circumstances naturally inspire him. His actions are the objects of the
public care. Scarce a word, scarce a gesture, can fall from him that is
altogether neglected. In a great assembly he is the person upon whom all
direct their eyes; it is upon him that their passions seem all to wait
with expectation, in order to receive that movement and direction which
he shall impress upon them; and if his behaviour is not altogether
absurd, he has, every moment, an opportunity of interesting mankind, and
of rendering himself the object of the observation and fellow-feeling of
every body about him. It is this, which notwithstanding the restraint it
imposes, notwithstanding the loss of liberty with which it is attended,
renders greatness the object of envy, and compensates in the opinion of
mankind, all that toil, all that anxiety, all those mortifications which
must be undergone in the pursuit of it; and what is of yet more
consequence, all that leisure, all that ease, all that careless
security, which are forfeited for ever by the acquisition.

When we consider the condition of the great, in those delusive colours
in which the imagination is apt to paint it, it seems to be almost the
abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. It is the very state which,
in all our waking dreams and idle reveries, we had sketched out to
ourselves as the final object of all our desires. We feel, therefore, a
peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who are in it. We
favour all their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. What pity,
we think, that any thing should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a
situation! We could even wish them immortal; and it seems hard to us,
that death should at last put an end to such perfect enjoyment. It is
cruel, we think, in Nature, to compel them from their exalted stations
to that humble, but hospitable home, which she has provided for all her
children. Great King, live for ever! is the compliment, which after the
manner of eastern adulation, we should readily make them, if experience
did not teach us its absurdity. Every calamity that befalls them, every
injury that is done them, excites in the breast of the spectator ten
times more compassion and resentment than he would have felt, had the
same things happened to other men. It is the misfortunes of Kings only
which afford the proper subjects for tragedy. They resemble, in this
respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those two situations are the chief
which interest us upon the theatre; because, in spite of all that reason
and experience can tell us to the contrary, the prejudices of the
imagination attach to these two states a happiness superior to any
other. To disturb, or to put an end to such perfect enjoyment, seems to
be the most atrocious of all injuries. The traitor who conspires against
the life of his monarch, is thought a greater monster than any other
murderer. All the innocent blood that was shed in the civil wars,
provoked less indignation than the death of Charles I. A stranger to
human nature, who saw the indifference of men about the misery of their
inferiors, and the regret and indignation which they feel for the
misfortunes and sufferings of those above them, would be apt to imagine,
that pain must be more agonizing, and the convulsions of death more
terrible to persons of higher rank, than to those of meaner stations.

Upon this disposition of mankind, to go along with all the passions of
the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction of ranks, and the
order of society. Our obsequiousness to our superiors more frequently
arises from our admiration for the advantages of their situation, than
from any private expectations of benefit from their good-will. Their
benefits can extend but to a few; but their fortunes interest almost
every body. We are eager to assist them in compleating a system of
happiness that approaches so near to perfection; and we desire to serve
them for their own sake, without any other recompense but the vanity or
the honour of obliging them. Neither is our deference to their
inclinations founded chiefly, or altogether, upon a regard to the
utility of such submission, and to the order of society, which is best
supported by it. Even when the order of society seems to require that we
should oppose them, we can hardly bring ourselves to do it. That kings
are the servants of the people, to be obeyed, resisted, deposed, or
punished, as the public conveniency may require, is the doctrine of
reason and philosophy; but it is not the doctrine of Nature. Nature
would teach us to submit to them, for their own sake, to tremble and bow
down before their exalted station, to regard their smile as a reward
sufficient to compensate any services, and to dread their displeasure,
though no other evil was to follow from it, as the severest of all
mortifications. To treat them in any respect as men, to reason and
dispute with them upon ordinary occasions, requires such resolution,
that there are few men whose magnanimity can support them in it, unless
they are likewise assisted by familiarity and acquaintance. The
strongest motives, the most furious passions, fear, hatred, and
resentment, are scarce sufficient to balance this natural disposition to
respect them: and their conduct must, either justly or unjustly, have
excited the highest degree of all those passions, before the bulk of the
people can be brought to oppose them with violence, or to desire to see
them either punished or deposed. Even when the people have been brought
this length, they are apt to relent every moment, and easily relapse
into their habitual state of deference to those whom they have been
accustomed to look upon as their natural superiors. They cannot stand
the mortification of their monarch. Compassion soon takes the place of
resentment, they forget all past provocations, their old principles of
loyalty revive, and they run to re-establish the ruined authority of
their old master, with the same violence with which they had opposed it.
The death of Charles I. brought about the Restoration of the royal
family. Compassion for James II. when he was seized by the populace in
making his escape on ship-board, had almost prevented the Revolution,
and made it go on more heavily than before.

Do the great seem insensible of the easy price at which they may acquire
the public admiration; or do they seem to imagine that to them, as to
other men, it must be the purchase either of sweat or of blood? By what
important accomplishments is the young nobleman instructed to support
the dignity of his rank, and to render himself worthy of that
superiority over his fellow-citizens, to which the virtue of his
ancestors had raised them? Is it by knowledge, by industry, by patience,
by self-denial, or by virtue of any kind? As all his words, as all his
motions are attended to, he learns an habitual regard to every
circumstance of ordinary behaviour, and studies to perform all those
small duties with the most exact propriety. As he is conscious how much
he is observed, and how much mankind are disposed to favour all his
inclinations, he acts, upon the most indifferent occasions, with that
freedom and elevation which the thought of this naturally inspires. His
air, his manner, his deportment, all mark that elegant and graceful
sense of his own superiority, which those who are born to inferior
stations can hardly ever arrive at: these are the arts by which he
proposes to make mankind more easily submit to his authority, and to
govern their inclinations according to his own pleasure: and in this he
is seldom disappointed. These arts, supported by rank and pre-eminence,
are, upon ordinary occasions, sufficient to govern the world. Lewis XIV.
during the greater part of his reign, was regarded, not only in France,
but over all Europe, as the most perfect model of a great prince. But
what were the talents and virtues by which he acquired this great
reputation? Was it by the scrupulous and inflexible justice of all his
undertakings, by the immense dangers and difficulties with which they
were attended, or by the unwearied and unrelenting application with
which he pursued them? Was it by his extensive knowledge, by his
exquisite judgment, or by his heroic valour? It was by none of these
qualities. But he was, first of all, the most powerful prince in Europe,
and consequently held the highest rank among kings; and then, says his
historian, “he surpassed all his courtiers in the gracefulness of his
shape, and the majestic beauty of his features. The sound of his voice,
noble and affecting, gained those hearts which his presence intimidated.
He had a step and deportment which could suit only him and his rank, and
which would have been ridiculous in any other person. The embarrassment
which he occasioned to those who spoke to him, flattered that secret
satisfaction with which he felt his own superiority. The old officer,
who was confounded and faultered in asking him a favour, and not being
able to conclude his discourse, said to him, Sir, your majesty, I hope,
will believe that I do not tremble thus before your enemies: had no
difficulty to obtain what he demanded.” These frivolous accomplishments,
supported by his rank, and, no doubt, too, by a degree of other talents
and virtues, which seems, however, not to have been much above
mediocrity, established this prince in the esteem of his own age, and
have drawn, even from posterity, a good deal of respect for his memory.
Compared with those of his own times, and in his own presence, no other
virtue, it seems, appeared to have any merit. Knowledge, industry,
valour, and beneficence, trembled, were abashed, and lost all dignity
before them.

But it is not by accomplishments of this kind, that the man of inferior
rank must hope to distinguish himself. Politeness is so much the virtue
of the great, that it will do little honour to any body but themselves.
The coxcomb, who imitates their manner, and affects to be eminent by the
superior propriety of his ordinary behaviour, is rewarded with a double
share of contempt for his folly and presumption. Why should the man,
whom nobody thinks it worth while to look at, be very anxious about the
manner in which he holds up his head, or disposes of his arms while he
walks through a room? He is occupied surely with a very superfluous
attention, and with an attention too that marks a sense of his own
importance, which no other mortal can go along with. The most perfect
modesty and plainness, joined to as much negligence as is consistent
with the respect due to the company, ought to be the chief
characteristics of the behaviour of a private man. If ever he hopes to
distinguish himself, it must be by more important virtues. He must
acquire dependants to balance the dependants of the great, and he has no
other fund to pay them from, but the labour of his body, and the
activity of his mind. He must cultivate these therefore: he must acquire
superior knowledge in his profession, and superior industry in the
exercise of it. He must be patient in labour, resolute in danger, and
firm in distress. These talents he must bring into public view, by the
difficulty, importance, and, at the same time, good judgment of his
undertakings, and by the severe and unrelenting application with which
he pursues them. Probity and prudence, generosity and frankness, must
characterize his behaviour upon all ordinary occasions; and he must, at
the same time, be forward to engage in all those situations in which it
requires the greatest talents and virtues to act with propriety, but in
which the greatest applause is to be acquired by those who can acquit
themselves with honour. With what impatience does the man of spirit and
ambition, who is depressed by his situation, look round for some great
opportunity to distinguish himself? No circumstances, which can afford
this, appear to him undesirable. He even looks forward with satisfaction
to the prospect of foreign war, or civil dissension; and, with secret
transport and delight, sees through all the confusion and bloodshed
which attend them, the probability of those wished for occasions
presenting themselves, in which he may draw upon himself the attention
and admiration of mankind. The man of rank and distinction, on the
contrary, whose whole glory consists in the propriety of his ordinary
behaviour, who is contented with the humble renown which this can afford
him, and has no talents to acquire any other, is unwilling to embarrass
himself with what can be attended either with difficulty or distress. To
figure at a ball is his great triumph, and to succeed in an intrigue of
gallantry, his highest exploit. He has an aversion to all public
confusions, not from the love of mankind, for the great never look upon
their inferiors as their fellow-creatures; nor yet from want of courage,
for in that he is seldom defective; but from a consciousness that he
possesses none of the virtues which are required in such situations, and
that the public attention will certainly be drawn away from him by
others. He may be willing to expose himself to some little danger, and
to make a campaign when it happens to be the fashion. But he shudders
with horror at the thought of any situation which demands the continual
and long exertion of patience, industry, fortitude, and application of
thought. These virtues are hardly ever to be met with in men who are
born to those high stations. In all governments accordingly, even in
monarchies, the highest offices are generally possessed, and the whole
detail of the administration conducted by men who were educated in the
middle and inferior ranks of life, who have been carried forward by
their own industry and abilities, though loaded with the jealousy, and
opposed by the resentment of all those who were born their superiors,
and to whom the great, after having regarded them first with contempt,
and afterwards with envy, are at last contented to truckle with the same
abject meanness with which they desire that the rest of mankind should
behave to themselves.

