nor tremble from the

suspicion of meriting punishment in the other. All

such sentiments suppose the idea of some other being,

who is the natural judge of the person that feels

them; and it is only by sympathy with the decisions

of this arbiter of his conduct, that he can conceive,

either the triumph of self-applause, or the shame of

self-condemnation.

261

PART V.

Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation.

CONSISTING OF ONE SECTION.