 CHAPTER I The war and faction are certainly the best schools for forming every man to this hardiness and firmness of temper, though they are the best remedies for curing him over the opposite weaknesses, yet if the day of trial should happen to come before he has completely learned his lesson, before the remedy has had time to produce its proper effect, the consequences might not be agreeable. Our sensibility to the pleasures, to the amusements and enjoyments of human life, may offend in the same manner either by its excess or by its defect. Of the two, however, the excess seems less disagreeable than the defect, both to the spectator and to the person principally concerned, a strong propensity to joy is certainly more pleasing than a dull insensibility to the objects of amusement and diversion. We are charmed with the gaiety of youth, and even with the playfulness of childhood, but we soon grow weary of the flat and tasteless gravity which too frequently accompanies old age. When this propensity indeed is not restrained by the sense of propriety, when it is unsuitable to the time or to the place, to the age or to the situation of the person, and to indulge it he neglects either his interest or his duty, it is justly blamed as excessive and is hurtful both to the individual and to the society. In the greater part of such cases, however, what is chiefly to be found fault with is not so much the strength of the propensity to joy as the weakness of the sense of propriety and duty. A young man who has no relish for the diversions and amusements that are natural and suitable to his age, who talks of nothing but his books or his business, is disliked as formal and pedantic, and we give him no credit for his abstinence even from improper indulgences to which he seems to have so little inclination. The principle of self-estimation may be too high, and it may likewise be too low. It is so very agreeable to think highly, and so very disagreeable to think meanly of ourselves, that to the person himself it cannot be well doubted, but that some degree of excess must be much less disagreeable than any degree of defect. To the impartial spectator it may perhaps be thought things must appear quite differently, and that to him the defect must always be less disagreeable than the excess, and in our companions no doubt we much more frequently complain of the latter than of the former. When they assume upon us, or set themselves before us, their self-estimation mortifies their own. Our own pride and vanity prompt us to accuse them of pride and vanity, and we cease to be the impartial spectators of their conduct. And the same companions, however, suffer any other man to assume over them a superiority which does not belong to him. We not only blame them, but often despise them, as mean-spirited. When on the contrary, among other people, they push themselves a little more forward, and scramble to an elevation disproportioned, as we think, to their merit, though we may not perfectly approve of their conduct, we are not often, upon the whole, diverted with it. And when there is no envy in the case, we are almost always much less displeased with them than we should have been had they suffered themselves to sink below their proper station. In estimating our own merit, in judging of our own character and conduct, there are two different standards to which we naturally compare them. The one is the idea of exact propriety and perfection, so far as we are each of us capable of comprehending that idea. The other is that degree of approximation to this idea which is commonly attained in the world, and which the greater part of our friends and companions, of our rivals and competitors, may have actually arrived at. We very seldom, I am disposed to think we never, attempt to judge of ourselves without giving more or less attention to both these different standards. But the attention of different men, and even of the same man at different times, is often very unequally divided between them, and is sometimes principally directed toward the one, and sometimes toward the other. So far as our attention is directed toward the first standard, the wisest and best of us all can, in his own character and conduct, see nothing but weakness and imperfection, can discover no ground for arrogance and presumption, but a great deal for humility, regret, and repentance. So far as our attention is directed toward the second, we may be affected either in the one way or in the other, and feel ourselves either really above or really below the standard to which we compare ourselves. The wise and virtuous man directs his principal attention to the first standard, the idea of exact propriety and perfection. There exists in the mind of every man an idea of this kind gradually formed from his observations upon the character and conduct, both of himself and of other people. It is the slow, gradual, and progressive work of the great demigod within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of conduct. This idea is in every man more or less accurately drawn. Its coloring is more or less just, its outlines are more or less exactly designed, according to the delicacy and acuteness of that sensibility with which those observations were made, and according to the care and attention employed in making them. In the wise and virtuous man they have been made with the most acute and delicate sensibility, and the utmost care and attention have been employed in making them. Every day some feature is improved. Every day some blemish is corrected. He has studied this idea more than other people. He comprehends it more distinctly. He has formed a much more correct image of it, and is much more deeply enamored of its exquisite and divine beauty. He endeavors as well as he can to assimilate his own character to this archetype of perfection, but he imitates the work of a divine artist which can never be equalled. He feels the imperfect success of all his best endeavors, and sees, with grief and defliction, in how many different features the mortal copy falls short of the immortal original. He remembers, with concern and humiliation, how often, from want of attention, from want of judgment, from want of temper, he has both in words and actions, both in conduct and conversation, violated the exact rules of perfect propriety, and has so far departed from that model, according to which he wished to fashion his own character and conduct. When he directs his attention toward the second standard, indeed that degree of excellence which his friends and acquaintances have commonly arrived at, he may be sensible of his own superiority. But as his principal attention is always directed toward the first standard, he is necessarily much more humbled by the one comparison than he ever can be elevated by the other. He is never so elated as to look down with insolence even upon those who are really below him. He feels so well his own imperfection, he knows so well the difficulty with which he attained his own distant approximation to rectitude, that he cannot regard with contempt the still greater imperfection of other people. Far from insulting over their inferiority, he views it with the most indulgent commissuration, and, by his advice as well as example, is at all times willing to promote their further advancement. If, in any particular qualification, they happen to be superior to him, for who is so perfect as not to have many superiors in many different qualifications, far from envying their superiority, he who knows how difficult it is to excel, esteems and honors their excellence, and never fails to bestow upon it the full measure of applause which it deserves. His whole mind, in short, is deeply impressed, his whole behavior and deportment are distinctly stamped with the character of real modesty, with that of a very moderate estimation of his own merit, and, at the same time, of a full sense of the merit of other people. In all the liberal and ingenious arts, in painting, in poetry, in music, in eloquence, in philosophy, the great artist feels always the real imperfection of his own best works, and is more sensible than any man how much they fall short of that ideal perfection in which he has formed some conception, which he imitates as well as he can, but which he despairs of ever-equaling. It is the inferior artist only who is ever perfectly satisfied with his own performances. He has little conception of this ideal perfection about which he has little employed his thoughts, and it is chiefly to the works of other artists of, perhaps a still lower order, that he deigns to compare his own works. Wallot, the great French poet, in some of his works, perhaps not inferior to the greatest poet of the same kind, either ancient or modern, used to say that no great man was ever completely satisfied with his own works. His acquaintance Sontu, a writer of