It is the loss of this easy empire over the affections of mankind which
renders the fall from greatness so insupportable. When the family of the
King of Macedon was led in triumph by Paulus Æmilius, their misfortunes,
it is said, made them divide with their conqueror the attention of the
Roman people. The sight of the royal children, whose tender age rendered
them insensible of their situation, struck the spectators, amidst the
public rejoicings and prosperity, with the tenderest sorrow and
compassion. The King appeared next in the procession; and seemed like
one confounded and astonished, and bereft of all sentiment, by the
greatness of his calamities. His friends and ministers followed after
him. As they moved along, they often cast their eye upon their fallen
sovereign, and always burst into tears at the sight; their whole
behaviour demonstrating that they thought not of their misfortunes, but
were occupied entirely by the superior greatness of his. The generous
Romans, on the contrary, beheld him with disdain and indignation, and
regarded as unworthy of all compassion the man who could be so
mean-spirited as to bear to live under such calamities. Yet what did
those calamities amount to? According to the greater part of historians,
he was to spend the remainder of his days under the protection of a
powerful and humane people, in a state which in itself should seem
worthy of envy, a state of plenty, ease, leisure, and security, from
which it was impossible for him even by his own folly to fall. But he
was no longer to be surrounded by that admiring mob of fools,
flatterers, and dependants, who had formerly been accustomed to attend
upon all his motions. He was no longer to be gazed upon by multitudes,
nor to have it in his power to render himself the object of their
respect, their gratitude, their love, their admiration. The passions of
nations were no longer to mould themselves upon his inclinations. This
was that insupportable calamity which bereaved the King of all
sentiment; which made his friends forget their own misfortunes; and
which the Roman magnanimity could scarce conceive how any man could be
so mean-spirited as to bear to survive.

“Love, says my Lord Rochefoucault, is commonly succeeded by ambition;
but ambition is hardly ever succeeded by love.” That passion when once
it has got entire possession of the breast, will admit neither a rival
nor a successor. To those who have been accustomed to the possession, or
even to the hope of public admiration, all other pleasures sicken and
decay. Of all the discarded statesmen who for their own ease have
studied to get the better of ambition, and to despise those honours
which they could no longer arrive at, how few have been able to succeed?
The greater part have spent their time in the most listless and insipid
indolence, chagrined at the thoughts of their own insignificancy,
incapable of being interested in the occupations of private life,
without enjoyment except when they talked of their former greatness, and
without satisfaction except when they were employed in some vain project
to recover it. Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty
for the lordly servitude of a Court, but to live free, fearless, and
independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous
resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so
few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition;
nor even bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth
who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you.

Of such mighty importance does it appear to be, in the imaginations of
men, to stand in that situation which sets them most in the view of
general sympathy and attention. And thus, place, that great object which
divides the wives of aldermen, is the end of half the labours of life;
and is the cause of all the tumult and bustle, all the rapine and
injustice, which avarice and ambition have introduced into this world.
People of sense, it is said, indeed despise place; that is, they despise
sitting at the head of the table, and are indifferent who it is that is
pointed out to the company by that frivolous circumstance, which the
smallest advantage is capable of overbalancing. But rank, distinction,
pre-eminence, no man despises, unless he is either raised very much
above, or sunk very much below, the ordinary standard of human nature;
unless he is either so confirmed in wisdom and real philosophy, as to be
satisfied that, while the propriety of his conduct renders him the just
object of approbation, it is of little consequence though he be neither
attended to, nor approved of; or so habituated to the idea of his own
meanness, so sunk in slothful and sottish indifference, as entirely to
have forgot the desire, and almost the very wish, for superiority.

                               CHAP. III.
                      _Of the stoical philosophy._

When we examine in this manner into the ground of the different degrees
of estimation which mankind are apt to bestow upon the different
conditions of life, we shall find, that the excessive preference, which
they generally give to some of them above others, is in a great measure
without any foundation. If to be able to act with propriety, and to
render ourselves the proper objects of the approbation of mankind, be,
as we have been endeavouring to show, what chiefly recommends to us one
condition above another, this may equally be attained in them all. The
noblest propriety of conduct may be supported in adversity, as well as
in prosperity; and though it is somewhat more difficult in the first, it
is upon that very account more admirable. Perils and misfortunes are not
only the proper school of heroism, they are the only proper theatre
which can exhibit its virtue to advantage, and draw upon it the full
applause of the world. The man, whose whole life has been one even and
uninterrupted course of prosperity, who never braved any danger, who
never encountered any difficulty, who never surmounted any distress, can
excite but an inferior degree of admiration. When poets and
romance-writers endeavour to invent a train of adventures, which shall
give the greatest lustre to those characters for whom they mean to
interest us, they are all of a different kind. They are rapid and sudden
changes of fortune, situations the most apt to drive those who are in
them to frenzy and distraction, or to abject despair; but in which their
heroes act with so much propriety, or at least with so much spirit and
undaunted resolution, as still to command our esteem. Is not the
unfortunate magnanimity of Cato, Brutus, and Leonidas, as much the
object of admiration, as that of the successful Cæsar or Alexander? To a
generous mind, therefore, ought it not to be as much the object of envy?
If a more dazzling splendor seems to attend the fortunes of successful
conquerors, it is because they join together the advantages of both
situations, the lustre of prosperity to the high admiration which is
excited by dangers encountered, and difficulties surmounted, with
intrepidity and valour.

It was upon this account that, according to the stoical philosophy, to a
wise man all the different conditions of life were equal. Nature, they
said, had recommended some objects to our choice, and others to our
disapprobation. Our primary appetites directed us to the pursuit of
health, strength, ease, and perfection, in all the qualities of mind and
body; and of whatever could promote or secure these, riches, power,
authority: and the same original principle taught us to avoid the
contrary. But in chusing or rejecting, in preferring or postponing,
those first objects of original appetite and aversion, Nature had
likewise taught us, that there was a certain order, propriety, and
grace, to be observed, of infinitely greater consequence to happiness
and perfection, than the attainment of those objects themselves. The
objects of our primary appetites or aversions were to be pursued or
avoided, chiefly because a regard to this grace and propriety required
such conduct. In directing all our actions according to these, consisted
the happiness and glory of human nature. In departing from those rules
which they prescribed to us, its greatest wretchedness and most complete
depravity. The outward appearance of this order and propriety was indeed
more easily maintained in some circumstances than in others. To a fool,
however, to one whose passions were subjected to no proper controul, to
act with real grace and propriety, was equally impossible in every
situation. Though the giddy multitude might admire him, though his
vanity might sometimes be elevated by their ignorant praises into
something that resembled self-approbation, yet still when he turned his
view to what passed within his own breast, he was secretly conscious to
himself of the absurdity and meanness of all his motives, and inwardly
blushed and trembled at the thoughts of the contempt which he knew he
deserved, and which mankind would certainly bestow upon him if they saw
his conduct in the light in which in his own heart he was obliged to
regard it. To a wise man, on the contrary, to one whose passions were
all brought under perfect subjection to the ruling principles of his
nature, to reason and the love of propriety, to act so as to deserve
approbation was equally easy upon all occasions. Was he in prosperity,
he returned thanks to Jupiter for having joined him with circumstances
which were easily mastered, and in which there was little temptation to
do wrong. Was he in adversity, he equally, returned thanks to the
director of this spectacle of human life, for having opposed to him a
vigorous athlete, over whom, though the contest was likely to be more
violent, the victory was more glorious, and equally certain. Can there
be any shame in that distress which is brought upon us without any fault
of our own, and in which we behave with perfect propriety? There can
therefore, be no evil, but, on the contrary, the greatest good and
advantage. A brave man exults in those dangers, in which, from no
rashness of his own, his fortune has involved him. They afford an
opportunity of exercising that heroic intrepidity, whose exertion gives
the exalted delight which flows from the consciousness of superior
propriety and deserved admiration. One who is master of all his
exercises has no aversion to measure his strength and activity with the
strongest. And in the same manner, one who is master of all his
passions, does not dread any circumstances in which the superintendant
of the universe may think proper to place him. The bounty of that Divine
Being has provided him with virtues which render him superior to every
situation. If it is pleasure, he has temperance to refrain from it; if
it is pain, he has constancy to bear it; if it is danger or death, he
has magnanimity and fortitude to despise it. He never complains of the
destiny of providence, nor thinks the universe in confusion when he is
out of order. He does not look upon himself, according to what self-love
would suggest, as a whole, separated and detached from every other part
of nature, to be taken care of by itself, and for itself. He regards
himself in the light in which he imagines the great Genius of human
nature, and of the world, regards him. He enters, if I may say so, into
the sentiments of that Divine Being, and considers himself as an atom, a
particle, of an immense and infinite system, which must, and ought to be
disposed of, according to the conveniency of the whole. Assured of the
wisdom which directs all the events of human life, whatever lot befalls
him, he accepts it with joy, satisfied that, if he had known all the
connexions and dependencies of the different parts of the universe, it
is the very lot which he himself would have wished for. If it is life,
he is contented to live: and if it is death, as Nature must have no
further occasion for his presence here, he willingly goes where he is
appointed. I accept, said a stoical philosopher, with equal joy and
satisfaction, whatever fortune can befal me. Riches or poverty, pleasure
or pain, health or sickness, all is alike: nor would I desire that the
gods should in any respect change my destination. If I was to ask of
them any thing, beyond what their bounty has already bestowed, it should
be that they would inform me beforehand what it was their pleasure
should be done with me, that I might of my own accord place myself in
this situation, and demonstrate the chearfulness with which I embraced
their allotment. If I am going to fail, says Epictetus, I chuse the best
ship, and the best pilot, and I wait for the fairest weather that my
circumstances and duty will allow. Prudence and propriety, the
principles which the gods have given me for the direction of my conduct,
require this of me; but they require no more: and if, notwithstanding, a
storm arises, which neither the strength of the vessel, nor the skill of
the pilot are likely to withstand, I give myself no trouble about the
consequence. All that I had to do, is done already. The directors of my
conduct never command me to be miserable, to be anxious, desponding, or
afraid. Whether we are to be drowned, or to come to a harbour, is the
business of Jupiter, not mine. I leave it entirely to his determination,
nor ever break my rest with considering which way he is likely to decide
it, but receive whatever comes with equal indifference and security.

