 Section 24 of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Linda Andrews. The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith, Part 5, Section 2, Chapter 2 of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral Sentiments. Since our sentiments concerning beauty of every kind are so much influenced by custom and fashion, it cannot be expected that those concerning the beauty of conduct should be entirely exempted from the dominion of those principles. Their influence here, however, seems to be much less than it is everywhere else. There is perhaps no form of external objects, how absurd and fanatical, so ever, to which custom will not reconcile us or which fashion will not render even agreeable. But the characters in conduct of a mural or a Claudius are what no custom will ever reconcile us to, but no fashion will ever render agreeable, but the one will always be the object of dread and hatred, the other of scorn and derision. The principles of the imagination upon which our sense of beauty depends are of a very nice and delicate nature and may easily be altered by habit and education. But the sentiments of moral approvation and disapprovation are founded on the strongest and most vigorous passions of human nature, and though they may be somewhat warped, cannot be entirely perverted. But though the influence of custom and fashion upon moral sentiments is not altogether so great, it is, however, perfectly similar to what it is everywhere else. When custom and fashion coincide with the natural principles of right or wrong, they heighten the delicacy of our sentiments and increase our importance for everything which approaches to evil. Those who have been educated in what is really good company, not in what is commonly called such, who have been accustomed to see nothing in the persons whom they esteemed and lived with. But justice, modesty, humanity, and good order are more shocked with whatever seems to be inconsistent with the rules which those virtues prescribe. Those, on the contrary, who have had the misfortune to be brought up amidst violence, licentiousness, falsehood, and injustice, lose, though not all sense of the impropriety of such contact, yet all sense of its dreadful enormity or of the vengeance and punishment do it. They have been familiar or right with it from their infancy. Custom has rendered it habitual to them, and they are very apt to regard it as what is called the way of the world, something which either may or must be practiced to hinder us from being the dupes of our own integrity. Custom too will sometimes give reputation to a certain degree of disorder and, on the contrary, discounted its qualities which deserve esteem. In the reign of Charles II, a degree of licentiousness was deemed the characteristic of a liberal education. It was connected, according to the notion of those times, with generosity, sincerity, magnanimity, loyalty, and proof that the person who acted in this manner was a gentleman and not a puritan. The verity of manners and regularity of conduct, on the other hand, were altogether unfashionable and were connected in the imagination of that age with cant, cunning, hypocrisy, and low manners. To superficial minds, the vices of the great seem at all times agreeable. They connect them not only with the splendor of fortune, but with many superior virtues which they ascribe to their superiors. With the spirit of freedom and independency, with frankness, generosity, humanity, and politeness. The virtues of the inferior ranks of people, on the contrary, their parsimonious frugality, their painful industry, and rigid adherence to rules seems to them mean and disagreeable. They connect them both with the meanness of the station to which those qualities commonly belong and with many great vices which they suppose usually accompany them, such as an abject, howardly, ill-natured, lying, pilfering disposition. The objects with which men in different professions and states of life are conversant, being very different, and habituating them to very different passions naturally form in them very different characters and manners. We expect, in each rank and profession, a degree of those manners which experience has taught us, belong to it. But as in each species of things, we are particularly pleased with the middle conformation, which, in every part and feature, agrees most exactly with the general standard which nature seems to have established for things of that kind. So, in each rank, or, if I may say so, in each species of men, we are particularly pleased if they have neither too much nor too little of the character which usually accompanies their particular condition and situation. A man, we say, should look like his trade and profession, yet the pedantry of every profession is disagreeable. We expect different periods of life have, for the same reason, different manners assigned to them. We expect, in old age, that gravity and sedateness, which is infirmity, its long experience, and its worn out sensibility seem to render both natural and respectable. We can relay our account to find in youth that sensibility, that gaiety, and sprightly vivacity, which experience teaches us to expect from the lively impressions that all interesting objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpracticed senses of that early period of life. Each of those two ages, however, may easily have too much of the peculiarities which belong to it. The flirting levity of youth and the immovable insensibility of old age are equally disagreeable. The young, according to the common saying, are most agreeable when, in their behavior, there is something of the manners of the old and the old when they retain something of the gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have too much of the manners of the extreme coldness and dull formality, which are pardoned in old age, make youth ridiculous. The levity, the carelessness, and the vanity, which are indulged in youth, render old age contemptible. The peculiar character and manners which we are led by custom to appropriate to each rank and profession of sometimes perhaps a propriety independent of custom, and what we should approve of for their own sakes, if we took into consideration all the different circumstances which naturally affect those in each different state of life. The propriety of a person's behavior depends not upon its suitableness to any one circumstance of his situation, but to all the circumstances which, when we bring his case home to ourselves, we feel should naturally call upon his attention. If he appears to be so much occupied by any one of them as entirely to neglect the rest, we disapprove of all conduct as something which we cannot entirely go along with because not properly adjusted to all the circumstances of his situation. Yet, perhaps, the emotion he expresses for the object which principally interests him does not exceed what we should entirely sympathize with and approve of in one whose attention was not required by any other thing. A parent in private life might, upon the loss of an only son, express without blame a degree of grief and tenderness, which would be unpardonable in the general at the head of an army when glory in the public safety demanded so great a part of his attention. As different objects ought upon common occasions to occupy the attention of men of different professions, so different passions ought naturally to become habitual to them, and when we bring home to ourselves their situation in this particular respect, we must be sensible that every occurrence should naturally affect them more or less according as the emotion which it excites coincides or disagrees with the fixate habit and temper of their minds. We cannot expect the same sensibility to the gay pleasures and amusements of life and clergymen which we lay our account with in an office. The man whose peculiar occupation it is to keep the world in mind of the awful futurity which awaits them, who is to announce what may be the fatal consequences of every deviation from the rules of duty, and who is himself to set the example of the most exact conformity, seems to be the messenger of tidings which cannot, in propriety, be delivered either with reverty or indifference. His mind is supposed to be continually occupied with what is too grand and solemn to leave any room for the impressions of those frivolous objects which fill up the attention of the dissipated and the gay. We readily feel, therefore, that independent of custom there is a propriety in the manners which custom has allotted to this profession and that nothing can be more suitable to the character of a clergyman than that grave, that austere and abstracted severity which we are habituated to expect in his behavior. These reflections are so very obvious that there is scarce any man so inconsiderate as not at some time to have made them and to accounted to himself in this manner for his approbation of the usual character of disorder. The foundation of the customary character of some other professions is not so obvious and our approbation of it is founded entirely in habit without being either confirmed or enlightened by any reflections of this kind. They are led by custom, for example, to annex the character of gayity, levity, and sprightly freedom as well as some degree of dissipation to the military profession. Yet, if we were to consider what mood or tone of temper would be most suitable to this situation, we should be apt to determine, perhaps, that the most serious and thought-future line would best become those whose lives are continually exposed to uncommon danger and who should therefore be more constantly occupied with the thoughts of death and its consequences than other men. It is this very circumstance, however, which is not improbably the occasion why the contrary return of mind prevails so much among none of this profession. It requires so great an effort to conquer the fear of death when we survey it with steadiness and attention that those who are constantly exposed to it find it easier to turn away their thoughts from it altogether. They draft themselves up in careless security and indifference and to plunge themselves for this purpose into every sort of amusement and dissipation. A camp is not the element of a thoughtful or a melancholy man. The persons of that caste, indeed, are often abundantly determined and are capable by a great effort of going on with the inflexible resolution to the most unavoidable doubt, but to be exposed to continual, though less imminent danger, to be obliged to exert for a long time a degree of this effort exhausts and depresses the mind and renders it incapable of all happiness and enjoyment. The gay and the careless who have occasion to make no effort at all could fairly resolve never to look before them, but to lose in continual pleasures and amusements all anxiety about their situation more easily supports such circumstances. Whenever by any peculiar circumstances an officer has no reason to lay his account with being exposed to any uncommon danger, he is very apt to lose the gaiety and dissipated thoughtlessness of his character. The captain of a city guard is commonly a sober, careful, and canary as an animal as the rest of his fellow citizens. A long peace is, for the same reason, very apt to diminish the difference between the civil and the military character. The ordinary situation, however, of men of this profession renders gaiety and agree of dissipation so much their usual character and custom has in our imagination, so strongly connected this character with the state of life that we are very apt to despise any man whose peculiar humor or situation renders him incapable of acquiring it. We laugh at the grave and careful faces of a city guard, which so little resemble those of their profession. They themselves seem often to be ashamed of the regularity of their own manners and not to be out of the fashion of their trade are fond of affecting that levity, which is by no means natural to them. Whatever is the deportant, which we have been accustomed to see in a respectable order of men, it comes to be so associated in our imagination