Latin verses, and who, on account of that schoolboy accomplishment, had the weakness to fancy himself a poet, assured him that he himself was always completely satisfied with his own. Wallot replied, with perhaps an arch-ambiguity, that he certainly was the only great man that ever was so. Wallot, in judging of his own works, compared them with the standard of ideal perfection, which, in his own particular branch of the poetic art, he had, I presume, meditated as deeply and conceived as distinctly as it is possible for man to conceive it. Sontu, in judging of his own works, compared them, I suppose, chiefly to those of the other Latin poets of his own time, to the greater part of whom he was certainly very far from being inferior. But to support and finish off, if I may say so, the conduct and conversation of a whole life, to some resemblance of this ideal perfection, is surely much more difficult than to work up to an equal resemblance any of the productions of any of the ingenious arts. The artist sits down to his work, undisturbed, at leisure, in the full possession and recollection of all his skill, experience, and knowledge. The wise man must support the propriety of his own conduct in health and in sickness, in success and in disappointment, in the hour of fatigue and drowsy indolence, as well as in that of the most awakened attention. The most sudden and unexpected assaults of difficulty and distress must never surprise him. The injustice of other people must never provoke him to injustice. The violence of faction must never confound him. All the hardships and hazards of war must never either dishearten or appall him. Of the persons who, in estimating their own merit, in judging of their own character and conduct, direct by far the greater part of their attention to the second standard, to that ordinary degree of excellence which is commonly attained by other people, there are some who really and justly feel themselves very much above it, and who, by every intelligent and impartial spectator, are acknowledged to be so. The attention of such persons, however, being always principally directed, not to the standard of ideal, but to that of ordinary perfection, they have little sense of their own weaknesses and imperfections. They have little modesty, are often assuming, arrogant and presumptuous, great admirers of themselves and great condemners of other people, though their characters are in general much less correct, and their merit much inferior to that of the man of real and modest virtue, yet their excessive presumption founded upon their own excessive self-admiration dazzles the multitude, and often imposes even upon those who are much superior to the multitude. The frequent and often wonderful success of the most ignorant quacks and imposters, both civil and religious, sufficiently demonstrate how easily the multitude are imposed upon by the most extravagant and groundless pretensions. But when those pretensions are supported by a very high degree of real and solid merit, when they are displayed with all the splendor which ostentation can bestow upon them, when they are supported by high rank and great power, when they have often been successfully exerted, and are upon that account attended by the loud acclamations of the multitude, even the man of sober judgment often abandons himself to the general admiration. The very noise of those foolish acclamations often contributes to confounding his understanding, and while he sees those great men only at a certain distance, he is often disposed to worship them with a sincere admiration, superior even to that with which they appear to worship themselves. When there is no envy in the case, we all take pleasure in admiring, and are, upon that account, naturally disposed in our own fancies to render complete and perfect in every respect the characters which, in many respects, are so very worthy of admiration. The excessive self-admiration of these great men is well understood, perhaps, and even seen through with some degree of derision by those wise men who are much in their familiarity, and who secretly smile at those lofty pretensions which, by people at a distance, are often regarded with reverence, and almost with adoration. Such, however, have been, in all ages, the greater part of those men who have procured to themselves the most noisy fame, the most extensive reputation, a fame and reputation, too, which have often descended to the remotest posterity. Great success in the world, great authority over the sentiments and opinions of mankind, have very seldom been acquired without some degree of the excessive self-admiration. The most splendid characters, the men who have performed the most illustrious actions, who have brought about the greatest revolutions, both in the situations and opinions of mankind, the most successful warriors, the greatest statesmen and legislators, the eloquent founders and leaders of the most numerous and most successful sects and parties, have many of them been, not more distinguished for their very great merit, than for a degree of presumption and self-admiration altogether disproportioned even to that very great merit. This presumption was, perhaps, necessary, not only to prompt them to undertakings which a more sober mind would never have thought of, but to command the submission and obedience of their followers to support them in such undertakings. When crowned with success, accordingly, this presumption has often betrayed them into a vanity that approached almost to insanity and folly. Alexander the Great appears not only to have wished that other people should think him a god, but to have been at least very well-disposed to fancy himself such. Upon his deathbed, the most ungodlike of all situations, he requested of his friends that, to the respectable list of deities into which himself had long before been inserted, his old mother Olympia might likewise have the honor of being added. Amidst the respectful admiration of his followers and disciples, amidst the universal applause of the public, after the oracle, which probably had followed the voice of that applause, had pronounced him the wisest of men. The great wisdom of Socrates, though it did not suffer him to fancy himself a god, yet was not great enough to hinder him from fancying that he had secret and frequent intimations from some invisible and divine being. The sound head of Caesar was not so perfectly sound as to hinder him from being much pleased with his divine genealogy from the goddess Venus, and, before the temple of this pretended great-grandmother, to receive, without rising from his seat, the Roman Senate, when that illustrious body came to present him with some decrees conferring upon him the most extravagant honors. This insolence joined to some other acts of an almost childish vanity, little to be expected from an understanding at once so very acute and comprehensive, seems by exasperating the public jealousy to have emboldened his assassins and to have hastened the execution of their conspiracy. The religion and manners of modern times give our great men little encouragement to fancy themselves either gods or even prophets. Success, however, joined to great popular favor, as often so far turned the heads of the greatest of them, as to make them ascribe to themselves both an importance and an ability much beyond what they really possessed, and by this presumption to precipitate themselves into many rash and sometimes ruinous adventures. It is a characteristic almost peculiar to the great Duke of Marlborough that ten years of such uninterrupted and such splendid success as scarce any other general could boast of, never betrayed him into a single rash action, scarce into a single rash word or expression. The same temperate coolness and self-command cannot, I think, be ascribed to any other great warrior of later times. Not to Prince Eugene, not to the late King of Prussia, not to the great Prince of Condé, not even to Gustavus Adolphus. Terrain seems to have approached the nearest to it, but several different transactions of his life sufficiently demonstrate that it was in him by no means so perfect as in the great Duke of Marlborough. End of Section XXVIII. The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith Section XXIII of Self-Command In the humble project of private life, as well as in the ambitious and proud pursuit of high stations, great abilities and successful enterprise in the beginning have frequently encouraged to undertakings which necessarily led to bankruptcy and ruin in the end. The esteem and admiration which every impartial spectator conceives for the real merit of those spirited, magnanimous and high-minded persons, as it is a just and well-founded sentiment, so it is a steady and permanent one, and altogether independent of their good or bad fortune. It is otherwise with that admiration