Such was the philosophy of the stoics, a philosophy which affords the
noblest lessons of magnanimity, is the best school of heroes and
patriots, and to the greater part of whose precepts there can be no
objection, except that honourable one, that they teach us to aim at a
perfection altogether beyond the reach of human nature. I shall not at
present stop to examine it. I shall only observe, in confirmation of
what has formerly been said, that the most dreadful calamities are not
always those which it is most difficult to support. It is often more
mortifying to appear in public, under small disasters, than under great
misfortunes. The first excite no sympathy; but the second, though they
may excite none that approaches to the anguish of the sufferer, call
forth, however, a very lively compassion. The sentiments of the
spectators are, in this last case, therefore, less wide of those of the
sufferer, and their imperfect fellow-feeling lends him some assistance
in supporting his misery. Before a gay assembly, a gentleman would be
more mortified to appear covered with filth and rags than with blood and
wounds. This last situation would interest their pity; the other would
provoke their laughter. The judge who orders a criminal to be set in the
pillory, dishonours him more than if he had condemned him to the
scaffold. The great prince, who, some years ago, caned a general officer
at the head of his army, disgraced him irrecoverably. The punishment
would have been much less had he shot him through the body. By the laws
of honour, to strike with a cane dishonours, to strike with a sword does
not, for an obvious reason. Those slighter punishments when inflicted on
a gentleman, to whom dishonour is the greatest of all evils, come to be
regarded among a humane and generous people, as the most dreadful of
any. With regard to persons of that rank, therefore, they are
universally laid aside, and the law, while it takes their life upon many
occasions, respects their honour upon almost all. To scourge a person of
quality, or to set him in the pillory, upon account of any crime
whatever, is a brutality of which no European government, except that of
Russia, is capable.

A brave man is not rendered contemptible by being brought to the
scaffold; he is, by being set in the pillory. His behaviour in the one
situation may gain him universal esteem and admiration. No behaviour in
the other can render him agreeable. The sympathy of the spectators
supports him in the one case, and saves him from that shame, that
consciousness that his misery is felt by himself only, which is of all
sentiments the most unsupportable. There is no sympathy in the other;
or, if there is any, it is not with his pain, which is a trifle, but
with his consciousness of the want of sympathy with which this pain is
attended. It is with his shame, not with his sorrow. Those who pity him,
blush and hang down their heads for him. He droops in the same manner,
and feels himself irrecoverably degraded by the punishment, though not
by the crime. The man, on the contrary, who dies with resolution, as he
is naturally regarded with the erect aspect of esteem and approbation,
so he wears himself the same undaunted countenance; and, if the crime
does not deprive him of the respect of others, the punishment never
will. He has no suspicion that his situation is the object of contempt
or derision to any body, and he can, with propriety, assume the air, not
only of perfect serenity, but of triumph and exaltation.

“Great dangers,” says the Cardinal de Retz, “have their charms, because
there is some glory to be got, even when we miscarry. But moderate
dangers have nothing but what is horrible, because the loss of
reputation always attends the want of success.” His maxim has the same
foundation with what we have been just now observing with regard to
punishments.

Human virtue is superior to pain, to poverty, to danger, and to death;
nor does it even require its utmost efforts to despise them. But to have
its misery exposed to insult and derision, to be led in triumph, to be
set up for the hand of scorn to point at, is a situation in which its
constancy is much more apt to fail. Compared with the contempt of
mankind, all other evils are easily supported.

                                PART II.
   Of MERIT and DEMERIT; or, of the Objects of REWARD and PUNISHMENT.

                     CONSISTING OF THREE SECTIONS.

                               SECTION I.
                   Of the sense of merit and demerit.

                             INTRODUCTION.

There is another set of qualities ascribed to the actions and conduct of
mankind, distinct from their propriety or impropriety, their decency or
ungracefulness, and which are the objects of a distinct species of
approbation and disapprobation. These are merit and demerit, the
qualities of deserving reward, and of deserving punishment.

It has already been observed, that the sentiment or affection of the
heart, from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue
or vice depends, may be considered under two different aspects, or in
two different relations: first, in relation to the cause or object which
excites it; and, secondly, in relation to the end which it proposes, or
to the effect which it tends to produce: that upon the suitableness or
unsuitableness, upon the proportion or disproportion, which the
affection seems to bear to the cause or object which excites it, depends
the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the
consequent action; and that upon the beneficial or hurtful effects which
the affection proposes or tends to produce, depends the merit or
demerit, the good or ill desert of the action to which it gives
occasion. Wherein consists our sense of the propriety or impropriety of
actions, has been explained in the former part of this discourse. We
come now to consider, wherein consists that of their good or ill desert.

                                CHAP. I.
_That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to
deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appears to be the
      proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment._

To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which
appears to be the proper and approved object of that sentiment, which
most immediately and directly prompts us to reward, or to do good to
another. And in the same manner, that action must appear to deserve
punishment, which appears to be the proper and approved object of that
sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to publish, or
inflict evil upon another.

The sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to reward,
is gratitude; that which most immediately and directly prompts us to
punish, is resentment.

To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which
appears to be the proper and approved object of gratitude; as, on the
other hand, that action must appear to deserve punishment, which appears
to be the proper and approved object of resentment.

To reward, is to recompense, to remunerate, to return good for good
received. To punish, too, is to recompense, to remunerate, though in a
different manner; it is to return evil for evil that has been done.

There are some other passions, besides gratitude and resentment, which
interest us in the happiness or misery of others; but there are none
which so directly excite us to be the instruments of either. The love
and esteem which grow upon acquaintance and habitual approbation,
necessarily lead us to be pleased with the good fortune of the man who
is the object of such agreeable emotions, and consequently, to be
willing to lend a hand to promote it. Our love, however, is fully
satisfied, though his good fortune should be brought about without our
assistance. All that this passion desires is to see him happy, without
regarding who was the author of his prosperity. But gratitude is not to
be satisfied in this manner. If the person to whom we owe many
obligations, is made happy without our assistance, though it pleases our
love, it does not content our gratitude. Till we have recompensed him,
till we ourselves have been instrumental in promoting his happiness, we
feel ourselves still loaded with that debt which his past services have
laid upon us.

The hatred and dislike, in the same manner, which grow upon habitual
disapprobation, would often lead us to take a malicious pleasure in the
misfortune of the man whose conduct and character excite so painful a
passion. But though dislike and hatred harden us against all sympathy,
and sometimes dispose us even to rejoice at the distress of another,
yet, if there is no resentment in the case, if neither we nor our
friends have received any great personal provocation, these passions
would not naturally lead us to wish to be instrumental in bringing it
about. Tho’ we could fear no punishment in consequence of our having had
some hand it, we would rather that it should happen by other means. To
one under the dominion of violent hatred it would be agreeable, perhaps,
to hear, that the person whom he abhorred and detested was killed by
some accident. But if he had the least spark of justice, which, though
this passion is not very favourable to virtue, he might still have, it
would hurt him excessively to have been himself, even without design,
the occasion of this misfortune. Much more would the very thought of
voluntarily contributing to it shock him beyond all measure. He would
reject with horror even the imagination of so execrable a design; and if
he could imagine himself capable of such an enormity, he would begin to
regard himself in the same odious light in which he had considered the
person who was the object of his dislike. But it is quite otherwise with
resentment: if the person who had done us some great injury, who had
murdered our father or our brother, for example, should soon afterwards
die of a fever, or even be brought to the scaffold upon account of some
other crime, though it might sooth our hatred, it would not fully
gratify our resentment. Resentment would prompt us to desire, not only
that he should be punished, but that he should be punished by our means,
and upon account of that particular injury which he had done to us.
Resentment cannot be fully gratified, unless the offender is not only
made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong
which we have suffered from him. He must be made to repent and be sorry
for this very action, that others, through fear of the like punishment,
may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. The natural
gratification of this passion tends, of its own accord, to produce all
the political ends of punishment; the correction of the criminal, and
the example to the public.