with that order that whenever we see the one, we lay our account that we are too meet with the other and when disappointed miss something which we expected to find. We are embarrassed and put to a stand and know not how to address ourselves to a character which plainly affects to be of a different species than those with which we should have been disposed to cause it. The different situations of different ages and countries are apt in the same manner to give different characters to the generality of those who live in them. And their sentiments concerning the particular degree of each quality that is either blameable or praiseworthy vary according to that degree, which is usual in their own country and in their own times. That degree of politeness, which would be highly esteemed, perhaps would be thought of feminine adulation in Russia, would be regarded as rudeness and barbarism at the court of France. That degree of order and frugality, which, in a Polish nobleman, would be considered as excessive parsonomy, would be regarded as an extravagance and a citizen of Amsterdam. Every age and country look upon that degree of each quality, which is commonly to be met with and those who are esteemed among themselves as the golden mean of that particular talent or virtue. And as this varies according to their different circumstances, rendering different qualities more or less habitual to them, their sentiments concerning the exact propriety of character and behavior vary accordingly. Among civilized nations, the virtues which are founded upon humanity are more cultivated than those which are founded upon self-denial and the command of the passions. Among rude and barbarous nations, it is quite otherwise the virtues of self-denial are more cultivated than those of humanity. The general security and happiness which prevail in the ages of civility and flightness afford little exercise to the contempt of danger, to patience and enduring labor, hunger and pain. Poverty may easily be avoided and the contempt of it therefore almost ceases to be a virtue. The abstinence from pleasure becomes less necessary and the mind is more at liberty to invent itself and to indulge its natural inclination in all those particular respects. Among savages and barbarians, it is quite otherwise. The savage undergoes a sort of Spartan discipline and by the necessity of a situation is a mirror to every sort of hardship. He is in continual danger, he is often exposed to the greatest extremities of hunger and frequently dies of pure want. The circumstances not only habituate him to every sort of distress but teach him to give way to none of the passions which that distresses have to excite. We can expect from his countrymen no sympathy or indulgence for such weakness. Before we can feel much for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If our own misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend to that of our neighbor and all savages are too much occupied with our own wants and necessities to give much attention to those of another person. A savage, therefore, may be whatever the nature of his distress expects no sympathy from those about him and disdains upon that account to expose himself by allowing the least weakness to escape him. His passions, how furious and violent so ever, are never permitted to disturb the serenity of his continents or the composure of his conduct and behavior. The savages in North America, we are told, assume upon all occasions the greatest indifference and would think themselves degraded if they should ever appear in any respect to be overcome, either by love or grief or resentment. The magnanimity and self-command in this respect are almost beyond the conception of Europeans in a country in which all men upon a level with regard to rank and fortune that might be expected that the mutual inclinations of the two parties should be the only thing considered in marriages and should be indulged without any sort of control. This, however, is the country in which all marriages, without exception, are made up by the parents and in which a young man would thank himself disgraced forever if he should have the least preference for one woman above another or did not express the most complete indifference both about the time when and the person to whom he was to be married. The weakness of love, which is so much indulged in the ages of humanity and politeness, is regarded among savages as the most unpardonable abundance. Even after the marriage, the two parties seem to be ashamed of a connection which is founded upon so sordid a necessity. They do not live together. They see one another by stealth only. They both continue to dwell in the houses of their respective fathers and the open cohabitation of the two sexes, which is permitted without blame in all other countries, this here considered as the most indecent and unmanly sensuality. Nor is it only over this agreeable passion that they exert this absolute self-command. They often bear in the sight of all their countrymen with the injuries, reproach, and the grossest insults with the appearance of the greatest insensibility and without expressing the smallest resentment. When a savage is made prisoner of war and receives, as is usual, the sentence of death from his conquerors, he hears it without expressing any emotion and afterwards submits to the most dreadful torment without ever bemoaning himself or discovering any other passion but content of his enemies. While he is hung by the shoulders over a slow fire, he derides his tormentors and tells them of how much more ingenuity he himself had tormented such of their countrymen as had fallen into his hands after he has been scorched and burnt and lacerated in all the most tender and sensible parts of his body for several hours together. He is often alone in order to prolong his misery, a short respite, and is taken down from the stake. He employs this interval in talking upon all in different subjects, inquires after the news of the country, and seems indifferent about nothing but his own situation. The spectators express the same insensibility. The sight of so horrible an object seems to make no impression upon them. They scarce look at the prisoner except when they lend a hand to torment him. At other times, they smoke tobacco and amuse themselves with any common object as if no such matter was going on. Every savage is said to prepare himself from his earliest youth for the struggle end. He composes for this purpose what they call the Song of Death, a song which used to sing when he is fallen into the hands of his enemy and is expiring under the tortures which they inflict upon him. He consists of insults upon his tormentors and expresses the highest contempt of death and pain. He sings the song upon all extraordinary occasions, when he goes out to war, when he meets his enemies in the field, or whenever he has a mind to show that he has familiarized his imagination to the most dreadful misfortunes and that no human condone his resolution or alter his purpose. The same contempt of death and torture prevails among all other savage nations. There is not a nacre from the coast of Africa who does not, in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which the soul of a sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind than when she subjected those nations of heroes to the rough use of the jails of Europe to wretches who possessed the virtues neither of the countries which they come from nor of those which they go to and whose levity, brutality, and baseness so justly exposed them to the contempt of the vanquished. This heroic and unconquerable firmness which the custom and education of his country, demand of every savage, is not required of those who are brought up to live in civilized societies. If these last complain when they are in pain, if they grieve when they are in distress, if they allow themselves either to be overcome by love or to be discomposed by anger, they are easily pardoned. Such weaknesses are not apprehended to affect the essential parts of their character. As long as they do not allow themselves to be transported to do anything contrary to justice or humanity, they lose but little reputation, though the serenity of their countenance or their composure of their discourse and behavior should be somewhat ruffled and disturbed. A humane and polished people who have more sensibility to the passions of others can more readily enter into an animated and passionate behavior and can more easily pardon some little access. The person principally concerned is sensible at this and being assured of the equity of his judges indulges himself in stronger expressions of passion and is less afraid of exposing himself to their contempt by the violence of his emotions. We can venture to express more emotion in the presence of a friend than in that of a stranger, because we expect more indulgence from the one than the other. And in the same manner, the rules of decorum among civilized nations admit of a more animated behavior than is approved of among barbarians. The first converse together with open friends, the second with the reserve of strangers, the emotion and vivacity with which the French and the Italians, the two most polished nations upon the continent, express themselves on occasions that are at all interesting. Surprise at first those strangers who happen to be traveling among them and who, having been educated among the people of dollar sensibility, cannot enter into this passionate behavior of which they have never seen any example in their own country. A young French nobleman will weep in the presence of the whole court upon being refused a regiment. An Italian says the habit of all expresses more emotion on being condemned in a fine of 20 shillings than an Englishman on receiving the sentence of death. Cicero in the times of the highest Roman politeness could, without degrading himself, weep with all the bitterness of sorrow in the sight of the whole Senate and the whole people, as it is evident he must have done in the end of almost every oration. The orators of the earlier and greater ages of Rome could not probably, consistent with the manners of the times, have expressed themselves with so much emotion. It would have been regarded, I suppose, as a violation of nature and propriety in the Scipios, in the Leases, and in the Elder Cato, to have exposed so much tenderness to the public view. The ancient warriors could express themselves with order, gravity, and good judgment, but are said to have been strangers to that sublime and passionate eloquence, which was first introduced into Rome, not many years before the birth of Cicero, by the two Groscius, by crosses, and by solpates. This animated eloquence, which has been long practiced with or without success, both in France and Italy, is but just beginning to be introduced into England. So wide is the difference between the degrees of self-command, which are required in civilized and in barbarous nations, and by such different standards do they judge of the propriety of behavior. This difference gives occasion to many others that are not less essential. A polished people, upon being accustomed to give away in some measure to the movements of nature, become frank, open, and sincere. Barbarians, on the contrary, being obliged to smother and conceal the appearance of every passion, necessarily acquire the habits of falsehood and dissimulation. It is observed by all those who have been conversant with savage nations, whether in Asia, Africa, or America, that they are all equally impenetrable, and that when they have a mind to conceal the truth, no examination is capable of drawing it from them. They cannot be treponed to the most artful questions. The torture itself is incapable of making them confess anything which they have no line to tell. The passions of a savage, too, though they never express themselves by any outward emotion, but lie concealed in the breast of the sufferer, are notwithstanding, all mounted to the highest pitch of fury. Though he seldom shows any symptoms of anger, yet his vengeance, when he comes to give way to it, is always sanguinary and