which he is apt to conceive for their excessive self-estimation and presumption. While they are successful, indeed, he is often perfectly conquered and over-born by them. Success covers from his eyes not only the great imprudence, but frequently the great injustice of their enterprises, and far from blaming this defective part of their character he often views it with the most enthusiastic admiration. When they are unfortunate, however, things change their colors and their names. What was before heroic magnanimity resumes its proper appellation of extravagant rashness and folly, and the blackness of that avidity and injustice which was before hit under the splendor of prosperity comes full into view and blots the whole lustre of their enterprise. Had Caesar, instead of Caning, lost the battle of Farsalia, his character would, at this hour, have ranked a little above that of Catelyn, and the weakest man would have viewed his enterprise against the laws of his country in blacker colors than perhaps even Cato, with all the animosity of a party man ever viewed it at the time. His real merit, the justness of his taste, the simplicity and elegance of his writings, the propriety of his eloquence, his skill and more, his resources and distress, his cool and sedate judgment and danger, his faithful attachment to his friends, his unexampled generosity to his enemies would all have been acknowledged as the real merit of Catelyn, who had many great qualities, is acknowledged at this day. But the insolence and injustice of his all-grasping ambition would have darkened and extinguished the glory from all that real merit. Fortune has in this, as well in some other respects already mentioned, great influence over the moral sentiments of mankind, and, according as she is either favorable or adverse, can render the same character, the object, either of general love and admiration or of universal hatred and contempt. This great disorder in our moral sentiments is by no means, however, without its utility, and we may on this, as well as on many other occasions, admire the wisdom of God even in the weakness and folly of man. Our admiration of success is founded upon the same principle with our respect for wealth and greatness, and it is equally necessary for establishing the distinction of ranks and the order of society. By this admiration of success, we are taught to submit more easily to those superiors whom the course of human affairs may assign to us, to regard with reverence, and sometimes even with a sort of respectful affection, that fortunate violence which we are no longer capable of resisting, not only the violence of such splendid characters as those of a Caesar or Alexander, but often that of the most brutal and savage barbarians, of an Attila or a Genghis or a Tamerlane. To all such mighty conquerors, the great mob of mankind are naturally disposed to look up with a wondering, though no doubt, with a very weak and foolish admiration. By this admiration, however, they are taught to acquiesce with less reluctance under that government which an irresistible force imposes upon them and from which no reluctance could deliver them. Though in prosperity, however, the man of excessive self-estimation may sometimes appear to have some advantage over the man of correct and modest virtue, although the applause of the multitude and of those who see them both only at a distance is often much louder in favor of the one than it is ever in favor of the other. Yet all things fairly computed, the real balance of advantage is, perhaps in all cases, greatly in favor of the latter and against the former. The man who neither ascribes to himself nor wishes that other people should ascribe to him any other merit besides that which really belongs to him fears no humiliation, dreads no detection, but rests contented and secure upon the genuine truth and solidity of his own character. His admirers may neither be very numerous nor very loud in their applause, but the wisest man who sees him the nearest and knows him the best admires him the most. To a real wise man the judicious and well-weighted approbation of a single wise man gives more heartfelt satisfaction than all the noisy applause of ten thousand ignorant, though enthusiastic admirers. He may say with parminities who, upon reading a philosophical discourse before a public display at Athens, and observing that except Plato the whole company had left him, continued, not withstanding, to read on, and said that Plato alone was audience sufficient for him. It is otherwise with the man of excessive self-estimation. The wise men who see him the nearest admire him the least, amidst the intoxication of prosperity, their sober and just esteem falls so short of the extravagance of his own self-admiration that he regards it as merely malignity and envy. He suspects his best friends. Their company becomes offensive to him. He drives them from his presence, and often rewards their services not only with ingratitude but with cruelty and injustice. He abandons his confidence to flatterers and traders who pretend to idolize his vanity and presumption, and that character which in the beginning, though in some respects defective, was upon the whole both amiable and respectable, becomes contemptible and odious in the end. Despite the intoxication of prosperity, Alexander killed Klytus, for having preferred the exploits of his father Philip to his own, put callicenties to death and torture for having refused to adore him in the Persian manner, and murdered the great friend of his father, the venerable Parminio, after having, upon the most groundless suspicions, sent first to the torture and afterwards to the scaffold the only remaining son of that old man, the rest having all died before in his own service. This was that Parminio of whom Philip used to say that the Athenians were very fortunate who could find ten generals every year while he himself, in the whole course of his life, could never find but one Parminio. It was upon the vigilance and attention of this Parminio that he reposed at all times with confidence and security, in the hours of his mirth and jollity used to say, Let us drink, my friends, we may do it with safety, for a Parminio never drinks. It was the same Parminio with whose presence and counsel it had been said Alexander had gained all of his victories, and without whose presence and counsel he had never gained a single victory. The humble, admiring, and flattering friends whom Alexander left in power and authority behind him, divided his empire among themselves, and after having thus robbed his family in kindred of their inheritance put one after another every single surviving individual of them, whether female or male, to death. We frequently, not only pardon, but thoroughly enter into and sympathize with the excessive self-estimation of those splendid characters in which we observe a great and distinguished superiority above the common level of mankind. We call them spirited, magnanimous, and high-minded, words which all involve in their meaning a considerable degree of praise and admiration. But we cannot enter into and sympathize with the excessive self-estimation of those characters in which we can discern no such distinguished superiority. We are disgusted and revolted by it, and it is with some difficulty that we can either pardon or suffer it. We call it pride or vanity, two words of which the latter always, and the former, for the most part, involve in their meaning a considerable degree of blame. These two vices, however, though resembling in some respects as being both modifications of excessive self-estimation, are yet, in many respects, very different from one another. The proud man is sincere, and in the bottom of his heart is convinced of his own superiority, though it may sometimes be difficult to guess upon what that conviction has founded. He wishes you to view him in no light other than that in which, when he places himself in your situation, he really views himself. He demands no more of you than what he thinks, justice. If you appear not to respect him as he respects himself, he is more offended than mortified, and feels the same indignant resentment as if he had suffered a real injury. He does not, even then, however, deign to explain the grounds of his own pretensions. He disdains to court your esteem. He affects even to despise it an endeavours to maintain his assumed station not too much by making you sensible of his superiority as of your own meanness. He seems to wish not so much to excite your esteem for himself as to mortify that for yourself. The vain man is not sincere, and in the bottom of his heart is very seldom convinced of that superiority which he wishes you to ascribe him. He wishes you to view him in much more splendid colors than those in which, when he places himself in your situation and supposes you to know