Gratitude and resentment, therefore, are the sentiments which most
immediately and directly prompt to reward and to punish. To us,
therefore, he must appear to deserve reward, who appears to be the
proper and approved object of gratitude; and he to deserve punishment,
who appears to be that of resentment.

                               CHAP. II.
          _Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment._

To be the proper and approved object either of gratitude or resentment,
can mean nothing but to be the object of that gratitude, and of that
resentment, which naturally seems proper, and is approved of.

But these, as well as all the other passions of human nature, seem
proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial spectator
entirely sympathizes with them, when every indifferent by-stander
entirely enters into, and goes along with them.

He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or
persons, is the natural object of a gratitude which every human heart is
disposed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and he, on the other
hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the same manner is to some
person or persons the natural object of a resentment which the breast of
every reasonable man is ready to adopt and sympathize with. To us,
surely, that action must appear to deserve reward, which every body who
knows of it would wish to reward, and therefore delights to see
rewarded: and that action must as surely appear to deserve punishment,
which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that account
rejoices to see punished.

1. As we sympathize with the joy of our companions when in prosperity,
so we join with them in the complacency and satisfaction with which they
naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good fortune. We enter
into the love and affection which they conceive for it, and begin to
love it too. We should be sorry for their sakes if it was destroyed, or
even if it was placed at too great a distance from them, and out of the
reach of their care and protection, though they should lose nothing by
its absence except the pleasure of seeing it. If it is man who has thus
been the fortunate instrument of the happiness of his brethren, this is
still more peculiarly the case. When we see one man assisted, protected,
relieved by another, our sympathy with the joy of the person who
receives the benefit serves only to animate our fellow-feeling with his
gratitude towards him who bestows it. When we look upon the person who
is the cause of his pleasure with the eyes with which we imagine he must
look upon him, his benefactor seems to stand before us in the most
engaging and amiable light. We readily therefore sympathize with the
grateful affection which he conceives for a person to whom he has been
so much obliged; and consequently applaud the returns which he is
disposed to make for the good offices conferred upon him. As we entirely
enter into the affection from which these returns proceed, they
necessarily seem every way proper and suitable to their object.

2. In the same manner, as we sympathize with the sorrow of our
fellow-creature whenever we see his distress, so we likewise enter into
his abhorrence and aversion for whatever has given occasion to it. Our
heart, as it adopts and beats time to his grief, so is it likewise
animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or
destroy the cause of it. The indolent and passive fellow-feeling, by
which we accompany him in his sufferings, readily gives way to that more
vigorous and active sentiment by which we go along with him in the
effort he makes, either to repel them, or to gratify his aversion to
what has given occasion to them. This is still more peculiarly the case,
when it is man who has caused them. When we see one man oppressed or
injured by another, the sympathy which we feel with the distress of the
sufferer seems to serve only to animate our fellow-feeling with his
resentment against the offender. We are rejoiced to see him attack his
adversary in his turn, and are eager and ready to assist him whenever he
exerts himself for defence, or even for vengeance within a certain
degree. If the injured should perish in the quarrel, we not only
sympathize with the real resentment of his friends and relations, but
with the imaginary resentment which in fancy we lend to the dead, who is
no longer capable of feeling that or any other human sentiment. But as
we put ourselves in his situation, as we enter, as it were, into his
body, and in our imaginations, in some measure, animate anew the
deformed and mangled carcass of the slain, when we bring home in this
manner his case to our own bosoms, we feel upon this, as upon many other
occasions, an emotion which the person principally concerned is
incapable of feeling, and which yet we feel by an illusive sympathy with
him. The sympathetic tears which we shed for that immense and
irretrievable loss, which in our fancy he appears to have sustained,
seem to be but a small part of the duty which we owe him. The injury
which he has suffered demands, we think, a principal part of our
attention. We feel that resentment which we imagine he ought to feel,
and which he would feel, if in his cold and lifeless body there remained
any consciousness of what passes upon earth. His blood, we think, calls
aloud for vengeance. The very ashes of the dead seem to be disturbed at
the thought that his injuries are to pass unrevenged. The horrors which
are supposed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghosts which,
superstition imagines, rise from their graves to demand vengeance upon
those who brought them to an untimely end, all take their origin from
this natural sympathy with the imaginary resentment of the slain. And
with regard, at least, to this most dreadful of all crimes, Nature,
antecedent to all reflections upon the utility of punishment, has in
this manner stamped upon the human heart, in the strongest and most
indelible characters, an immediate and instinctive approbation of the
sacred and necessary law of retaliation.

                               CHAP. III.
  _That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person who
confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of him
     who receives it: and that, on the contrary, where there is no
disapprobation of the motives of the person who does the mischief, there
   is no sort of sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it._

It is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial soever on the one
hand, or how hurtful soever on the other, the actions or intentions of
the person who acts may have been to the person who is, if I may say so,
acted upon, yet if in the one case there appears to have been no
propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the
affections which influenced his conduct, we have little sympathy with
the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit: or if, in the
other case, there appears to have been no impropriety in the motives of
the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his
conduct are such as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no sort
of sympathy with the resentment of the person who suffers. Little
gratitude seems due in the one case, and all sort of resentment seems
unjust in the other. The one action seems to merit little reward, the
other to deserve no punishment.

1. First, I say, that wherever we cannot sympathize with the affections
of the agent, wherever there seems to be no propriety in the motives
which influenced his conduct, we are less disposed to enter into the
gratitude of the person who received the benefit of his actions. A very
small return seems due to that foolish and profuse generosity which
confers the greatest benefits from the most trivial motives, and gives
an estate to a man merely because his name and surname happen to be the
same with those of the giver. Such services do not seem to demand any
proportionable recompense. Our contempt for the folly of the agent
hinders us from thoroughly entering into the gratitude of the person to
whom the good office has been done. His benefactor seems unworthy of it.
As when we place ourselves in the situation of the person obliged, we
feel that we could conceive no great reverence for such a benefactor, we
easily absolve him from a great deal of that submissive veneration and
esteem which we should think due to a more respectable character; and
provided he always treats his weak friend with kindness and humanity, we
are willing to excuse him from many attentions and regards which we
should demand to a worthier patron. Those Princes, who have heaped, with
the greatest profusion, wealth, power, and honours, upon their
favourites, have seldom excited that degree of attachment to their
persons which has often been experienced by those who were more frugal
of their favours. The well-natured, but injudicious prodigality of James
the First of Great Britain seems to have attached no body to his person;
and that Prince, notwithstanding his social and harmless disposition,
appears to have lived and died without a friend. The whole gentry and
nobility of England exposed their lives and fortunes in the cause of his
more frugal and distinguishing son, notwithstanding the coldness and
distant severity of his ordinary deportment.

2. Secondly, I say, That wherever the conduct of the agent appears to
have been entirely directed by motives and affections which we
thoroughly enter into and approve of, we can have no sort of sympathy
with the resentment of the sufferer, how great soever the mischief which
may have been done to him. When two people quarrel, if we take part
with, and entirely adopt the resentment of one of them, it is impossible
that we should enter into that of the other. Our sympathy with the
person whose motives we go along with, and whom therefore we look upon
as in the right, cannot but harden us against all fellow-feeling with
the other, whom we necessarily regard as in the wrong. Whatever this
last, therefore, may have suffered, while it is no more than what we
ourselves should have wished him to suffer, while it is no more than
what our own sympathetic indignation would have prompted us to inflict
upon him, it cannot either displease or provoke us. When an inhuman
murderer is brought to the scaffold, though we have some compassion for
his misery, we can have no sort of fellow-feeling with his resentment,
if he should be so absurd as to express any against either his
prosecutor or his judge. The natural tendency of their just indignation
against so vile a criminal is indeed the most fatal and ruinous to him.
But it is impossible that we should be displeased with the tendency of a
sentiment, which, when we bring the case home to ourselves, we feel that
we cannot avoid adopting.

                               CHAP. IV.
              _Recapitulation of the foregoing Chapters._

We do not, therefore, thoroughly and heartily sympathize with the
gratitude of one man towards another, merely because this other has been
the cause of his good fortune, unless he has been the cause of it from
motives which we entirely go along with. Our heart must adopt the
principles of the agent, and go along with all the affections which
influenced his conduct, before it can entirely sympathize with, and beat
time to, the gratitude of the person who has been benefited by his
actions. If in the conduct of the benefactor there appears to have been
no propriety, how beneficial soever its effects, it does not seem to
demand, or necessarily to require, any proportionable recompense.

But when to the beneficent tendency of the action is joined the
propriety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we entirely
sympathize and go along with the motives of the agent, the love which we
conceive for him upon his own account, enhances and enlivens our
fellow-feeling with the gratitude of those who owe their prosperity to
his good conduct. His actions seem then to demand, and, if I may say so,
to call aloud for a proportionable recompense. We then entirely enter
into that gratitude which prompts to bestow it. The benefactor seems
then to be the proper object of reward, when we thus entirely sympathize
with, and approve of, that sentiment which prompts to reward him. When
we approve of, and go along with, the affection from which the action
proceeds, we must necessarily approve of the action, and regard the
person towards whom it is directed as its proper and suitable object.

2. In the same manner, we cannot at all sympathize with the resentment
of one man against another, merely because this other has been the cause
of his misfortune, unless he has been the cause of it from motives which
we cannot enter into. Before we can adopt the resentment of the
sufferer, we must disapprove of the motives of the agent, and feel that
our heart renounces all sympathy with the affections which influenced
his conduct. If there appears to have been no impropriety in these, how
fatal soever the tendency of the action which proceeds from them to
those against whom it is directed, it does not seem to deserve any
punishment, or to be the proper object of any resentment.