dreadful. The least affront drives him to despair. His countenance and discourse, indeed, are still, sober and composed, and express nothing but the most perfect tranquility of mind, but his actions are often the most furious and violent. Among the North Americans, it is not uncommon for the persons of the tenderest age and more fearful sex to draw themselves upon receiving only a slight reprimand from their mothers, and this, too, without expressing any passion or saying anything, except you shall no longer have a daughter. In civilized nations, the passions of men are not commonly so furious or so desperate. They are often clamorous and noisy, but they are seldom very hurtful and seem frequently to aim at no other satisfaction, but that of convincing the spectator that they are in the right to be so much moved and of procuring his sympathy and approbation. All these effects of custom and fashion, however, upon the moral sentiments of mankind, are inconsiderable in comparison of those which they give occasion to in some other cases. And it is not concerning the general style of character and behavior that those principles produce the greatest perversion of judgment, but concerning the propriety or impropriety of particular usages. The different manners which custom teaches us to approve of in the different professions and states of life do not concern things of the greatest importance. We expect truth and justice from an old man as well as from a young, from a clergyman as well as an officer, and it is in matters of small moment only that we look for the distinguishing marks of their respective characters. With regard to these two, there is often some unobserved circumstance which, if it was intended to, would show us that, independent of custom, there was a propriety in the character which custom had taught us to elect each profession. We cannot complain therefore in this case that the perversion of natural sentiment is very great, though the manners of different nations require different degrees of the same quality. In the character which they think worthy of esteem, yet the worst that can be said to happen even here is that the duties of one virtue are sometimes extended so as to encroach a little upon the precincts of some other. The rustic hospitality that is in fashion among the polls encroaches perhaps a little upon economy and good order and the frugality that is esteemed in Holland upon generosity and good fellowship. The hardiness demanded of savages diminishes their humanity and perhaps the delicate sensibility required in civilized nations sometimes destroys the masculine firmness of the character. In general, the style of manners which takes place in any nation may commonly upon the whole be said to be that which is most suitable to its situation. Hardiness is the character most suitable to the circumstances of a savage sensibility to those of one who lives in a very civilized society. Even here therefore we cannot complain that the moral sentiments of men are very grossly perverted. It is not therefore in the general style of conduct or behavior that custom authorizes the widest departure from what is in the natural propriety of action. With regard to particular usages, its influence is often much more destructive of good morals and is capable of establishing as lawful and blameless particular notions which stop the plainest principles of right and wrong. Can there be greater barbarity, for example, than to hurt an infant? Its helplessness, its innocence, its amuleteness, call forth the compassion even of an enemy and not to spare that tender age is regarded as the most furious effort of an enraged and cruel conqueror. What then should we imagine must be the heart of the parent who could enter that weakness which even a furious enemy is afraid to violate, yet the exposition, that is, the murder of a newborn infant, was a practice allowed in almost all the states of Greece, even among the polite and civilized and whatever the circumstances of the parent rendered it inconvenient to bring up the child, to abandon it to hunger, or to wild beasts was regarded without blame or censure. This practice had probably begun in times of the most savage barbarity. The imaginations of the men had been first made familiar with it in the earliest period of society, and the uniform continuance of the custom had hindered them afterwards from perceiving its enormity. We find at this day that this practice prevails among all savage nations, and in that rudest and lowest state of society it is undoubtedly more pardonable than in any other. The extreme indigence of a savage is often such that he himself is frequently exposed to the greatest extremity of hunger. He often dies of pure want, and it is frequently impossible for him to support both himself and his child. He cannot wonder, therefore, that in this case he should abandon it. One who, in flying from an enemy whom it was impossible to resist, should throw down his infant because it retarded his flight would surely be excusable. Since, by attempting to save it, he could only halt for the consolation of dying with it. That in the state of society, therefore, a parent should be allowed to judge whether he can bring up his child, not to surprise us so greatly. In the later ages of Greece, however, the same thing was permitted from views of remote interest or convenience, which could by no means excuse it. Uninterrupted custom had by this time so thoroughly authorized the practice that not only the loose maxims of the world tolerated this barbarous prerogative, but even the doctrine of philosophers, which ought to have been more just and accurate, was led away by the established custom. And upon this, as upon many other occasions, instead of censuring, supported the horrible abuse by far-fetched considerations of public utility. Aristotle talks of it as what the magistrate ought upon many occasions to encourage. The humane play-doh is of the same opinion. And with all that love of mankind, which seems to animate all his writings, nowhere marks this practice with disapprobation. When custom can give sanction to so dreadful a violation of humanity that there is scarce any particular practice so gross which it cannot authorize. Such a thing we hear men every day saying is commonly done and they seem to think that it is a sufficient apology for what in itself is the most unjust and unreasonable conduct. This is an obvious reason why custom should never pervert our sentiments with regard to the general style and character of conduct and behavior. In the same degree with regard to the propriety or unlawfulness of particular usages. There can never be any such custom. No society could subsist a moment in which the usual strain of men's conduct and behavior was of a peace with the horrible practice I have just now mentioned. End of Section 24. Section 25 of The Theory of Moral Sentiments This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jude Cater. The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith Part 6 Section 1 Part 6 of The Character of Virtue Consisting of Three Sections Introduction. When we consider the character of any individual, we naturally view it under two different aspects. First, as it may affect his own happiness, and secondly, as it may affect that of other people. Part 6 Of The Character of Virtue Consisting of Three Sections Section 1 Of The Character of the Individual, so far as it affects his own happiness, or of prudence. The preservation and healthful state of the body seem to be the objects which nature first recommends to the care of every individual. The appetites of hunger and thirst, the agreeable or disagreeable sensations of pleasure and pain, of heat and cold, etc., may be considered as lessons delivered by the voice of nature herself, directing him what he ought to choose and what he ought to avoid for this purpose. The first lessons which he is taught by those to whom his childhood is entrusted tend the greater part of them to the same purpose. Their principal object is to teach him how to keep out of harm's way. As he grows up, he soon learns that some care and foresight are necessary for providing the means of gratifying those natural appetites, procuring pleasure and avoiding pain, procuring the agreeable and avoiding the disagreeable temperature of heat and cold. In the proper direction of this care and foresight consists the art of preserving and increasing what is called his external fortune. Though it is in order to supply the necessities and conveniences of the body, that the advantages of external fortune are originally recommended to us, yet we cannot live long in the world without perceiving that the respect of our equals, our credit and rank in the society we live in, depend very much upon the degree in which we possess or are supposed to possess those advantages. The desire of becoming the proper objects of this respect, of deserving and obtaining this credit and rank among our equals, is perhaps the strongest of all our desires, and our anxiety to obtain the advantages of fortune is accordingly much more excited and irritated by this desire than that by supplying all the necessities and conveniences of the body which are always very easily supplied. Our rank and credit among our equals too depend very much upon what perhaps a virtuous man would wish them to depend entirely, our character and conduct, or upon the confidence, esteem and goodwill which these naturally excite in the people we live with. The care of the health of the fortune, of the rank and reputation of the individual, the objects upon which his comfort and happiness in this life are supposed to principally depend, is considered as the proper business of that virtue which is commonly called prudence. We suffer more, it has already been observed, when we fall from a better to a worse situation than we ever enjoy when we rise from a worse to a better. Security, therefore, is the first and the principal object of prudence. It is a verse to expose our health, our fortune, our rank, or reputation to any sort of hazard. It is rather cautious than enterprising and more anxious to preserve the advantages which we already possess than forward to prompt us to the acquisition of still greater advantages. The methods of improving our fortune, which it principally recommends to us, are those which expose to no loss or hazard, real knowledge and skill in our trade or profession, assiduity and industry in the exercise of it, frugality and even some degree of parsimony in all our expenses. The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it. And though his talents may not always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither endeavors to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful imposter, nor by the arrogant errors of an assuming pedant, nor by the confident assertions of a superficial and imprudent pretender. He is not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the quackish arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves into public notice and reputation. For reputation in his profession, he is naturally disposed to rely a good deal upon the solidity of his knowledge and abilities. And he does not always think of cultivating the favor of those little clubs and cabals who, in the superior arts and sciences, so often erect themselves into the supreme judges of merit, and who make it their business to celebrate the talents and virtues of one another and to decry whatever can come into competition with them. If he ever connects himself with any society of this kind, it is merely in self-defense, not with a view to impose upon the public, but to hinder the public from being imposed upon to his disadvantage by the clamors, the whispers, or the intrigues, either of that particular society or of some other of the same kind. The prudent man is always sincere and feels horror at the very thought of exposing himself to the disgrace which attends upon the detection of falsehood. But though always sincere, he is not always frank and open, and though he never tells anything but the truth, he does not always think himself bound when not properly called