all that he knows, he can really view himself. When you appear to view him, therefore, in different colors, perhaps in his proper colors, he is much more mortified than offended. The grounds of his claim to that character which he wishes you to ascribe to him takes every opportunity of displaying both by the most ostentatious and unnecessary exhibition of good qualities and accomplishments which he possesses in some tolerable degree, and sometimes even by false pretensions to those which he either possesses in no degree or in so very slender a degree that he may well enough be said to possess them in no degree. Far from despising your esteem, he courts it with most anxious assiduity. Far from wishing to mortify your self-estimation, he is happy to cherish it in hopes that in return you will cherish his own. He flatters in order to be flattered. He studies to please and endeavors to bribe you into a good opinion of him by politeness and complacence, and sometimes even by real and essential good offices, though often displayed perhaps with unnecessary ostentation. The vain man sees the respect which is paid to rank and fortune and wishes to usurp this respect, as well as that for talents and virtues. His dress, his equipage, his way of living accordingly all announce both a higher rank and greater fortune than really belonged to him. And in order to support this foolish imposition for a few years in the beginning of his life, he often reduces himself to poverty and distress long before the end of it. As long as he can continue his expense, however, his vanity is delighted with viewing himself, not in the light in which you would view him if you knew all that he knows, but that in which he imagines he has, by his own address, induced you actually to view him. Of all the illusions of vanity this is perhaps the most common. Obscure strangers who visit foreign countries, or who from a remote province come to visit for a short time the capital of their own country, most frequently attempt to practice it. The folly of the attempt, though always very great and most unworthy of a man of sense, may not be altogether so great upon such as upon most other occasions. If their stay is short they may escape any disgraceful detection, and after indulging their vanity for a few months or a few years they may return to their own homes and repair by future parsimony, the waste of their past profusion. The proud man can very seldom be accused of this folly. His sense of his own dignity renders him careful to preserve his independency, and when his fortune happens not to be large, though he wishes it to be decent, he studies to be frugal and attentive in all his expenses. The ostentatious expense of the vain man is highly offensive to him. It outshines perhaps his own. It provokes his indignation as an insolent assumption of a rank, which is by no means due, and he never talks of it without loading it with the harshest and severest reproaches. The proud man does not always feel himself at his ease in the company of his equals, and still less in that of his superiors. He cannot lay down his lofty pretensions, and the countenance and conversation of such company overaw him so much that he dare not display them. He has recourse to humbler company, for which he has little respect, which he would not willingly choose, and which is by no means agreeable to him, that of his inferiors, his flatters, and dependents. He seldom visits his superiors, or if he does, it's rather to show that he is entitled to live in such company than for any real satisfaction that he enjoys in it. It is as Lord Clarendon says of the Earl of Arundel, that he sometimes went to court because he could there only find a greater man than himself, but that he went very seldom, because he found there a greater man than himself. It is quite otherwise with the vain man. He courts the company of his superiors as much as the proud man shuns it. Their splendor, he seems to think, reflects a splendor upon those who are much about them. He haunts the courts of kings and the levies of ministers. He gives himself the air of being a candidate for fortune and preferment, when in reality he possesses the much more precious happiness, if he knew how to enjoy it, of not being one. He is fond of being admitted to the tables of the great, and still more fond of magnifying to other people the familiarity with which he is honored there. He associates himself as much as he can with fashionable people, those who are supposed to direct the public opinion, with the witty, with the learned, with the popular. And he shuns the company of his best friends whenever the very uncertain current of public favor happens to run in any respect against them. With the people to whom he wishes to recommend himself, he is not always very delicate about the means which he employs for that purpose. Unnecessary ostentation, groundless pretensions, constant assentation, frequently flattery, though for the most part pleasant and sprightly flattery, and very seldom the gross and fulsome flattery of a parasite. The proud man, on the contrary, never flatters, and is frequently scarce civil to anybody. Notwithstanding all his groundless pretensions, however, vanity is almost always a sprightly and a gay, and often very good-natured passion. Pride is always a grave, a sullen, and a severe one. Even the falsehoods of the vain man are all innocent falsehoods, meant to raise himself, not to lower other people. To do the proud men justice he very seldom stoops to the baseness of falsehood. When he does, however, his falsehoods are by no means so innocent. They are all mischievous, and meant to lower other people. He is full of indignation and the unjust superiority, as he thinks it, which is given them. He views them with malignity and envy, and, in talking of them, often endeavors, as much as he can, to extenuate and lessen whatever are the grounds upon which their superiority is supposed to be founded. Whatever tales are circulated to their disadvantage, though he seldom forges them himself, yet he often takes pleasure in believing them, is by no means unwilling to repeat them, and even sometimes with a degree of exaggeration. Their worst falsehoods of vanity are all what we call white lies. Those of pride, whenever it condescends to falsehood, are all of the opposite complexion. Our dislike to pride and vanity generally disposes us to rank the persons whom we accuse of those vices rather below than above the common level. In this judgment, however, I think we are most frequently in the wrong, and that both the proud and the vain man are often, perhaps for the most part, a good deal above it, though not near so much as either the one really thinks himself or as the other wishes you to think him. If we compare them with their own pretensions, they may appear the just objects of contempt. But when we compare them with what the greater part of their rivals and competitors really are, and they may appear quite otherwise and very much above the common level. Where there is real superiority, pride is frequently attended with many respectable virtues, with truth, with integrity, with a high sense of honor, with cordial and steady friendship, with one of the most inflexible firmness and resolution. Vanity with many amiable ones, with humanity, with politeness, with the desire to oblige in all little matters, and sometimes with a real generosity in great ones. A generosity, however, which it often wishes to display in the most splendid colors it can. By their rivals and enemies, the French in the last century, were accused of vanity, the Spaniards of pride, and foreign nations were disposed to consider the one as the more amiable, the other as the more respectable people. The words vain and vanity are never taken in a good sense. We sometimes say of a man, when we are talking of him in good humor, that he is the better for his vanity, or that his vanity is more diverting than offensive. But we still consider it as a foible and as a ridicule in his character. The words proud and pride, on the contrary, are sometimes taken in a good sense. We frequently say of a man that he's too proud or that he has too much noble pride ever to suffer himself to do a mean thing. Pride is, in this case, confounded with magnanimity. Aristotle, a philosopher who certainly knew the world in drawing the character of the magnanimous man, paints him with many features which, in the last two centuries, were commonly ascribed to the Spanish character. That he was deliberate in all his resolutions, slow and even tardy in all his actions, that his voice would grave his speech deliberate, his step and motion slow, that he appeared indolent and even slothful, not at all disposed to bustle about little matters, but to act with a most determined and vigorous resolution upon all great and illustrious occasions. That he