But when to the hurtfulness of the action is joined the impropriety of
the affection from whence it proceeds, when our heart rejects with
abhorrence all fellow-feeling with the motives of the agent, we then
heartily and entirely sympathize with the resentment of the sufferer.
Such actions seem then to deserve, and, if I may say so, to call aloud
for, a proportionable punishment; and we entirely enter into, and
thereby approve of, that resentment which prompts to inflict it. The
offender necessarily seems then to be the proper object of punishment,
when we thus entirely sympathize with, and thereby approve of, that
sentiment which prompts to punish. In this case too, when we approve,
and go along with, the affection from which the action proceeds, we must
necessarily approve of the action, and regard the person against whom it
is directed, as its proper and suitable object.

                                CHAP. V.
           _The analysis of the sense of merit and demerit._

1. As our sense, therefore, of the propriety of conduct arises from what
I shall call a direct sympathy with the affections and motives of the
person who acts, so our sense of its merit arises from what I shall call
an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of the person who is, if I may
say so, acted upon.

As we cannot indeed enter thoroughly into the gratitude of the person
who receives the benefit, unless we beforehand approve of the motives of
the benefactor, so, upon this account, the sense of merit seems to be a
compounded sentiment, and to be made up of two distinct emotions; a
direct sympathy with the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect
sympathy with the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his
actions.

We may, upon many different occasions, plainly distinguish those two
different emotions combining and uniting together in our sense of the
good desert of a particular character or action. When we read in history
concerning actions of proper and beneficent greatness of mind, how
eagerly do we enter into such designs? How much are we animated by that
high-spirited generosity which directs them? How keen are we for their
success? How grieved at their disappointment? In imagination we become
the very person whose actions are represented to us: we transport
ourselves in fancy to the scenes of those distant and forgotten
adventures, and imagine ourselves acting the part of a Scipio or a
Camillus, a Timoleon or an Aristides. So far our sentiments are founded
upon the direct sympathy with the person who acts. Nor is the indirect
sympathy with those who receive the benefit of such actions less
sensibly felt. Whenever we place ourselves in the situation of these
last, with what warm and affectionate fellow-feeling do we enter into
their gratitude towards those who served them so essentially? We
embrace, as it were, their benefactor along with them. Our heart readily
sympathizes with the highest transports of their grateful affection. No
honours, no rewards, we think, can be too great for them to bestow upon
him. When they make this proper return for his services, we heartily
applaud and go along with them; but are shocked beyond all measure, if
by their conduct they appear to have little sense of the obligations
conferred upon them. Our whole sense, in short, of the merit and good
desert of such actions, of the propriety and fitness of recompensing
them, and making the person who performed them rejoice in his turn,
arises from the sympathetic emotions of gratitude and love, with which,
when we bring home to our own breast the situation of those principally
concerned, we feel ourselves naturally transported towards the man who
could act with such proper and noble beneficence.

2. In the same manner as our sense of the impropriety of conduct arises
from a want of sympathy, or from a direct antipathy to the affections
and motives of the agent, so our sense of its demerit arises from what I
shall here too call an indirect sympathy with the resentment of the
sufferer.

As we cannot indeed enter into the resentment of the sufferer, unless
our heart beforehand disapproves the motives of the agent, and renounces
all fellow-feeling with them; so upon this account the sense of demerit,
as well as that of merit, seems to be a compounded sentiment, and to be
made up of two distinct emotions; a direct antipathy to the sentiments
of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the resentment of the
sufferer.

We may here too, upon many different occasions, plainly distinguish
those two different emotions combining and uniting together in our sense
of the ill desert of a particular character or action. When we read in
history concerning the perfidy and cruelty of a Borgia or a Nero, our
heart rises up against the detestable sentiments which influenced their
conduct, and renounces with horror and abomination all fellow-feeling
with such execrable motives. So far our sentiments are founded upon the
direct antipathy to the affections of the agent: and the indirect
sympathy with the resentment of the sufferers is still more sensibly
felt. When we bring home to ourselves the situation of the persons whom
those scourges of mankind insulted, murdered, or betrayed, what
indignation do we not feel against such insolent and inhuman oppressors
of the earth? Our sympathy with the unavoidable distress of the innocent
sufferers is not more real nor more lively, than our fellow-feeling with
their just and natural resentment. The former sentiment only heightens
the latter, and the idea of their distress serves only to inflame and
blow up our animosity against those who occasioned it. When we think of
the anguish of the sufferers, we take part with them more earnestly
against their oppressors; we enter with more eagerness into all their
schemes of vengeance, and feel ourselves every moment wreaking, in
imagination, upon such violators of the laws of society, that punishment
which our sympathetic indignation tells us is due to their crimes. Our
sense of the horror and dreadful atrocity of such conduct, the delight
which we take in hearing that it was properly punished, the indignation
which we feel when it escapes this due retaliation, our whole sense and
feeling, in short, of its ill desert, of the propriety and fitness of
inflicting evil upon the person who is guilty of it, and of making him
grieve in his turn, arises from the sympathetic indignation which
naturally boils up in the breast of the spectator, whenever he
thoroughly brings home to himself the case of the sufferer[2].

Footnote 2:

  To ascribe in this manner our natural sense of the ill desert of human
  actions to a sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, may seem,
  to the greater part of people, to be a degradation of that sentiment.
  Resentment is commonly regarded as so odious a passion, that they will
  be apt to think it impossible that so laudable a principle, as the
  sense of the ill desert of vice, should in any respect be founded upon
  it. They will be more willing, perhaps, to admit that our sense of the
  merit of good actions is founded upon a sympathy with the gratitude of
  the persons who receive the benefit of them; because gratitude, as
  well as all the other benevolent passions, is regarded as an amiable
  principle, which can take nothing from the worth of whatever is
  founded upon it. Gratitude and resentment, however, are in every
  respect, it is evident, counterparts to one another; and if our sense
  of merit arises from a sympathy with the one, our sense of demerit can
  scarce miss to proceed from a fellow-feeling with the other.

  Let it be considered too that resentment, though, in the degrees in
  which we too often see it, the most odious, perhaps, of all the
  passions, is not disapproved of when properly humbled and entirely
  brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the
  spectator. When we, who are the bystanders, feel that our own
  animosity entirely corresponds with that of the sufferer, when the
  resentment of this last does not in any respect go beyond our own,
  when no word, no gesture, escapes him that denotes an emotion more
  violent than what we can keep time to, and when he never aims at
  inflicting any punishment beyond what we should rejoice to see
  inflicted, or what we ourselves would upon this account even desire to
  be the instruments of inflicting, it is impossible that we should not
  entirely approve of his sentiments. Our own emotion in this case must,
  in our eyes, undoubtedly justify his. And as experience teaches us how
  much the greater part of mankind are incapable of this moderation, and
  how great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and
  undisciplined impulse of resentment to this suitable temper, we cannot
  avoid conceiving a considerable degree of esteem and admiration for
  one who appears capable of exerting so much self-command over one of
  the most ungovernable passions of his nature. When indeed the
  animosity of the sufferer exceeds, as it almost always does, what we
  can go along with, as we cannot enter into it, we necessarily
  disapprove of it. We even disapprove of it more than we should of an
  equal excess of almost any other passion derived from the imagination.
  And this too violent resentment, instead of carrying us along with it,
  becomes itself the object of our resentment and indignation. We enter
  into the opposite resentment of the person who is the object of this
  unjust emotion, and who is in danger of suffering from it. Revenge,
  therefore, the excess of resentment, appears to be the most detestable
  of all the passions, and is the object of the horror and indignation
  of every body. And as in the way in which this passion commonly
  discovers itself among mankind, it is excessive a hundred times for
  once that it is moderate, we are very apt to consider it as altogether
  odious and detestable, because in its most ordinary appearances it is
  so. Nature, however, even in the present depraved state of mankind,
  does not seem to have dealt so unkindly with us, as to have endowed us
  with any principle which is wholly in every respect evil, or which, in
  no degree and in no direction, can be the proper object of praise and
  approbation. Upon some occasions we are sensible that this passion,
  which is generally too strong, may likewise be too weak. We sometimes
  complain that a particular person shows too little spirit, and has too
  little sense of the injuries that have been done to him; and we are as
  ready to despise him for the defect, as to hate him for the excess of
  this passion.

  The inspired writers would not surely have talked so frequently or so
  strongly of the wrath and anger of God, if they had regarded every
  degree of those passions as vicious and evil, even in so weak and
  imperfect a creature as man.

  Let it be considered too, that the present inquiry is not concerning a
  matter of right, if I may say so, but concerning a matter of fact. We
  are not at present examining upon what principles a perfect being
  would approve of the punishment of bad actions; but upon what
  principles so weak and imperfect a creature as man actually and in
  fact approves of it. The principles which I have just now mentioned,
  it is evident, have a very great effect upon his sentiments; and it
  seems wisely ordered that it should be so. The very existence of
  society requires that unmerited and unprovoked malice should be
  restrained by proper punishments; and consequently, that to inflict
  those punishments should be regarded as a proper and laudable action.
  Though man, therefore, be naturally endowed with a desire of the
  welfare and preservation of society, yet the Author of nature has not
  entrusted it to his reason to find out that a certain application of
  punishments is the proper means of attaining this end; but has endowed
  him with an immediate and instinctive approbation of that very
  application which is most proper to attain it. The œconomy of nature
  is in this respect exactly of a piece with what it is upon many other
  occasions. With regard to all those ends which, upon account of their
  peculiar importance, may be regarded, if such an expression is
  allowable, as the favourite ends of nature, she has constantly in this
  manner not only endowed mankind with an appetite for the end which she
  proposes, but likewise with an appetite for the means by which alone
  this end can be brought about, for their own sakes, and independent of
  their tendency to produce it. Thus self-preservation, and the
  propagation of the species, are the great ends which Nature seems to
  have proposed in the formation of all animals. Mankind are endowed
  with a desire of those ends, and an aversion to the contrary; with a
  love of life, and a dread of dissolution; with a desire of the
  continuance and perpetuity of the species, and with an aversion to the
  thoughts of its entire extinction. But though we are in this manner
  endowed with a very strong desire of those ends, it has not been
  entrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason, to
  find out the proper means of bringing them about. Nature has directed
  us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts.
  Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, the love of
  pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for
  their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to
  those beneficent ends which the great Director of nature intended to
  produce by them.