upon to tell the whole truth. As he is cautious in his actions, so he is reserved in his speech and never rashly or unnecessarily obtrudes his opinion concerning either things or persons. The prudent man, though not always distinguished by the most exquisite sensibility, is always very capable of friendship. But his friendship is not that ardent and passionate, but too often transitory affection, which appears so delicious to the generosity of youth and inexperience. It is a sedate but steady and faithful attachment to a few well-tried and well-chosen companions, in the choice of whom he is not guided by the giddy admiration of shining accomplishments, but by the sober esteem of modesty, discretion, and good conduct. But though capable of friendship, he is not always much disposed to general sociality. He rarely frequents and more rarely figures in those convivial societies which are distinguished for the jollity and gaiety of their conversation. Their way of life might too often interfere with the regularity of his temperance, might interrupt the steadiness of his industry, or break in upon the strictness of his frugality. But though his conversation may not always be very sprightly or diverting, it is always perfectly inoffensive. He hates the thought of being guilty of any petulance or rudeness. He never assumes impertently over anybody, and, upon all common occasions, is willing to place himself rather below than above his equals. Both in his conduct and conversation, he is an exact observer of decency, and respects with an almost religious scrupulosity all the established decorums and ceremonials of society. And, in this respect, he sets a much better example than has frequently been done by men of much more splendid talents and virtues, who, in all ages, from that of Socrates and Aristipus, down to that of Dr. Swift and Voltaire, and from that of Philip and Alexander the Great, down to that of the great Tsar Peter of Moscovy, have too often distinguished themselves by the most improper and even insolent contempt of all the ordinary decorums of life and conversation, and who have thereby set the most pernicious example to those who wish to resemble them, and who too often contempt themselves with imitating their follies, without even attempting to attain their perfections. In the steadiness of his industry and frugality, in his steadily sacrificing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the probable expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of a more distant but more lasting period of time, the prudent man is always both supported and rewarded by the entire approbation of the impartial spectator and of the representative of the impartial spectator, the man within the breast. The impartial spectator does not feel himself worn out by the present labor of those whose conduct he surveys, nor does he feel himself solicited by the importunate calls of their present appetites. To him their present and what is likely to be their future situation are very nearly the same. He sees them at nearly the same distance and is affected by them very nearly in the same manner. He knows, however, that to the persons principally concerned, they are very far from being the same, and that they naturally affect them in a very different manner. He cannot therefore but approve and even applaud that proper exertion of self-command, which enables them to act as if their present and their future situation affected them nearly in the same manner in which they affect him. The man who lives within his income is naturally contented with his situation, which, by continual, those small accumulations, is growing better and better every day. He is enabled gradually to relax, both in the rigor of his parsimony and in the severity of his application, and he feels with double satisfaction this gradual increase of ease and enjoyment from having felt before the hardship which attended the want of them. He has no anxiety to change so comfortable a situation and does not go in quest of new enterprises and adventures which might endanger, but could not well increase, the secure tranquility which he actually enjoys. If he enters into any new projects or enterprises, they are likely to be well concerted and well prepared. He can never be hurried or drove into them by any necessity, but has always time and leisure to deliberate soberly and coolly concerning what are likely to be their consequences. The prudent man is not willing to subject himself to any responsibility which his duty does not impose upon him. He is not a bustler in business where he has no concern, is not a meddler in other people's affairs, is not a professed counselor or advisor who obtrudes his advice where nobody is asking it. He confines himself, as much as his duty will permit, to his own affairs and he has no taste for that foolish importance which many people wish to derive from appearing to have some influence in the management of those of other people. He is averse to enter into any party disputes, hates faction, and is not always very forward to listen to the voice even of noble and great ambition. When distinctly called upon, he will not decline the service of his country, but he will not cabal in order to force himself into it, and would be much better pleased that the public business were managed by some other person than that he himself should have the trouble and incur the responsibility of managing it. In the bottom of his heart he would prefer the undisturbed enjoyment of secure tranquility, not only to all the vain splendor of successful ambition, but to the real and solid glory of performing the greatest and most magnanimous actions. Prudence, in short, when directed merely to the care of the health, of the fortune, of the rank and reputation of the individual, though it is regarded as the most respectable and even, in some degree, as an amiable and agreeable quality, yet it is never considered as one either of the most endearing or of the most ennobling of the virtues. It commands a certain cold esteem, but seems not entitled to any very ardent love or admiration. Wise and judicious conduct, when directed to greater and nobler purposes than the care of the health, the fortune, the rank, and the reputation of the individual, is frequently and very properly called prudence. We talk of the prudence of the great general, of the great statesman, of the great legislator. Prudence is, in all these cases, combined with many greater and more splendid virtues, with valor, with extensive and strong benevolence, with a sacred regard to the rules of justice, and all these supported by a proper degree of self-command. This superior prudence, when carried to the highest degree of perfection, necessarily supposes the art, the talent, and the habit or disposition of acting with the most perfect propriety in every possible circumstance and situation. It necessarily supposes the utmost perfection of all the intellectual and of all the moral virtues. It is the best head, joined to the best heart. It is the most perfect wisdom, combined with the most perfect virtue. It constitutes, very nearly, the character of the academic or a parapetetic sage, as the inferior prudence does that of the Epicurean. Mere imprudence, or the mere want of the capacity to take care of oneself, is, with the generous and humane, the object of compassion, with those of less delicate sentiments of neglect, or at worst of contempt, but never of hatred or indignation. When combined with other vices, however, it aggravates in the highest degree the infamy and disgrace which would otherwise attend them. The artful knave, whose dexterity and address exempt him, though not from strong suspicions, yet from punishment or distinct detection, is too often received in the world with an indulgence which he by no means deserves. The awkward and foolish one, who, for the want of this dexterity and address, is convicted and brought to punishment, is the object of universal hatred, contempt, and derision. In countries where great crimes frequently pass unpunished, the most atrocious actions become almost familiar and cease to impress the people with that horror which is universally felt in countries where an exact administration of justice takes place. The injustice is the same in both countries, but the imprudence is often very different. In the latter, great crimes are evidently great follies. In the former, they are not always considered as such. In Italy during the greater part of the sixteenth century, assassinations, murders, and even murders under trust seem to have been almost familiar among the superior ranks of people. Caesar Borgia invited four of the little princes in his neighborhood, who all possessed little sovereignty and commanded little armies of their own, to a friendly conference at Senegaglia where, as soon as they arrived, he put them all to death. This infamous action, though certainly not approved of even in that age of crimes, seems to have contributed very little to the discredit and not in the least to the ruin of the perpetrator. That ruin happened a few years after from causes altogether disconnected with this crime. Machiavelle, not indeed a man of the nicest morality even for his own times, was resident as minister from the Republic of Florence at the court of Caesar Borgia when this crime was committed. He gives a very particular account of it, and in that pure, elegant, and simple language which distinguishes all his writings. He talks of it very coolly, is pleased with the address with which Caesar Borgia conducted it, has much contempt for the duperian weakness of the sufferers, but no compassion for their miserable and untimely death, and no sort of indignation at the cruelty and falsehood of their murderer. The violence and injustice of the great conquerors are often regarded with foolish wonder and admiration. Those of petty thieves, robbers, and murderers with contempt, hatred, and even horror upon all occasions. The former, though they are a hundred times more mischievous and destructive, yet when successful they often pass for deeds of the most heroic magnanimity. The latter are always viewed with hatred and aversion as the follies as well as the crimes of the lowest and most worthless of mankind. The injustice of the former is certainly at least as great as that of the latter, but the folly and imprudence are not near so great. A wicked and worthless man of parts often goes through the world with much more credit than he deserves. A wicked and worthless fool appears always, of all mortals, the most hateful as well as the most contemptible. As prudence combined with other virtues constitutes the noblest, so imprudence, combined with other vices, constitutes the vilest of all characters. End of section 25 Section 26 of The Theory of Moral Sentiments This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jude Cader. The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith. Part 6 of The Character of Virtue, consisting of three sections. Section 2 of The Character of the Individual, so far as it can affect the happiness of other people. Introduction The character of every individual, so far as it can affect the happiness of other people, must do so by its disposition either to hurt or to benefit them. Proper resentment for injustice attempted, or actually committed, is the only motive which, in the eyes of the impartial spectator, can justify our hurting or disturbing in any respect the happiness of our neighbor. To do so from any other motive is itself a violation of the laws of justice which force ought to be employed either to restrain or to punish. The wisdom of every state or commonwealth endeavors, as well as it can, to employ the force of the society to restrain those who are subject to its authority from hurting or disturbing the happiness of one another. The rules which it establishes for this purpose constitute the civil and criminal law of each particular state or country. The principles upon which those rules either are or ought to be founded are the subject of a particular science, of all sciences by far the most important, but hitherto perhaps the least cultivated. That