was not a lover of danger or a forward to expose himself to little dangers, but to great dangers. And that when he exposed himself to danger he was altogether regardless of his life. The proud man is commonly too well contented with himself to think that his character requires any amendment. The man who feels himself all perfect naturally enough despises all further improvement. His self-sufficiency and absurd conceit of his own superiority commonly attend him from his youth to his most advanced age, and he dies, as Hamlet says, with all his sins upon his head unanointed, unannealed. It is frequently otherwise with the vain man. The desire of the esteem and admiration of other people, when for qualities and talents which are the natural and proper objects of esteem and admiration is the real love of true glory, a passion which, if not the very best passion of human nature, is certainly one of the best. Vanity is very frequently no more than an attempt to prematurely usurp that glory before it is due. Though your son, under five and twenty years of age, Shabibah the Cockscomb, do not upon that account despair of his becoming, before he is forty, a very wise and worthy man, and a real proficient in all those talents and virtues to which, at present, he may only be an ostentatious and empty pretender. The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects. Never suffer him to value himself upon trivial accomplishments, but do not always discourage his pretensions to those that are of real importance. He would not pretend to them if he did not earnestly desire to possess them. Encourage this desire. Afford him every means to facilitate the acquisition, and do not take too much offense, although he should sometimes assume the air of having attained it a little before the time. Such, I say, are the distinguishing characteristics of pride and vanity, when each of them acts according to its proper character. But the proud man is often vain, and the vain man is often proud. Nothing can be more natural than that man who thinks much more highly of himself than he deserves, should wish that other people should think still more highly of him, or that the man who wishes that other people should think more highly of him than he thinks of himself should, at the same time, think much more highly of himself than he deserves. These two vices being frequently in the same character, the characteristics of both are unnecessarily confounded, and we sometimes find the superficial and impertinent ostentation of vanity joined to the most malignant and derisive insolence of pride. We are sometimes upon that account, at a loss how to rank a particular character, or whether to place it among the proud or among the vain. Section 30 of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. Men of merit considerably above the common level, sometimes underrate as well as overrate themselves. Such characters, though not very dignified, are often in private society, far from being disagreeable. His companions all feel themselves much at their ease in the society of a man so perfectly modest and unassuming. If those companions, however, have not both more discernment and more generosity than ordinary, though they may have some kindness for him, they seldom have much respect, and in the warmth of their kindness is very seldom sufficient to compensate the coldness of their respect. Men of no more than ordinary discernment never rate any person higher than he appears to rate himself. He seems doubtful himself, they say, whether he is perfectly fit for such a situation or such an office, and immediately give the preference to some imprudent blockhead who entertains no doubt about his own qualifications. Though they should have discernment, yet if they want generosity, they never fail to take advantage of his simplicity and to assume over him an impertinent superiority which they are by no means entitled to. His good nature may enable him to bear this for some time, but he grows weary at last, and frequently when it is too late and when that rank which he ought to have assumed is lost irrevocably and usurped, in consequence of his own backwardness, by some of his more forward, though much less meritous companions. A man of this character must have been very fortunate in the early choice of his companions if in going through the world he meets always with fair justice, even from those whom from his own past kindness he might have some reason to consider as his best friends, and a youth, too unassuming and too unambitious, is frequently followed by an insignificant, complaining, and discontented old age. Those unfortunate persons whom nature has formed a good deal below the common level seem sometimes to rate themselves still more below it than they really are. This humility appears sometimes to sink them into idiotism. Whoever has taken the trouble to examine idiots with attention will find that in many of them the faculties of the understanding are by no means weaker than in several other people, who, though acknowledged to be dull and stupid, are not by anybody accounted idiots. Many idiots with no more than ordinary education have been taught to read, write, and account tolerably well. Many persons never accounted idiots notwithstanding the most careful education and notwithstanding that in their advanced age they have had spirit enough to attempt to learn what their early education had not taught them have never been able to acquire in any tolerable degree any one of those three accomplishments. By an instinct of pride, however, they had set themselves upon a level with their equals in age and situation, and with courage and firmness maintain their proper station among their companions. By an opposite instinct the idiot feels himself below every company into which you can introduce him. Ill usage, to which he is extremely liable, is capable of throwing him into the most violent fits of rage and fury. But no good usage, no kindness or indulgence, can ever raise him to converse with you as your equal. If you can bring him to converse with you at all, however, you will frequently find his answers sufficiently pertinent and even sensible. They are always stamped with a distinct consciousness of his own great inferiority. He seems to shrink, and, as it were, to retire from your look and conversation, and to feel when he places himself in your situation that notwithstanding your apparent condescension you cannot help considering him as immensely below you. Some idiots, perhaps the greater part, seem to be so chiefly or together from a certain numbness or torpedoity in the faculties of the understanding. But there are others in whom those faculties do not appear more torpid or benumb than in many other people who are not accounted idiots. But that instinct of pride, necessary to support them upon inequality with their brethren, seems totally wanting in the former and not in the latter. That degree of self-estimation, therefore, which contributes most to the happiness and contentment of the person himself, seems likewise most agreeable to the impartial spectator. The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he ought, seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he himself thinks do. He desires no more than is due to him, and he rests upon it with complete satisfaction. The proud and the vain man, on the contrary, are constantly dissatisfied. The one is tormented with indignation at the unjust superiority, as he thinks of it, of other people. The other is in continual dread of the shame which, he foresees, would attend upon the detection of his groundless pretensions. Even the extravagant pretensions of the man of real magnanimity, though, when supported by splendid abilities and virtues, and above all by good fortune, they impose upon the multitude whose applause as he little regards, do not impose upon those wise men whose approbation he can only value, and whose esteem he is most anxious to acquire. He feels that they see through, and suspects that they despise his excessive presumption, and he often suffers the cruel misfortune of becoming, first the jealous and secret, and at last the open, furious, and vindictive enemy of those very persons whose friendship it would have given him the greatest happiness to enjoy with the unsuspicious security. Though our dislike of the proud and vain often disposes us to rank them rather below than above their proper station, yet unless we are provoked by some particular and personal impertence, we very seldom venture to use them ill. In common cases we endeavor, for our own ease, rather to acquiesce, and as well as we can, to accommodate ourselves to their folly. But to the man who underrates himself, unless we have both more discernment and more generosity than belong to the greater part of men, we seldom fail to do, at least, all the injustice which