  Before I conclude this note, I must take notice of a difference
  between the approbation of propriety and that of merit or beneficence.
  Before we approve of the sentiments of any person as proper and
  suitable to their objects, we must not only be affected in the same
  manner as he is, but we must perceive this harmony and correspondence
  of sentiments between him and ourselves. Thus, though upon hearing of
  a misfortune that had befallen my friend, I should conceive precisely
  that degree of concern which he gives way to; yet till I am informed
  of the manner in which he behaves, till I perceive the harmony between
  his emotions and mine, I cannot be said to approve of the sentiments
  which influence his behaviour. The approbation of propriety therefore
  requires, not only that we should intirely sympathize with the person
  who acts, but that we should perceive this perfect concord between his
  sentiments and our own. On the contrary, when I hear of a benefit that
  has been bestowed upon another person, let him who has received it be
  affected in what manner he pleases, if, by bringing his case home to
  myself, I feel gratitude arise in my own breast, I necessarily approve
  of the conduct of his benefactor, and regard it as meritorious, and
  the proper object of reward. Whether the person who has received the
  benefit conceives gratitude or not, cannot, it is evident, in any
  degree alter our sentiments with regard to the merit of him who has
  bestowed it. No actual correspondence of sentiments, therefore, is
  here required. It is sufficient that if he was grateful, they would
  correspond; and our sense of merit is often founded upon one of those
  illusive sympathies, by which, when we bring home to ourselves the
  case of another, we are often affected in a manner in which the person
  principally concerned is incapable of being affected. There is a
  similar difference between our disapprobation of demerit, and that of
  impropriety.

                              SECTION II.
                      Of justice and beneficence.

                                CHAP. I.
                   _Comparison 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 any 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.

Resentment 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 made 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, though 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 against 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.

Though 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 of 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.

                               CHAP. II.
   _Of the sense of justice, of remorse, and of the consciousness of
                                merit._

There can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbour, there can be no
incitement to do evil to another, which mankind will go along with,
except just indignation for evil which that other has done to us. To
disturb his happiness merely because it stands in the way of our own, to
take from him what is of real use to him merely because it may be of
equal or more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expence
of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own
happiness above that of other people, is what no impartial spectator can
go along with. Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally
recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself
than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.
Every man, therefore, is much more deeply interested in whatever
immediately concerns himself, than in what concerns any other man: and
to hear, perhaps, of the death of another person, with whom we have no
particular connexion, will give us less concern, will spoil our stomach,
or break our rest much less than a very insignificant disaster which has
befallen ourselves. But though the ruin of our neighbour may affect us
much less than a very small misfortune of our own, we must not ruin him
to prevent that small misfortune, nor even to prevent our own ruin. We
must, here, as in all other cases, view ourselves not so much according
to that light in which we may naturally appear to ourselves, as
according to that in which we naturally appear to others. Though every
man may, according to the proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the
rest of mankind he is a most insignificant part of it. Though his own
happiness may be of more importance to him than that of all the world
besides, to every other person it is of no more consequence than that of
any other man. Though it may be true, therefore, that every individual,
in his own breast, naturally prefers himself to all mankind, yet he
dares not look mankind in the face, and avow that he acts according to
this principle. He feels that in this preference they can never go along
with him, and that how natural soever it may be to him, it must always
appear excessive and extravagant to them. When he views himself in the
light in which he is conscious that others will view him, he sees that
to them he is but one of the multitude in no respect better than any
other in it. If he would act so as that the impartial spectator may
enter into the principles of his conduct, which is what of all things he
has the greatest desire to do, he must, upon this, as upon all other
occasions, humble the arrogance of his self-love, and bring it down to
something which other men can go along with. They will indulge it so far
as to allow him to be more anxious about, and to pursue with more
earnest assiduity, his own happiness than that of any other person. Thus
far, whenever they place themselves in his situation, they will readily
go along with him. In the race for wealth and honours, and preferments,
he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle,
in order to outstrip all his competitors. But if he should justle, or
throw down any of them, the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at
an end. It is a violation of fair play, which they cannot admit of. This
man is to them, in every respect, as good as he: they do not enter into
that self-love by which he prefers himself so much to this other, and
cannot go along with the motive from which he hurt him. They readily,
therefore, sympathize with the natural resentment of the injured, and
the offender becomes the object of their hatred and indignation. He is
sensible that he becomes so, and feels that those sentiments are ready
to burst out from all sides against him.

As the greater and more irreparable the evil that is done, the
resentment of the sufferer runs naturally the higher, so does likewise
the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, as well as the sense of
guilt in the agent. Death is the greatest evil which one man can inflict
upon another, and excites the highest degree of resentment in those who
are immediately connected with the slain. Murder, therefore, is the most
atrocious of all crimes which affect individuals only, in the sight both
of mankind, and of the person who has committed it. To be deprived of
that which we are possessed of, is a greater evil than to be
disappointed of what we have only the expectation. Breach of property,
therefore, theft and robbery, which take from us what we are possessed
of, are greater crimes than breach of contract, which only disappoints
us of what we expected. The most sacred laws of justice, therefore,
those whose violation seems to call the loudest for vengeance and
punishment, are the laws which guard the life and person of our
neighbour; the next are those which guard his property and possessions;
and last of all come those which guard what are called his personal
rights, or what is due to him from the promises of others.

The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on the
sentiments which mankind must entertain with regard to him, without
feeling all the agonies of shame, and horror, and consternation. When
his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to reflect upon his
conduct, he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. They
appear now as detestable to him as they did always to other people. By
sympathizing with the hatred and abhorrence which other men must
entertain for him, he becomes in some measure the object of his own
hatred and abhorrence. The situation of the person, who suffered by his
injustice, now calls upon his pity. He is grieved at the thought of it;
regrets the unhappy effects of his own conduct, and feels at the same
time that they have rendered him the proper object of the resentment and
indignation of mankind, and of what is the natural consequence of
resentment, vengeance and punishment. The thought of this perpetually
haunts him, and fills him with terror and amazement. He dares no longer
look society in the face, but imagines himself as it were rejected, and
thrown out from the affections of all mankind. He cannot hope for the
consolation of sympathy in this his greatest, and most dreadful
distress. The remembrance of his crimes has shut out all fellow-feelings
with him from the hearts of his fellow-creatures. The sentiments which
they entertain with regard to him, are the very thing which he is most
afraid of. Every thing seems hostile, and he would be glad to fly to
some inhospitable desert, where he might never more behold the face of a
human creature, nor read in the countenance of mankind the condemnation
of his crimes. But solitude is still more dreadful than society. His own
thoughts can present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate,
and disastrous, the melancholy forebodings of incomprehensible misery
and ruin. The horror of solitude drives him back into society, and he
comes again into the presence of mankind, astonished to appear before
them, loaded with shame and distracted with fear, in order to supplicate
some little protection from the countenance of those very judges, who he
knows have already all unanimously condemned him. Such is the nature of
that sentiment, which is properly called remorse; of all the sentiments
which can enter the human breast the most dreadful. It is made up of
shame from the sense of the impropriety of past conduct; of grief for
the effects of it; of pity for those who suffer by it; and of the dread
and terror of punishment from the consciousness of the justly provoked
resentment of all rational creatures.

The opposite behaviour naturally inspires the opposite sentiment. The
man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has
performed a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he has
served, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and
gratitude, and, by sympathy with them, of the esteem and approbation of
all mankind. And when he looks backward to the motive from which he
acted, and surveys it in the light in which the indifferent spectator
will survey it, he still continues to enter into it, and applauds
himself by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed impartial
judge. In both these points of view his own conduct appears to him every
way agreeable. His mind, at the thought of it, is filled with
chearfulness, serenity, and composure. He is in friendship and harmony
with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with confidence
and benevolent satisfaction, secure that he has rendered himself worthy
of their most favourable regards. In the combination of all these
sentiments consists the consciousness of merit, or of deserved reward.

                               CHAP. III.
            _Of the utility of this constitution of nature._

It is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by
nature to that situation for which he was made. All the members of human
society stand in need of each others assistance, and are likewise
exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is
reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship and
esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members
of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection,
and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices.

But though the necessary assistance should not be afforded from such
generous and disinterested motives, though among the different members
of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, the
society, though less happy and agreeable, will not necessarily be
dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among different
merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or
affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be
bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary
exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.

Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready
to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the
moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the bands of
it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted
are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and
opposition of their discordant affections. If there is any society among
robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite
observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another.
Beneficence, therefore, is less essential to the exigence of society
than justice. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable
state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly
destroy it.