of natural jurisprudence concerning which it belongs not to our present subject to enter into any detail. A sacred and religious regard not to hurt or disturb in any respect the happiness of our neighbor, even in those cases where no law can properly protect him, constitutes the character of the perfectly innocent and just man, a character which, when carried to a certain delicacy of attention, is always highly respectable and even venerable for its own sake, and can scarce ever fail to be accompanied with many other virtues, with great feeling for other people, with great humanity and great benevolence. It is a character sufficiently understood and requires no further explanation. In the present section I shall only endeavor to explain the foundation of that order which nature seems to have traced out for the distribution of our good offices, or for the direction and employment of our very limited powers of beneficence, first towards individuals and secondly towards societies. The same unearing wisdom it will be found, which regulates every other part of her conduct, directs in this respect to the order of her recommendations, which are always stronger or weaker in proportion as our beneficence is more or less necessary, or can be more or less useful. Part 6 of the character of virtue consisting of three sections. Section 2 of the character of the individual so far as it can affect the happiness of other people. Chapter 1 of the order in which individuals are recommended by nature to our care and attention. Every man, as the Stoics used to say, is first and principally recommended to his own care, and every man is certainly, in every respect, fitter and abler to take care of himself than of any other person. Every man feels his own pleasures and his own pains more sensibly than those of other people. The former are the original sensations, the latter the reflected or sympathetic images of those sensations. The former may be said to be the substance, the latter the shadow. After himself, the members of his own family, those who usually live in the same house with him, his parents, his children, his brothers and sisters are naturally the objects of his warmest affections. They are, naturally and usually, the persons upon whose happiness or misery his conduct must have the greatest influence. He is more habituated to sympathize with them. He knows better how everything is likely to affect them, and his sympathy with them is more precise and determinate than it can be with the greater part of other people. It approaches nearer, in short, to what he feels for himself. This sympathy, too, and the affections which are founded on it, are by nature more strongly directed towards his children than towards his parents, and his tenderness for the former seems generally a more active principle than his reverence and gratitude towards the latter. In the natural state of things, it has already been observed the existence of the child, for some time after it comes into the world, depends altogether upon the care of the parent. That of the parent does not naturally depend upon the care of the child. In the eye of nature, it would seem, a child is a more important object than an old man, and excites a much more lively as well as a much more universal sympathy. It ought to do so. Everything may be expected, or at least hoped, from the child. In ordinary cases, very little can be expected or hoped from the old man. The weakness of childhood interests the affections of the most brutal and hard-hearted. It is only to the virtuous and humane that the infirmities of old age are not the objects of contempt and aversion. In ordinary cases, an old man dies without much being regretted by anybody. Scarce a child can die without rending asunder the heart of somebody. The earliest friendships, the friendships which are naturally contracted when the heart is most susceptible of that feeling, are those among brothers and sisters. Their good agreement, while they remain in the same family, is necessary for its tranquility and happiness. They are capable of giving more pleasure or pain to one another than to the greater part of other people. Their situation renders their mutual sympathy of the utmost importance to their common happiness, and, by the wisdom of nature, the same situation, by obliging them to accommodate to one another, renders that sympathy more habitual, and thereby more lively, more distinct, and more determinate. The children of brothers and sisters are naturally connected by the friendship which, after separating into different families, continues to take place between their parents. Their good agreement improves the enjoyment of that friendship, their discord would disturb it. As they seldom live in the same family, however, though of more importance to one another than to the greater part of other people, they are of much less than brothers and sisters. As their mutual sympathy is less necessary, so it is less habitual, and therefore proportionably weaker. The children of cousins, being still less connected, are of still less importance to one another, and the affection gradually diminishes as the relation grows more and more remote. What is called affection is, in reality, nothing but habitual sympathy. Our concern in the happiness or misery of those who are objects of what we call our affections, our desire to promote the one and to prevent the other, are either the actual feeling of that habitual sympathy or the necessary consequences of that feeling. Relations being usually placed in situations which naturally create this habitual sympathy, it is expected that a suitable degree of affection should take place among them. We generally find that it actually does take place. We therefore naturally expect that it should. And we are, upon that account, more shocked when, upon any occasion, we find that it does not. The general rule is established that persons related to one another in a certain degree ought always to be affected towards one another in a certain manner, and that there is always the highest impropriety and sometimes even a sort of impiety in their being affected in a different manner. A parent without parental tenderness, a child devoid of all filial reverence, appear monsters, the objects not of hatred only, but of horror. Though, in a particular instance, the circumstances which usually produce those natural affections, as they are called, may, by some accident, not have taken place, yet respect for the general rule will frequently, in some measure, supply their place and produce something which, though not altogether the same, may bear, however, a very considerable resemblance to those affections. A father is apt to be less attached to a child who, by some accident, has been separated from him in its infancy and who does not return to him till it has grown up to manhood. The father is apt to feel less paternal tenderness for the child, the child less filial reverence for the father. Brothers and sisters, when they have been educated in distant countries, are apt to feel a similar diminution of affection. With the dutiful and the virtuous, however, respect for the general rule will frequently produce something which, though by no means the same, yet may very much resemble those natural affections. Even during the separation, the father and the child, the brothers or the sisters, are by no means indifferent to one another. They all consider one another as persons to and from whom certain affections are due, and they live in the hopes of being some time or another in a situation to enjoy that friendship which ought naturally to have taken place among persons so nearly connected. Till they meet, the absent son, the absent brother, are frequently the favorite son, the favorite brother. They have never offended, or if they have, it is so long ago that the offense has forgotten, as some childish trick not worth the remembering. Every account they have heard of one another, if conveyed by people of any tolerable good nature, has been, in the highest degree, flattering and favorable. The absent son, the absent brother, is not like other ordinary sons and brothers, but an all-perfect son, an all-perfect brother, and the most romantic hopes are entertained of the happiness to be enjoyed in the friendship and conversation of such persons. When they meet, it is often with so strong a disposition to conceive that habitual sympathy which constitutes the family affection, that they are very apt to fancy they have actually conceived it and to behave to one another as if they had. Time and experience, however, I am afraid, too frequently undeceive them. Upon a more familiar acquaintance, they frequently discover in one another habits, humors, and inclinations, different from what they expected, to which, from want of habitual sympathy, from want of the real principle and foundation of what is properly called family affection, they cannot now easily accommodate themselves. They have never lived in the situation which almost necessarily forces that easy accommodation, and though they may now be sincerely desirous to assume it, they have really become incapable of doing so. Their familiar conversation and intercourse soon become less pleasing to them, and, upon that account, less frequent. They may continue to live with one another in the mutual exchange of all essential good offices and with every other external appearance of decent regard, but that cordial satisfaction, that delicious sympathy, that confidential openness and ease which naturally take place in the conversation of those who have lived long and familiarly with one another, it seldom happens that they can completely enjoy. It is only, however, with the dutiful and the virtuous, that the general rule has even this slender authority. With the dissipated, the profligate, and the vain, it is entirely disregarded. They are so far from respecting it, that they seldom talk of it but with the most indecent derision, and an early and long separation of this kind never fails to estrange them most completely from one another. With such persons, respect for the general rule can at best produce only a cold and affected civility a very slender semblance of real regard, and even this, the slightest offense, the smallest opposition of interest, commonly puts an end to altogether. The education of boys at distant great schools, of young men at distant colleges, of young ladies in distant nunneries and boarding schools, seems, in the higher ranks of life, to have hurt most essentially the domestic morals and consequently the domestic happiness both of France and England. Do you wish to educate your children to be dutiful to their parents, to be kind and affectionate to their brothers and sisters? Put them under the necessity of being dutiful children, of being kind and affectionate brothers and sisters. Educate them in your own house. From their parents' house they may, with propriety and advantage, go out every day to attend public schools, but let their dwelling be always at home. Respect for you must always impose a very useful restraint upon their conduct, and respect for them may frequently impose no useless restraint upon your own. Surely no acquirement, which can possibly be derived from what is called a public education, can make any sort of compensation for what is almost certainly and necessarily lost by it. Domestic education is the institution of nature, public education, the contrivance of man. It is surely unnecessary to say, which is likely to be the wisest. In some tragedies and romances we meet with many beautiful and interesting scenes founded upon what is called the force of blood or upon the wonderful affection which near relations are supposed to conceive for one another even before they know that they have any such connection. This force of blood, however, I am afraid, exists nowhere but in tragedies and romances, even in tragedies and romances it is never supposed to take place between any relations but those who are naturally bred up in the same house, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters. To imagine any such mysterious affection between cousins or even between