he does to himself, and frequently a great deal more. He is not only more unhappy in his own feelings than either the proud or the vain, but he is much more liable to every sort of ill usage from other people. In almost all cases it is better to be a little too proud than in any respect to humble, and in the sentiment of self-estimation, some degree of excess seems both to the person and to the impartial spectator to be less disagreeable than any degree of defect. In this, therefore, as well as in every other emotion, passion, and habit, the degree that is most agreeable to the impartial spectator is likewise most agreeable to the person himself, and according as either the excess or the defect is least offensive to the former, so either with one or the other is in proportion at least disagreeable to the latter. Concerned for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of prudence. Concerned for that of other people the virtues of justice and beneficence, of which the one restrains us from hurting the other promises to promote that happiness. Independent of any regard either to what are or what ought to be or what upon a certain condition would be, the sentiments of other people, the first of those three virtues is originally recommended to us by our selfish, the other two by our benevolent affections. Regard to the sentiments of other people, however, comes afterward both to enforce and to direct the practice of all those virtues, and no man daring either the whole of his life or that of any considerable part of it ever trots steadily and uniformly in the past the prudence of justice or proper beneficence whose conduct was not principally directed by a regard to the sentiments of the supposed impartial spectator, of the great inmate of the breast, the great judge and arbitre of conduct. If in the course of the day we have swerved in any respect from the rules which he prescribes to us, if we have either exceeded or relaxed in our frugality, if we have either exceeded or relaxed in our industry, if through passion or inadvertency we have hurt in any respect the interest or happiness of our neighbor, if we have neglected a plain and proper opportunity of promoting that interest and happiness, it is this inmate who, in the evening, calls us to an account for all those emissions and violations, and his reproaches often make us blush inwardly, both for our folly and inattention to our own happiness, and for our still greater indifference in inattention perhaps to that of other people. But though the virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence may, upon different occasions, be recommended to us almost equally by two different principles. Those of self-command are, upon most occasions, principally and almost entirely recommended to us by one, by the sense of propriety, by regard to the sentiments of the supposed impartial spectator. Without the restraint which this principle imposes, every passion would, upon most occasions, rush headlong, if I may say so, to its own gratification. Anger would follow the suggestions of its own fury, fear those of its own violent agitations, regard to no time or place would induce vanity to refrain from the loudest and most impertinent ostentation, or voluptuousness from the most open, indecent and scandalous indulgence. Respect for what are, or for what ought to be, or for what, upon a certain condition, would be, the sentiments of other people, is the sole principle which, in most occasions, overaws all those municious and turbulent passions, into that tone and temper which the impartial spectator can enter into and sympathize with. Upon some occasions, indeed, those passions are restrained not so much by a sense of their impropriety as by prudential considerations of the bad consequences which might follow from their indulgence. In such cases, the passions, though restrained, are not always subdued, but often remain lurking in the breast with all their original fury. The man whose anger is restrained by fear does not always lay aside his anger, but only reserves its gratification for a more safe opportunity. But the man who, in relating to some other person the injury which has been done to him, feels at once the fury of his passion cooled and becalmed by sympathy with the more moderate sentiments of his companion, who at once adopts those more moderate sentiments, and comes to view that injury not in the black and atrocious colors which he had originally beheld it, but in the much milder and fairer light in which his companion naturally views it, not only restrains, but in some measure subdues his anger. The passion becomes really less than it was before, and is less capable of exciting him to the violent and bloody revenge which at first, perhaps, he might have thought of inflicting. Those passions which are restrained by the sense of propriety are, all in some degree, moderated and subdued by it. But those which are restrained only by prudential considerations of any kind are, on the contrary, frequently inflamed by the restraint, and sometimes long after the provocation given and when nobody is thinking about it, burst out absurdly and unexpectedly, and with tenfold fury and violence. However, as well as every other passion, may upon some occasions be very properly restrained by prudential considerations. Some exertion of manhood and self-command is even necessary for this sort of restraint, and the impartial spectator may sometimes view it with that sort of cold esteem due to that species of conduct which he considers as a mere matter of vulgar prudence, but never with that affectionate admiration which he surveys the same passions when, by the sense of propriety, they are moderated and subdued to what he himself can readily enter into. In the former species of restraint he may frequently discern some degree of propriety, and, if he will, even a virtue. But it is a propriety and virtue of a much inferior order to those which he always feels with transport and admiration in the latter. The virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence have no tendency to produce any but the most agreeable effects. Regard to those effects, as it originally recommends them to the actor, so does it afterwards to the impartial spectator. In our approbation of the character of the prudent man we feel with peculiar complacency the security which he must enjoy while he walks under the safeguard of that sedate and deliberate virtue. In our approbation of the character of the just man we feel with equal complacency the security which all those connected with him, whether in neighborhood, society, or business, must arrive from his scrupulous anxiety never either to hurt or to offend. In our approbation of the character of the beneficent man we enter into the gratitude of all those who are within the sphere of his good offices and conceive with them the highest sense of his merit. In our approbation of all those virtues our sense of the agreeable effects of their utility either to the person who exercises them or to some other persons joins with our sense of their propriety and constitutes always a considerable, frequently the greater part of that approbation. But in our approbation of the virtues of self-command complacency with the effects sometimes constitutes no part and frequently but a small part of that approbation. Those effects may sometimes be agreeable and sometimes disagreeable and though our approbation is no doubt stronger in the former case it is by no means altogether destroyed in the latter. The most heroic valor may be employed indifferently in the cause either of justice or of injustice and though it is no doubt much more loved and admired in the former case it still appears a great and respectable quality even in the latter. In that and in all the other virtues of self-command the most splendid and dazzling quality seems always to be the greatness and steadiness of their exertion and the strong sense of propriety which is necessary in order to make and to maintain that exertion. The effects are too often but too little regarded. End of Section 30 Section 31 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 Jennifer W. The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith. Part 6 Section 3 Chapter 2 Of the order in which societies are by nature recommended to our beneficence. The same principles that direct the order in which individuals are recommended to our beneficence likewise that direct in which societies are recommended to it. As to which it is or may be of most importance or first and principally recommended to it. The state or sovereignty in which we have been born and educated and under the protection of which we continue to live is in ordinary cases the greatest society upon whose happiness or misery our good or bad conduct can have much influence. It is accordingly by nature most strongly