Though Nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the
pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought it
necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of
merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament
which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the building, and
which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend, but by no means
necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that
upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense
fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and support seems in
this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care
of Nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms. In order to enforce the
observation of justice, therefore, Nature has implanted in the human
breast that consciousness of ill desert, those terrors of merited
punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safe-guards of
the association of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent,
and to chastise the guilty. Men, though naturally sympathetic, feel so
little for another, with whom they have no particular connexion, in
comparison for what they feel for themselves; the misery of one, who is
merely their fellow-creature, is of so little importance to them in
comparison even of a small conveniency of their own; they have it so
much in their power to hurt him, and may have so many temptations to do
so, that if this principle did not stand up within them in his defence,
and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would, like wild
beasts, be at all times ready to fly upon him; and a man would enter an
assembly of men as he enters a den of lions.

In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest
artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce; and in the
mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is
contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of
the individual, and the propagation of the species. But in these, and in
all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final
cause of their several motions and organizations. The digestion of the
food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several
juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for
the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to account for
them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine
that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord,
and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or
digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end
for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various
motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they
were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not
do it better. Yet we never ascribe any such desire or intention to them,
but to the watch-maker, and we know that they are put in motion by a
spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But
though, in accounting for the operations of bodies, we never fail to
distinguish in this manner the efficient from the final cause, in
accounting for those of the mind, we are very apt to confound those two
different things with one another. When by natural principles we are led
to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason should
recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their
efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those
ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is
the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view this cause seems sufficient
to produce the effects which are ascribed to it; and the system of human
nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its different
operations are in this manner deduced from a single principle.

As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are totally
observed, as no social intercourse can take place among men who do not
generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this
necessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved of
the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those who
violated them. Man, it has been said, has a natural love for society,
and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own
sake, and though he himself was to derive no benefit from it. The
orderly and flourishing state of society is agreeable to him, and he
takes delight in contemplating it. Its disorder and confusion, on the
contrary, is the object of his aversion, and he is chagrined at whatever
tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own interest is
connected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness,
perhaps the preservation of his existence, depends upon its
preservation. Upon every account, therefore, he has an abhorrence at
whatever can tend to destroy society, and is willing to make use of
every means, which can hinder so hated and so dreadful an event.
Injustice necessarily tends to destroy it. Every appearance of
injustice, therefore, alarms him, and he runs, if I may say so, to stop
the progress of what, if allowed to go on, would quickly put an end to
every thing that is dear to him. If he cannot restrain it by gentle and
fair means, he must bear it down by force and violence, and at any rate
must put a stop to its further progress. Hence it is, they say, that he
often approves of the enforcement of the law of justice even by the
capital punishment of those who violate them. The disturber of the
public peace is hereby removed out of the world, and others are
terrified by his fate from imitating his example.

Such is the account commonly given of our approbation of the punishment
of injustice. And so far this account is undoubtedly true, that we
frequently have occasion to confirm our natural sense of the propriety
and fitness of punishment, by reflecting how necessary it is for
preserving the order of society. When the guilty is about to suffer that
just retaliation, which the natural indignation of mankind tells them is
due to his crimes; when the insolence of his injustice is broken and
humbled by the terror of his approaching punishment; when he ceases to
be an object of fear, with the generous and humane he begins to be an
object of pity. The thought of what he is about to suffer extinguishes
their resentment for the sufferings of others to which he has given
occasion. They are disposed to pardon and forgive him, and to save him
from that punishment, which in all their cool hours they had considered
as the retribution due to such crimes. Here, therefore, they have
occasion to call to their assistance the consideration of the general
interest of society. They counterbalance the impulse of this weak and
partial humanity by the dictates of a humanity that is more generous and
comprehensive. They reflect that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the
innocent, and oppose to the emotions of compassion which they feel for a
particular person, a more enlarged compassion which they feel for
mankind.

Sometimes too we have occasion to defend the propriety of observing the
general rules of justice by the consideration of their necessity to the
support of society. We frequently hear the young and the licentious
ridiculing the most sacred rules of morality, and professing, sometimes
from the corruption, but more frequently from the vanity of their
hearts, the most abominable maxims of conduct. Our indignation rouses,
and we are eager to refute and expose such detestable principles. But
though it is their intrinsic hatefulness and detestableness, which
originally inflames us against them, we are unwilling to assign this as
the sole reason why we condemn them, or to pretend that it is merely
because we ourselves hate and detest them. The reason, we think, would
not appear to be conclusive. Yet why should it not; if we hate and
detest them because they are the natural and proper objects of hatred
and detestation? But when we are asked why we should not act in such or
such a manner, the very question seems to suppose that, to those who ask
it, this manner of acting does not appear to be for its own sake the
natural and proper object of those sentiments. We must show them,
therefore, that it ought to be so for the sake of something else. Upon
this account we generally cast about for other arguments, and the
consideration which first occurs to us is the disorder and confusion of
society which would result from the universal prevalence of such
practices. We seldom fail, therefore, to insist upon this topic.

But though it commonly requires no great discernment to see the
destructive tendency of all licentious practices to the welfare of
society, it is seldom this consideration which first animates us against
them. All men, even the most stupid and unthinking, abhor fraud,
perfidy, and injustice, and delight to see them punished. But few men
have reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of
society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be.

That it is not a regard to the preservation of society, which originally
interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against individuals,
may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations. The concern which we
take in the fortune and happiness of individuals does not, in common
cases, arise from that which we take in the fortune and happiness of
society. We are no more concerned for the destruction or loss of a
single man, because this man is a member or part of society, and because
we should be concerned for the destruction of society, than we are
concerned for the loss of a single guinea, because this guinea is a part
of a thousand guineas, and because we should be concerned for the loss
of the whole sum. In neither case does our regard for the individuals
arise from our regard for the multitude: but in both cases our regard
for the multitude is compounded and made up of the particular regards
which we feel for the different individuals of which it is composed. As
when a small sum is unjustly taken from us we do not so much prosecute
the injury from a regard to the preservation of our whole fortune, as
from a regard to that particular sum which we have lost; so when a
single man is injured or destroyed, we demand the punishment of the
wrong that has been done to him, not so much from a concern for the
general interest of society, as from a concern for that very individual
who has been injured. It is to be observed, however, that this concern
does not necessarily include in it any degree of those exquisite
sentiments which are commonly called love, esteem, and affection, and by
which we distinguish our particular friends and acquaintance. The
concern which is requisite for this is no more than the general
fellow-feeling which we have with every man merely because he is our
fellow-creature. We enter into the resentment even of an odious person,
when he is injured by those to whom he has given no provocation. Our
disapprobation of his ordinary character and conduct, does not in this
case altogether prevent our fellow-feeling with his natural indignation;
though with those who are not either extremely candid, or who have not
been accustomed to correct and regulate their natural sentiments by
general rules, it is very apt to damp it.

Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment,
merely from a view to the general interest of society, which, we
imagine, cannot otherwise be secured. Of this kind are all the
punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil
police, or military discipline. Such crimes do not immediately or
directly hurt any particular person; but their remote consequences, it
is supposed, do produce, or might produce, either a considerable
inconveniency, or a great disorder in the society. A centinel, for
example, who falls asleep upon his watch, suffers death by the law of
war, because such carelessness might endanger the whole army. This
severity may, upon many occasions, appear necessary, and, for that
reason, just and proper. When the preservation of an individual is
inconsistent with the safety of a multitude, nothing can be more just
than that the many should be preferred to the one. Yet this punishment,
how necessary soever, always appears to be excessively severe. The
natural atrocity of the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment
so great, that it is with great difficulty that our hearts can reconcile
itself to it. Though such carelessness appears very blamable, yet the
thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resentment, as
would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must
recollect himself, must make an effort, and exert his whole firmness and
resolution, before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go
along with it when it is inflicted by others. It is not, however, in
this manner, that he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful
murderer or parricide. His heart, in this case, applauds with ardour,
and even with transport, the just retaliation which seems due to such
detestable crimes, and which, if, by any accident, they should happen to
escape, he would be highly enraged and disappointed. The very different
sentiment with which the spectator views those different punishments, is
a proof that his approbation of the one is far from being founded upon
the same principles with that of the other. He looks upon the centinel
as an unfortunate victim, who, indeed, must, and ought to be, devoted to
the safety of numbers, but whom still, in his heart, he would be glad to
save; and he is only sorry, that the interest of the many should oppose
it. But if the murderer should escape from punishment, it would excite
his highest indignation, and he would call upon God to avenge, in
another world, that crime which the injustice of mankind had neglected
to chastise upon earth.

For it well deserves to be taken notice of, that we are so far from
imagining that injustice ought to be punished in this life, merely on
account of the order of society, which cannot otherwise be maintained,
that Nature teaches us to hope, and religion, we suppose, authorizes us
to expect, that it will be punished, even in a life to come. Our sense
of its ill desert pursues it, if I may say so, even beyond the grave,
though the example of its punishment there cannot serve to deter the
rest of mankind, who see it not, who know it not, from being guilty of
the like practices here. The justice of God, however, we think, still
requires, that he should hereafter avenge the injuries of the widow and
the fatherless, who are here so often insulted with impunity.