aunts or uncles and nephews or nieces would be too ridiculous. In pastoral countries and in all countries where the authority of law is not alone sufficient to give perfect security to every member of the state, all the different branches of the same family commonly choose to live in the neighborhood of one another. Their association is frequently necessary for their common defense. They are all, from the highest to the lowest, of more or less importance to one another. Their concord strengthens their necessary association. Their discord always weakens and might destroy it. They have more intercourse with one another than with the members of any other tribe. The remotest members of the same tribe claim some connection with one another and, where all other circumstances are equal, expect to be treated with more distinguished attention than is due to those who have no such pretensions. It is not many years ago that, in the Highlands of Scotland, the chieftain used to consider the poorest man of his clan as his cousin and relation. The same extensive regard to Kindred is said to take place among the Tartars, the Arabs, the Turkomans and, I believe, among all other nations who are nearly in the same state of society in which the Scots Highlanders were about the beginning of the present century. In commercial countries, where the authority of law is always perfectly sufficient to protect the meanest man in the state, the descendants of the same family, having no such motive for keeping together, naturally separate and disperse as interest or inclination may direct, they soon cease to be of importance to one another and, in a few generations, not only lose all care about one another but all remembrance of their common origin and of the connection which took place among their ancestors. Regard for remote relations becomes, in every country, less and less according as this state of civilization has been longer and more completely established. It has been longer and more completely established in England than in Scotland and remote relations are, accordingly, more considered in the latter country than in the former, though in this respect the difference between the two countries is growing less and less every day. Great Lords indeed are in every country proud of remembering and acknowledging their connection with one another, however remote. The remembrance of such illustrious relations flatters not a little the family pride of them all and it is neither from affection nor of anything which resembles affection but from the most frivolous and childish of all vanities that this remembrance is so carefully kept up. Should some more humble, though perhaps much newer kinsmen, presumed to put such great men in mind of his relation to their family, they seldom fail to tell him that they are bad genealogists and miserably ill-informed concerning their own family history. It is not in that order, I am afraid, that we are to expect any extraordinary extension of what is called natural affection. I consider what is called natural affection as more the effect of the moral than of the supposed physical connection between the parent and the child. A jealous husband indeed, nonwithstanding the moral connection, nonwithstanding the child's having been educated in his own house, often regards with hatred and aversion that unhappy child which he supposes to be the offspring of his wife's infidelity, it is the lasting monument of a most disagreeable adventure of his own dishonor and of the disgrace of his family. Among well-disposed people, the necessity or convenience of mutual accommodation very frequently produces a friendship not unlike that which takes place among those who are born to live in the same family. Colleagues in office, partners in trade, call one another brothers and frequently feel towards one another as if they really were so. Their good agreement is an advantage to all and if they are tolerably reasonable people they are naturally disposed to agree. We expect that they should do so and their disagreement is a sort of a small scandal. The Romans express this sort of attachment by the word necessitudo which from the etymology seems to denote that it was imposed by the necessity of the situation. Even the trifling circumstance of living in the same neighborhood has some effect of the same kind. We respect the face of a man whom we see every day provided he has never offended us. Neighbors can be very convenient and they can be very troublesome to one another. If they are good sort of people they are naturally disposed to agree. We expect their good agreement and to be a bad neighbor is a very bad character. There are certain small good offices accordingly which are universally allowed to be due to a neighbor in preference to any other person who has no such connection. This natural disposition to accommodate and to assimilate as much as we can our own sentiments, principles and feelings to those which we see fixed and rooted in the persons whom we are obliged to live and converse a great deal with is the cause of the contagious effects of both good and bad company. The man who associates chiefly with the wise and the virtuous, though he may not himself become either wise or virtuous, cannot help conceiving a certain respect at least for wisdom and virtue. And the man who associates chiefly with the profligate and the disillute, though he may not himself become profligate and disillute, must soon lose at least all his original abhorrence of profligacy and dissolution of manners. The similarity of family characters which we so frequently see transmitted through several successive generations may perhaps be partly owing to this disposition to assimilate ourselves to those whom we are obliged to live and converse a great deal with. The family character, however, like the family countenance, seems to be owing not altogether to the moral, but partly to the physical connection. The family countenance is certainly altogether owing to the latter. But of all attachments to an individual, that which is founded altogether upon the esteem and approbation of his good conduct and behavior, confirmed by much experience and long acquaintance, is by far the most respectable. Such friendships arising not from a constrained sympathy, not from a sympathy which has been assumed and rendered habitual for the sake of conveniency and accommodation, but from a natural sympathy, from an involuntary feeling that the persons to whom we attach ourselves are the natural and proper objects of esteem and approbation, can exist only among men of virtue. Men of virtue only can feel that entire confidence in the conduct and behavior of one another, which can, at all times, assure them that they can never either offend or be offended by one another. Vice is always capricious. Virtue only is regular and orderly. The attachment which is founded upon the love of virtue as it is certainly of all attachments the most virtuous, so it is likewise the happiest, as well as the most permanent and secure. Such friendships need not be confined to a single person, but may safely embrace all the wise and virtuous, with whom we have been long and intimately acquainted, and upon whose wisdom and virtue we can, upon that account, entirely depend. They who would confine friendship to two persons, seem to confound the wise security of friendship with the jealousy and folly of love. The hasty, fond and foolish intimacies of young people, founded commonly upon some slight similarity of character, altogether unconnected with good conduct, upon a taste perhaps for the same studies, the same amusements, the same diversions, or upon their agreement in some singular principle or opinion, not commonly adopted. Those intimacies which a freak begins and which a freak puts an end to, how agreeable so ever they may appear while they last, can by no means deserve the sacred and venerable name of friendship. Of all the persons, however, whom nature points out for our peculiar beneficence, there are none to whom it seems more properly directed than to those whose beneficence we have ourselves already experienced. Nature, which formed men for that mutual kindness so necessary for their happiness, renders every man the peculiar object of kindness to the persons to whom he himself has been kind. Though their gratitude should not always correspond to his beneficence, yet the sense of his merit, the sympathetic gratitude of the impartial spectator, will always correspond to it. The general indignation of other people against the baseness of their ingratitude will even sometimes increase the general sense of his merit. No benevolent man ever lost altogether the fruits of his benevolence. If he does not always gather them from the persons from whom he ought to have gathered them, he seldom fails to gather them and with a tenfold increase from other people. Kindness is the parent of kindness. And if to be beloved by our brethren be the great object of our ambition, the surest way of obtaining it is by our conduct to show that we really love them. After the persons who are recommended to our beneficence, either by their connection with ourselves, by their personal qualities, or by their past services, come those who are pointed out, not indeed to what is called our friendship, but to our benevolent attention and good offices, those who are distinguished by their extraordinary situation, the greatly fortunate and the greatly unfortunate, the rich and the powerful, the poor and the wretched. The distinction of ranks, the peace and order of society, are in great measure founded upon the respect which we naturally conceive for the former. The relief and consolation of human misery depend altogether upon our compassion for the latter. The peace and order of society is of more importance than even the relief of the miserable. Our respect for the great accordingly is most apt to offend by its excess, our fellow feeling for the miserable by its defect. Moralists exhort us to charity and compassion. They warn us against the fascination of greatness. This fascination indeed is so powerful that the rich and the great are too often preferred to the wise and the virtuous. Nature has wisely judged that the distinction of ranks, the peace and order of society, would rest more securely upon the plain and palpable difference of birth and fortune than upon the invisible and often uncertain difference of wisdom and virtue. The undistinguishing eyes of the great mob of mankind can well enough perceive the former. It is with difficulty that the nice discernment of the wise and the virtuous can sometimes distinguish the latter. In the order of all those recommendations, the benevolent wisdom of nature is equally evident. It may perhaps be unnecessary to observe that the combination of two or more of those exciting causes of kindness increases the kindness. The favor and partiality which, when there is no envy in the case, we naturally bear to greatness, are much increased when it is joined with wisdom and virtue. If nonwithstanding that wisdom and virtue, the great man should fall into those misfortunes, those dangers and distresses to which the most exalted stations are often the most exposed. We are much more deeply interested in his fortune than we should be in that of a person equally virtuous but in a more humble situation. The most interesting subjects of tragedies and romances are the misfortunes of virtuous and magnanimous kings and princes. If, by the wisdom and manhood of their exertions, they should extricate themselves from those misfortunes and recover completely their former superiority and security, we cannot help viewing them with the most enthusiastic and even extravagant admiration. The grief which we felt for their distress, the joy which we feel for their prosperity, seemed to combine together in enhancing that partial admiration which we naturally conceive both for the station and the character. When those different beneficent affections happen to draw different ways, to determine by any precise rules in what cases we ought to comply with the one, and in what with the other, is perhaps altogether impossible. In what cases