recommended to us. Not only we ourselves but all the objects of our kindest affections, our children, our parents, our relations, our friends, our benefactors, all those whom we naturally love and revere the most are commonly comprehended within it and their prosperity and safety depend in some measure upon its prosperity and safety. It is by nature therefore endeared to us not only by all our selfish but by all our private benevolent affections. Upon account for our own connection with it its prosperity and glory seem to reflect some sort of honor upon ourselves. When we compare it to other societies of the same kind we are proud of its superiority and mortified in some degree if it appears in any respect below them. All the illustrious characters which it is produced in former times for against those of our own times envy may sometimes prejudice us a little. Its warriors, its statesmen, its poets, its philosophers, and men of letters of all kinds we are disposed to view with the most partial admiration and to rank them sometimes most unjustly above those of all other nations. The patriot who lays down his life for the safety or even for the vain glory of his society appears to act with the most exact propriety. He appears to view himself in the light in which the impartial spectator naturally and necessarily views him as but one of the multitude in the light of that equitable judge of no more consequence than any other in it but bound at all times to sacrifice and devote himself to the safety, to the service, and even to the glory of the greater number. But though the sacrifice appears to be perfectly just and proper we know how difficult it is to make it and how few people are capable of making it. His conduct therefore excites not only our entire approbation but our highest wonder and admiration and seems to merit all the applause which can be due to the most heroic virtue. The traitor, on the contrary, who in some peculiar fashion fancies he can promote his own little interest by betraying to the public enemy that of his native country, who regardless of the judgment of the man within the breast prefers himself in this respect so shamefully and so basely to all those whom he has any connection appears to be of all villains the most detestable. The love of our own nation often disposes us to view with the most malignant jealousy and envy the prosperity and a grandizement of any other neighboring nation. Independent and neighboring nations having no common superior to decide their disputes all live in continual dread and suspicion of one another. Each sovereign expecting little justice from his neighbors is disposed to treat them with as little as he expects from them. The regard for the laws of nations or for those rules which independent states profess or pretend to think themselves bound to observe in their dealings with one another is often very little more than mere pretense and profession. From the smallest interest upon the slightest provocation we see these rules every day either evaded or directly violated without shame or remorse. Each nation foresees or imagines it foresees its own subjugation in the increasing power and a grandizement of any of its neighbors, and the mean principle of national prejudice is often founded upon the noble one of the love of our own country. The sentence with which the elder Cato is said to have concluded every speech which he made in the senate, whatever might be its subject, it is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought to be destroyed, was the natural expression of the savage patriotism of a strong but coarse mind enraged almost to madness against a foreign nation from which his own had suffered so much. The much more humane sentence with which Cipio Nisica is said to have concluded all his speeches, it is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought not to be destroyed, was the liberal expression of a more enlarged and enlightened mind, who felt no aversion to the prosperity even of an old enemy when reduced to a state which could no longer be formidable to Rome. France and England may each of them have some reason to dread the increase of the naval and military power of the other, but for either of them to envy the internal happiness and prosperity of the other, the cultivation of its lands, the advancement of its manufacturers, the increase of its commerce, the security and number of its ports and harbors, its proficiency in all the liberal arts and sciences is surely beneath the dignity of two great nations. These are all real improvements of the world we live in. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In such improvements each nation ought not only to endeavour itself to excel, but from the love of mankind to promote instead of obstructing the excellence of its neighbors. These are all proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy. The love of our own country seems not to be derived from the love of mankind. The former sentiment is altogether independent of the latter and seems sometimes even to dispose us to act inconsistently with it. France may contain, perhaps near three times the number of inhabitants which Great Britain contains. In the great society of mankind, therefore, the prosperity of France should appear to be an object of much greater importance than that of Great Britain. The British subject, however, who upon that account should prefer upon all occasions the prosperity of the former to that of the latter country, would not be thought a good citizen of Great Britain. We do not love our country merely as part of the great society of mankind. We love it for our own sake and independently of any such consideration. That wisdom which contrived this system of human affections, as well as that of every other part in nature, seems to have judged that the interest of the great society of mankind would be best promoted by directing the principal attention of each individual to that particular portion of it which was most within the sphere, both of his abilities and of his understanding. National prejudices and hatreds seldom extend beyond neighboring nations. We very weakly and foolishly, perhaps, call the French our natural enemies, and they, perhaps as weakly and foolishly, consider us in the same manner. Neither they nor we bear any sort of envy to the prosperity of China or Japan. It very rarely happens, however, that our goodwill toward such distant countries can be exerted with much effect. The most extensive public benevolence which can commonly be exerted with any considerable effect is that of the statesman who project informal alliances among neighboring or not very distant nations, for the preservation either of what is called the balance of power, or of the general peace and tranquility to the states within the circle of their negotiations. The statesman, however, who plan and execute such treaties, have seldom anything in view but the interest of their respective countries. Sometimes indeed their views are more extensive. The Count d'Avot, the planning of potent area France at the Treaty of Munster, would have been willing to sacrifice his life, according to the Cardinal de Retz, a man not overly credulous in the virtue of other people, in order to have restored by that treaty the general tranquility of Europe. King William seems to have had a real zeal for the liberty and independency of the greater part of the sovereign states of Europe, which, perhaps, might be a good deal stimulated by his particular aversion to France, the state from which, during his time, that liberty and independency were principally in danger. Some share of this same spirit seems to have descended to the First Ministry of Queen Anne. Every independent state is divided into many different orders and societies, each of which has its own particular powers, privileges, and immunities. Every individual is naturally more attached to his own particular order or society than to any other. His own interest, his own vanity, the interest and vanity of many of his friends and companions, are commonly a good deal connected with it. He is ambitious to extend its privileges and immunities. He is zealous to defend them against the encroachments of every other order or society. Upon the manner in which any state is divided into the different orders and societies which compose it, and upon the particular distribution which has been made of their respective powers, privileges, and immunities, depends what is called the Constitution of that particular state. Upon the ability of each particular order or society to maintain its own powers, privileges, and immunities against the encroachments of every other, depends the stability of that particular Constitution. That particular Constitution is necessarily more or less altered whenever any of its subordinate parts is either raised above or