That the Deity loves virtue and hates vice, as a voluptuous man loves
riches and hates poverty, not for their own sakes, but for the effects
which they tend to produce; that he loves the one, only because it
promotes the happiness of society, which his benevolence prompts him to
desire; and that he hates the other, only because it occasions the
misery of mankind, which the same divine quality renders the object of
his aversion; is not the doctrine of untaught nature, but of an
artificial refinement of reason and philosophy. Our untaught, natural
sentiments, all prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is supposed
necessarily to appear to the Deity, as it does to us, for its own sake,
and without any further view, the natural and proper object of love and
reward, so must vice, of hatred and punishment. That the gods neither
resent nor hurt, was the general maxim of all the different sects of the
ancient philosophy: and if, by resenting, be understood, that violent
and disorderly perturbation, which often distracts and confounds the
human breast; or if, by hurting, be understood, the doing mischief
wantonly, and without regard to propriety or justice, such weakness is
undoubtedly unworthy of the divine perfection. But if it be meant, that
vice does not appear to the Deity to be, for its own sake, the object of
abhorrence and aversion, and what, for its own sake, it is fit and right
should be punished, the truth of this maxim seems repugnant to some very
natural feelings. If we consult our natural sentiments, we are even apt
to fear, lest, before the holiness of God, vice should appear to be more
worthy of punishment than the weakness and imperfection of human virtue
can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a Being
of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit,
or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence of his
fellow-creatures, he may even justly elevate himself, and may often have
reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, compared to the
still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is quite different
when about to appear before his infinite Creator. To such a Being, he
fears, that his littleness and weakness can scarce ever appear the
proper object, either of esteem or of reward. But he can easily
conceive, how the numberless violations of duty, of which he has been
guilty, should render him the proper object of aversion and punishment;
and he thinks he can see no reason why the divine indignation should not
be let loose without any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as he
imagines that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for
happiness, he suspects that he cannot demand it from the justice, but
that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow,
humility, contrition at the thought of his past conduct, seem, upon this
account, the sentiments which become him, and to be the only means which
he has left for appeasing that wrath which, he knows, he has justly
provoked. He even distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally
fears, lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be
prevailed upon to spare the crime by the most importunate lamentations
of the criminal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, some
other atonement, he imagines must be made for him, beyond what he
himself is capable of making, before the purity of the divine justice
can be reconciled to his manifold offences. The doctrines of revelation
coincide, in every respect, with those original anticipations of nature;
and as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of
our own virtue, so they show us, at the same time, that the most
powerful intercession has been made, and that the most dreadful
atonement has been paid for our manifold transgressions and iniquities.

                              SECTION III.
Of the influence of fortune upon the sentiments of mankind, with regard
                  to the merit or demerit of actions.

                             INTRODUCTION.

Whatever praise or blame can be due to any action, must belong either,
first, to the intention or affection of the heart, from which it
proceeds; or, secondly, to the external action or movement of the body,
which this affection gives occasion to; or, last, to all the good or bad
consequences, which actually, and in fact, proceed from it. These three
different things constitute the whole nature and circumstances of the
action, and must be the foundation of whatever quality can belong to it.

That the two last of these three circumstances cannot be the foundation
of any praise or blame, is abundantly evident; nor has the contrary ever
been asserted by any body. The external action or movement of the body
is often the same in the most innocent and in the most blamable actions.
He who shoots a bird, and he who shoots a man, both of them perform the
same external movement: each of them draws the tricker of a gun. The
consequences which actually, and in fact, happen to proceed from any
action, are, if possible, still more indifferent either to praise or
blame, than even the external movement of the body. As they depend, not
upon the agent, but upon fortune, they cannot be the proper foundation
for any sentiment, of which his character and conduct are the objects.

The only consequences for which he can be answerable, or by which he can
deserve either approbation or disapprobation of any kind, are those
which were some way or other intended, or those which, at least, show
some agreeable or disagreeable quality in the intention of the heart,
from which he acted. To the intention or affection of the heart,
therefore, to the propriety or impropriety, to the beneficence or
hurtfulness of the design, all praise or blame, all approbation or
disapprobation, of any kind, which can justly be bestowed upon any
action, must ultimately belong.

When this maxim is thus proposed in abstract and general terms, there is
no body who does not agree to it. Its self-evident justice is
acknowledged by all the world, and there is not a dissenting voice among
all mankind. Every body allows, that how different soever the
accidental, the unintended and unforeseen consequences of different
actions, yet, if the intentions or affections from which they arose
were, on the one hand, equally proper and equally beneficent, or, on the
other, equally improper and equally malevolent, the merit or demerit of
the actions is still the same, and the agent is equally the suitable
object either of gratitude or of resentment.

But how well soever we may seem to be persuaded of the truth of this
equitable maxim, when we consider it after this manner, in abstract, yet
when we come to particular cases, the actual consequences which happen
to proceed from any action, have a very great effect upon our sentiments
concerning its merit or demerit, and almost always either enhance or
diminish our sense of both. Scarce, in any one instance, perhaps, will
our sentiments be found, after examination, to be entirely regulated by
this rule, which we all acknowledge ought entirely to regulate them.

This irregularity of sentiment, which every body feels, which scarce any
body is sufficiently aware of, and which no body is willing to
acknowledge, I proceed now to explain; and I shall consider, first, the
cause which gives occasion to it, or the mechanism by which nature
produces it; secondly, the extent of its influence; and, last of all,
the end which it answers, or the purpose which the Author of nature
seems to have intended by it.

                                CHAP. I.
             _Of 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 from 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. If 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 sentiments, 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. To 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, on 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.

                               CHAP. II.
             _Of the extent of this influence of fortune._

The effect of this influence of fortune is, first, to diminish our sense
of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the most
laudable or blamable intentions, when they fail of producing their
proposed effects: and, secondly, to increase our sense of the merit or
demerit of actions, beyond what is due to the motives or affections from
which they proceed, when they accidentally give occasion either to
extraordinary pleasure or pain.

1. First, I say, though the intentions of any person should be ever so
proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so improper and
malevolent, on the other, yet, if they fail in producing their effects,
his merit seems imperfect in the one case, and his demerit incomplete in
the other. Nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who
are immediately affected by the consequences of any action. It is felt,
in some measure, even by the impartial spectator. The man who solicits
an office for another, without obtaining it, is regarded as his friend,
and seems to deserve his love and affection. But the man who not only
solicits, but procures it, is more peculiarly considered as his patron
and benefactor, and is entitled to his respect and gratitude. The person
obliged, we are apt to think, may with some justice, imagine himself on
a level with the first: but we cannot enter into his sentiments, if he
does not feel himself inferior to the second. It is common indeed to
say, that we are equally obliged to the man who has endeavoured to serve
us, as to him who actually did so. It is the speech which we constantly
make upon every unsuccessful attempt of this kind; but which, like all
other fine speeches, must be understood with a grain of allowance. The
sentiments which a man of generosity entertains for the friend who
fails, may often indeed be nearly the same with those which he conceives
for him who succeeds: and the more generous he is, the more nearly will
those sentiments approach to an exact level. With the truly generous, to
be beloved, to be esteemed by those whom they themselves think worthy of
esteem, gives more pleasure, and thereby excites more gratitude, than
all the advantages which they can ever expect from those sentiments.
When they lose those advantages therefore, they seem to lose but a
trifle, which is scarce worth regarding. They still however lose
something. Their pleasure therefore, and consequently their gratitude,
is not perfectly complete: and accordingly if, between the friend who
fails and the friend who succeeds, all other circumstances are equal,
there will, even in the noblest and the best mind, be some little
difference of affection in favour of him who succeeds. Nay, so unjust
are mankind in this respect, that though the intended benefit should be
procured, yet if it is not procured by the means of a particular
benefactor, they are apt to think that less gratitude is due to the man,
who with the best intentions in the world could do no more than help it
a little forward. As their gratitude is in this case divided among the
different persons who contributed to their pleasure, a smaller share of
it seems due to any one. Such a person, we hear men commonly say,
intended no doubt to serve us; and we really believe exerted himself to
the utmost of his abilities for that purpose. We are not, however,
obliged to him for this benefit; since had it not been for the
concurrence of others, all that he could have done would never have
brought it about. This consideration, they imagine, should, even in the
eyes of the impartial spectator, diminish the debt which they owe to
him. The person himself who has unsuccessfully endeavoured to confer a
benefit, has by no means the same dependency upon the gratitude of the
man whom he meant to oblige, nor the same sense of his own merit towards
him, which he would have had in the case of success.

Even the merit of talents and abilities which some accident has hindered
from producing their effects, seems in some measure imperfect, even to
those who are fully convinced of their capacity to produce them. The
general who has been hindered by the envy of ministers from gaining some
great advantage over the enemies of his country, regrets the loss of the
opportunity for ever after. Nor is it only upon account of the public
that he regrets it. He laments that he was hindered from performing an
action which would have added a new lustre to his character in his own
eyes, as well as in those of every other person. It satisfies neither
himself nor others to reflect that the plan or design was all that
depended on him, that no greater capacity was required to execute it
than what was necessary to concert it: that he was allowed to be every
way capable of executing it, and that had he been permitted to go on,
success was infallible. He still did not execute it; and though he might
deserve all the approbation which is due to a magnanimous and great
design, he still wanted the actual merit of having performed a great
action. To take the management of any affair of public concern from the
man who has almost brought it to a conclusion, is regarded as the most
invidious injustice. As he had done so much, he should, we think, have
been allowed to acquire the complete merit of putting an end to it. It
was objected to Pompey, that he came in upon the victories of Lucullus,
and gathered those laurels which were due to the fortune and valour of
another. The glory of Lucullus, it seems, was less complete even in the
opinion of his own friends, when he was not permitted to finish that
conquest which his conduct and courage had put in the power of almost
any man to finish. It mortifies an architect when his plans are either
not executed at all, or when they are so far altered as to spoil the
effect of the building. The plan, however, is all that depends upon the
architect. The whole of his genius is, to good judges, as completely
discovered in that as in the actual execution. But a plan does not, even
to the most intelligent, give the same pleasure as a noble and
magnificent building. They may discover as much both of taste and genius
in the one as in the other. But their effects are still vastly
different, and the amusement derived from the first, never approaches to
the wonder and admiration which are sometimes excited by the second. We
may believe of many men, that their talents are superior to those of
Cæsar and Alexander; and that in the same situations they would perform