friendship ought to yield to gratitude or gratitude to friendship? In what cases the strongest of all natural affections ought to yield to a regard for the safety of those superiors upon whose safety often depends that of the whole society? And in what cases natural affection may, without impropriety, prevail over that regard, must be left altogether to the decision of the man within the breast, the supposed impartial spectator, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. If we place ourselves completely in his situation, if we really view ourselves with his eyes, and as he views us, and listen with diligent and reverential attention to what he suggests to us, his voice will never deceive us. We shall stand in need of no casuistic rules to direct our conduct. These, it is often impossible to accommodate to all the different shades and gradations of circumstance, character and situation, to differences and distinctions which, though not imperceptible, are, by their nicety and delicacy, often altogether undefinable. In that beautiful tragedy of Voltaire, the orphan of China, while we admire the magnanimity of Zamti, who is willing to sacrifice the life of his own child in order to preserve that of the only feeble remnant of his ancient sovereigns and masters, we not only pardon but love the maternal tenderness of Ida May, who, at the risk of discovering the important secret of her husband, reclaims her infant from the cruel hands of the Tartars, into which it had been delivered. End of Section 26 The man who acts according to the rules of perfect prudence, of strict justice, and of proper benevolence, may be said to be perfectly virtuous, but the most perfect knowledge of those rules will not alone enable him to act in this manner. His own passions are very apt to mislead him, sometimes to drive him, and sometimes to seduce him to violate all the rules which he himself, in all his sober and cool hours, approves of. The most perfect knowledge, if it is not supported by the most perfect self-command, will not always enable him to do his duty. Some of the best of the ancient moralists seem to have considered those passions as divided into two different classes. First into those which it requires a considerable exertion of self-command to restrain, even for a single moment, and secondly into those which it is easy to restrain for a single moment, or even for a short period of time, but which, by their continual and almost incessant solicitations, are in the course of a life very apt to mislead into great deviations. Fear and anger, together with some other passions which are mixed or connected with them, constitute the first class. The love of ease, of pleasure, of applause, and of many other selfish gratifications constitute the second. Extravagant fear and furious anger, it is often difficult to restrain even for a single moment. The love of ease, of pleasure, of applause, and other selfish gratifications, it is always easy to restrain for a single moment, or even for a short period of time, but, by their continual solicitations, they often mislead us into many weaknesses which we have afterwards much reason to be ashamed of. The former set of passions may often be said to drive the latter to seduce us from our duty. The command of the former was by the ancient moralists above alluded to denominated fortitude, manhood, and strength of mind, that of the latter, temperance, decency, modesty, and moderation. The command of each of those two sets of passions, independent of the beauty which it derives from its utility, from its enabling us upon all occasions to act according to the dictates of prudence, of justice, and of proper benevolence, has a beauty of its own, and seems to deserve, for its own sake, a certain degree of esteem and admiration. In the one case, the strength and greatness of the exertion excites some degree of that esteem and admiration, in the other, the uniformity, the equality, and unremitting steadiness of that exertion. The man who, in danger, in torture, upon the approach of death, preserves his tranquility unaltered and suffers no word, no gesture to escape him which does not perfectly accord with the feelings of the most indifferent spectator, necessarily commands a very high degree of admiration. If he suffers in the cause of liberty and justice, for the sake of humanity and the love of his country, the most tender compassion for his sufferings, the strongest indignation against the injustice of his persecutors, the warmest sympathetic gratitude for his beneficent intentions, the highest sense of his merit, all join and mix themselves with the admiration of his magnanimity, and often inflame that sentiment into the most enthusiastic and rapturous veneration. The heroes of ancient and modern history who are remembered with the most peculiar favor and affection are many of them, those who, in the cause of truth, liberty and justice, have perished upon the scaffold, and who behaved there with that ease and dignity which became them. Had the enemies of Socrates suffered him to die quietly in his bed, the glory even of that great philosopher might possibly never have acquired that dazzling splendor in which it has been beheld in all succeeding ages. In the English history, when we look over the illustrious heads which have been engraven by virtue and how-breaking, there is scarce anybody, I imagine, who does not feel that the axe, the emblem of having been beheaded, which is engraved under some of the most illustrious of them, under those of the Sir Thomas Morse, of the Rales, the Russells, the Sydney's, etc., sheds a real dignity and interestingness over the characters to which it is affixed, much superior to what they can derive from all the futile ornaments of heraldry with which they are sometimes accompanied. Nor does this magnanimity give lustre only to the characters of innocent and virtuous men. It draws some degree of favorable regard even upon those of the greatest criminals, and when a robber or highwayman is brought to the scaffold and behaves there with decency and firmness, though we perfectly approve of his punishment, we often cannot help regretting that a man who possessed such great and noble powers should have been capable of such mean enormities. War is the great school both for acquiring and exercising this species of magnanimity. Death, as we say, is the king of terrors, and the man who has conquered the fear of death is not likely to lose his presence of mind at the approach of any other natural evil. In war men become familiar with death and are thereby necessarily cured of that superstitious horror with which it is viewed by the weak and unexperienced. They consider it merely as the loss of life and as no further the object of aversion than as life may happen to be that of desire. They learn from experience too that many seemingly great dangers are not so great as they appear, and that with courage, activity and presence of mind there is often a good probability of extricating themselves with honor from situations where at first they could see no hope. The dread of death is thus greatly diminished, and the confidence or hope of escaping it augmented. They learn to expose themselves to danger with less reluctance. They are less anxious to get out of it and less apt to lose their presence of mind while they are in it. It is the habitual contempt of danger and death which ennobles the profession of a soldier and bestows upon it in the natural apprehensions of mankind a rank and dignity superior to that of any other profession. The skillful and successful exercise of this profession in the service of their country seems to have constituted the most distinguishing feature in the character of the favorite heroes of all ages. Great warlike exploit though undertaken contrary to every principle of justice and carried on without any regard to humanity sometimes interests us and commands even some degree of a certain sort of esteem for the very worthless characters which conducted. We are interested even in the exploits of the buccaneers and read with some sort of esteem and admiration the history of the most worthless men who in pursuit of the most criminal purposes endured greater hardships surmounted greater difficulties and encountered greater dangers than perhaps any which the ordinary course of history gives an account of. The command of anger appears upon many occasions not less generous and noble than that of fear. The proper expression of just indignation composes many of the most splendid and admired passages both of ancient and modern eloquence. The Philippics of Demis Tennis the Catalinarians of Cicero derive their whole beauty from the noble propriety with which this passion is expressed but this just indignation is nothing but anger restrained and properly attempted to what the impartial spectator can enter into. The blustering and noisy passion which goes beyond this is always odious and offensive and interests us not for the angry man but for the man with whom he is angry. The nobleness of pardoning appears upon many occasions superior even to the most perfect propriety of resenting when either proper acknowledgments have been made by the offending party or even without any such acknowledgments when the public interest requires that the most mortal enemies should unite for the discharge of some important duty the man who can cast away all animosity and act with confidence and cordiality towards the person who had most grievously offended him seems justly to merit our highest admiration. The command of anger however does not always appear in such splendid colors. Fear is contrary to anger and is often the motive which restrains it and in such cases the meanness of the motive takes away all the nobleness of the restraint. Anger prompts to attack and the indulgence of it seems sometimes to shoo a sort of courage and superiority to fear. The indulgence of anger is sometimes an object of vanity that of fear never is. Vain and weak men among their inferiors or those who dare not resist them often affect to be ostentatiously passionate and fancy that they show what is called spirit in being so. A bully tells many stories of his own insolence which are not true and imagines that he thereby renders himself if not more amiable and respectable at least more formidable to his audience. Modern manners which by favoring the practice of dueling may be said in some cases to encourage private revenge contribute perhaps a good deal to render in modern times the restraint of anger by fear still more contemptible than it might otherwise appear to be. There is always something dignified in the command of fear whatever may be the motive upon which it is founded. It is not so with the command of anger. Unless it is founded altogether in the sense of decency, of dignity and propriety it never is perfectly agreeable. To act according to the dictates of prudence, of justice and proper beneficence seems to have no great merit where there is no temptation to do otherwise but to act with cool deliberation in the midst of the greatest dangers and difficulties to observe religiously the sacred rules of justice in spite both of the greatest interests which might tempt and the greatest injuries which might provoke us to violate them never to suffer the benevolence of our temper to be damped or discouraged by the malignity and ingratitude of the individuals towards whom it may have been exercised is the character of the most exalted wisdom and virtue. Self command is not only itself a great virtue but from it all the other virtues seem to derive their principal luster. The command of fear, the command of anger are always great and noble powers. When they are directed by justice and benevolence they are not only great virtues but increase the splendor of those other virtues. They may, however, sometimes be directed by very different motives and in this case, though still great and respectable, they may be excessively dangerous. The most intrepid valor may be employed in the cause of the greatest injustice. Amidst great provocations apparent tranquility and good humor may sometimes conceal the most determined and cruel resolution to revenge. The strength of mind requisite for such dissimulation though always and necessarily contaminated by the baseness of falsehood has, however, been often much admired by many people of no contemptible judgment. The dissimulation of Catherine of Meditius is often celebrated by the profound historian Davila that of Lord Digby afterwards Earl of Bristol by the grave and conscientious Lord Clarendon that of the first Ashley Earl of Shaftesbury by the judicious Mr. Locke. Even Cicero seems to consider this deceitful character not indeed as of the highest dignity but as not unsuitable to a certain flexibility of manners which he thinks may notwithstanding be upon the whole both agreeable and respectable. He exemplifies it by the characters of Homer's Ulysses, of the Athenian Themistocles, of the Spartan Lysander, and of the Roman Marcus Crassus. This character of dark and deep dissimulation occurs most commonly in times of great public disorder amidst the violence of faction and civil war. When law has become in a great measure impotent, when the most perfect innocence cannot alone ensure safety, regard to self-defense obliges the greater part of men to have recourse to dexterity, to address, and to apparent accommodation to whatever happens to be at the moment the prevailing party. This false character too is frequently accompanied with the coolest and most determined courage. The proper exercise of it supposes that courage as death is commonly the certain consequence of detection. It may be employed indifferently, either to exasperate or to allay those furious animosities of adverse factions which impose the necessity of assuming it. And though it may sometimes be useful, it is at least equally liable to be excessively pernicious. The command of the less violent and turbulent passions seems much less liable to be abused to any pernicious purpose. Temperance, decency, modesty, and moderation are always amiable and can seldom be directed to any bad end. It is from the unremitting steadiness of those gentler exertions of self-command that the amiable virtue of chastity, that the respectable virtues of industry and frugality derive all that sober luster which attends them. The conduct of all those who are contented to walk in the humble paths of private and peaceable life derives from the same principle the greater part of the beauty and grace which belong to it. A beauty and grace which, though much less dazzling, is not always less pleasing than those which accompany the more splendid actions of the hero, the statesman, or the legislator. After what has already been said in several different parts of this discourse concerning the nature of self-command I judge it unnecessary to enter into any further detail concerning those virtues. I shall only observe at present that the point of propriety, the degree of any passion which the impartial spectator approves of, is differently situated in different passions. In some passions the excess is less disagreeable than the defect, and in such passions the point of propriety seems to stand high or nearer to the excess than to the defect. In other passions the defect is less disagreeable than the excess, and in such passions the point of propriety seems to stand low or nearer to the defect than to the excess. The former are the passions which the spectator is most, the latter those which he is least disposed to sympathize with. The former too are the passions of which the immediate feeling or sensation is agreeable to the person principally concerned, the latter those of which it is disagreeable. It may be laid down as a general rule that the passions which the spectator is most disposed to sympathize with and in which upon that account the point of propriety may be said to stand high are those of which the immediate feeling or sensation is more or less agreeable to the person principally concerned, and that on the contrary the passions which the spectator is least disposed to sympathize with and in which upon that account the point of propriety may be said to stand low are those of which the immediate feeling or sensation is more or less disagreeable or even painful to the person principally concerned. This general rule so far as I have been able to observe admits not of a single exception. A few examples will at once both sufficiently explain it and demonstrate the truth of it. The disposition to the affections which tend to unite men in society to humanity, kindness, natural affection, friendship, esteem may sometimes be excessive. Even the excess of this disposition however renders a man interesting to everybody. Though we blame it, we still regard it with compassion and even with kindness and never with dislike. We are more sorry for it than angry at it. To the person himself the indulgence even of such excessive affections is upon many occasions not only agreeable but delicious. Upon some occasions indeed, especially when directed as is too often the case towards unworthy objects, it exposes him to much real and heartfelt distress. Even upon such occasions however a well disposed mind regards him with the most exquisite pity and feels the highest indignation against those who affect to despise him for his weakness and imprudence. The defect of this disposition on the contrary what is called hardness of heart while it renders a man insensible to the feelings and distresses of other people, renders other people equally insensible to his and by excluding him from the friendship of all the world excludes him from the best and most comfortable of all social enjoyments. The disposition to the affections which drive men from one another and which tend as it were to break the bands of human society the disposition to anger, hatred, envy, malice, revenge is on the contrary much more apt to offend by its excess than by its defect. The excess renders a man wretched and miserable in his own mind and the object of hatred and sometimes even of horror to other people. The defect is very seldom complained of it may however be defective. The want of proper indignation is a most essential defect in the manly character and upon many occasions renders a man incapable of protecting either himself or his friends from insult and injustice. Even that principle in the excess and improper direction of which consists the odious and detestable passion of envy may be defective. Envy is that passion which views with malignant dislike the superiority of those who are really entitled to all the superiority they possess. The man however who in matters of consequence tamely suffers other people who are entitled to no such superiority to rise above him or get before him is justly condemned as mean spirited. This weakness is commonly founded in indolence sometimes in good nature in an aversion to opposition to bustle and solicitation and sometimes too in a sort of ill judged magnanimity which fancies that it can always continue to despise the advantage which it then despises and therefore so easily gives up. Such weakness however is commonly followed by much regret and repentance and what had some appearance of magnanimity in the beginning frequently gives place to a most malignant envy in the end and to a hatred of that superiority which those who have once attained it may often become really entitled to by the very circumstance of having attained it. In order to live comfortably in the world it is upon all occasions as necessary to defend our dignity and rank as it is to defend our life or our fortune. Our sensibility to personal danger and distress like that to personal provocation is much more apt to offend by its excess than by its defect. No character is more contemptible than that of a coward. No character is more admired than that of the man who faces death with intrepidity and maintains his tranquility and presence of mind amidst the most dreadful dangers. We esteem the man who supports pain and even torture with manhood and firmness and we can have little regard for him who sinks under them and abandons himself to useless outcries and womanish lamentations. A fretful temper which feels with too much sensibility every little cross accident renders a man miserable in himself and offensive to other people. A calm one which does not allow its tranquility to be disturbed either by the small injuries or by the little disasters incident to the usual course of human affairs but which amidst the natural and moral evils infesting the world lays its account and is contented to suffer a little from both is a blessing to the man himself and gives ease and security to all his companions. Our sensibility, however, both to our own injuries and to our own misfortunes though generally too strong may likewise be too weak. The man who feels little for his own misfortunes must always feel less for those of other people and be less disposed to relieve them. The man who has little resentment for the injuries which are done to himself must always have less for those which are done to other people and be less disposed either to protect or to avenge them. A stupid insensibility to the events of human life necessarily extinguishes all that keen and earnest attention to the propriety of our own conduct which constitutes the real essence of virtue. We can feel little anxiety about the propriety of our own actions when we are indifferent about the events which may result from them. The man who feels the full distress of the calamity which has befallen him who feels the whole baseness of the injustice which has been done to him but who feels still more strongly what the dignity of his own character requires who does not abandon himself to the guidance of the undisciplined passions which his situation might naturally inspire but who governs his whole behavior and conduct according to those restrained and corrected emotions which the great inmate, the great demigod within the breast prescribes and approves of is alone the real man of virtue. The only real and proper object of love, respect and admiration. Insensibility and that noble firmness, that exalted self-command which is founded in the sense of dignity and propriety are so far from being altogether the same that in proportion as the former takes place the merit of the latter is in many cases entirely taken away. But though the total want of sensibility to personal injury to personal danger and distress would in such situations take away the whole merit of self-command that sensibility however may very easily be too exquisite and it frequently is so. When the sense of propriety, when the authority of the judge within the breast can control this extreme sensibility that authority must no doubt appear very noble and very great but the exertion of it may be too fatiguing it may have too much to do. The individual by a great effort may behave perfectly well but the contest between the two principles the warfare within the breast may be too violent to be at all consistent with internal tranquility and happiness. The wise man whom nature has endowed with this too exquisite sensibility and whose two lively feelings have not been sufficiently blunted and hardened by early education and proper exercise will avoid as much as duty and propriety will permit the situations for which he is not perfectly fitted. The man whose feeble and delicate constitution renders him too sensible to pain, to hardship and to every sort of bodily distress should not wantonly embrace the profession of a soldier. The man of too much sensibility to injury should not rashly engage in the contest of faction. Though the sense of propriety should be strong enough to command all those sensibilities the composure of the mind must always be disturbed in the struggle. In this disorder the judgment cannot always maintain its ordinary acuteness and precision and though he may always mean to act properly he may often act rashly and imprudently and in a manner which he himself will in the succeeding part of his life be forever ashamed of. A certain intrepidity, a certain firmness of nerves and hardiness of constitution whether natural or acquired are undoubtedly the best preparatives for all the great exertions of self-command.