depressed below whatever had been its former rank and condition. All those different orders and societies are dependent upon the state to which they owe their security and protection. That they are all subordinate to that state and established only in subsurgency to its prosperity and preservation is a truth acknowledged by the most partial member of every one of them. It may often, however, be hard to convince him that the prosperity and preservation of the state require any diminution of the powers, privileges, and immunities of its own particular order or society. This partiality, though it may sometimes be unjust, may not upon that account be useless. It checks the spirit of innovation. It tends to preserve whatever is the established balance among the different orders and societies into which the state is divided, and while it sometimes appears to obstruct some alterations of government which may be fashionable and popular at the time, it contributes in reality to the stability and permanency of the whole system. The love of our country seems, in ordinary cases, to involve it in two different principles. First, a certain respect and reverence for that constitution or form of government which is actually established, and secondly, an earnest desire to render the condition of our fellow citizens as safe, respectable, and happy as we can. He is not a citizen who is disposed to respect the laws and to obey the civil magistrate. He is certainly not a good citizen who does not wish to promote by every means in his power the welfare of the whole society of his fellow citizens. In peaceable and quiet times, those two principles generally coincide and lead to the same conduct. The support of the established government seems evidently the best expedient for maintaining the safe, respectable, and happy situation of our fellow citizens, when we see that this government actually maintains them in that situation. But in times of public discontent, faction, and order, those two different principles may draw different ways, and even a wise man may be disposed to think some alteration necessary in that constitution or form of government, which in its actual condition appears plainly unable to maintain the public tranquility. In such cases, however, it often requires perhaps the highest effort of political wisdom to determine when a real patriot ought to support and endeavour to re-establish the authority of the old system, and when he ought to give way to the more daring but often dangerous spirit of innovation. Foreign war and civil faction are the two situations which afford the most splendid opportunities for the display of public spirit. The hero who serves his country successfully in foreign war gratifies the wishes of the whole nation and is upon that account the object of universal gratitude and admiration. In times of civil discord the leaders of the contending parties, though they may be admired by one half of their fellow citizens, are commonly executed by the other. Their characters and the merit of their respective services appear commonly more doubtful. The glory which is acquired by foreign war is, upon this account, almost always more pure and more splendid than that which can be acquired in civil faction. The leader of this successful party, however, if he has authority enough to prevail upon his own friends to act with proper temper and moderation, which he frequently has not, may sometimes render to his country a service much more essential and important than the greatest victories in the most extensive conquests. He may re-establish and improve the constitution, and from the very doubtful and ambiguous character of the leader of a He may assume the greatest and noblest of all characters, that of the reformer and legislator of a great state, and by the wisdom of his institutions secure the internal tranquility and happiness of his fellow citizens for many succeeding generations. Amidst the turbulence and disorder of affaction a certain spirit of system is apt to mix itself with that public spirit which is founded upon the love of humanity, upon a real fellow feeling with the inconveniences and distresses to which some of our fellow citizens may be exposed. This spirit of system commonly takes the direction of that more gentle public spirit, always animates it, and often inflames it even to the madness of fanaticism. The leaders of the discontented party seldom fail to hold out some plausible plan of reformation which they pretend will not only remove the inconveniences and relieve the distresses immediately complained of, but will prevent in all time coming any return of the like inconveniences and distresses. They often propose upon this account to new model the constitution and to alter, in some of its most essential parts, that system of government under which the subjects of a great empire have enjoyed, perhaps peace, security, and even glory during the course of several centuries together. The great body of the party are commonly intoxicated with the imaginary beauty of this ideal system, of which they have no experience, but which has been represented to them in all the most dazzling colors in which the eloquence of their leaders could paint it. Those leaders themselves, though they originally may have meant nothing but their own aggrandizement, become many of them in times dupes of their own sophistry, and are as eager for this great reformation as the weakest and foolishest of their followers. Even though the leaders should have preserved in their own heads as indeed they commonly do, free from this fanaticism, yet they dare not disappoint the expectation of their followers, but are often obliged, though contrary to their principles and their conscience, to act as if they were under the same delusion. The violence of the party, refusing all palliatives, all temperaments, and all reasonable accommodations by requiring too much frequently obtains nothing, and those inconveniences and distresses which, with a little moderation, might in a great measure have been removed and relieved, are left altogether without hope of remedy. The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence will respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and societies into which the state is divided. Though he should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with moderating, but he often cannot annihilate without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force, but will religiously observe what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country no more than to his parents. He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people, and will remedy, as well as he can, the inconveniences which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are adverse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong. But like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavor to establish the best the people can bear. The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit, and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts without any regard either to the great interests or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chessboard have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them, but that in the great chessboard of human society every single piece has a principle motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislator might choose to impress upon it. If these two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder. Some general and even systematical idea of perfection of policy and law may no doubt be necessary for directing the views of the statesmen, but to insist upon establishing and upon establishing all at once, and in spite of all opposition, everything which that idea may seem to require must often be the highest degree of arrogance. It is to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong. It is to fancy himself the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth, and that his fellow-citizens should accommodate themselves to him and not he to them. It is upon this account that of all political speculators sovereign princes are by far the most dangerous. This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them. They entertain no doubt of the immense superiority of their own judgment. When such imperial and royal reformers therefore condescend to contemplate the constitution of the country which is committed to their government, they seldom seeing anything so wrong in it as the obstructions which it may sometimes oppose to the execution of their own will. They hold in contempt the divine maxim of Plato, and consider the state as made for themselves, not themselves for the state. The great object of their reformation, therefore, is to remove those obstructions, to reduce the authority of the nobility, to take away the privileges of cities and provinces, and to render both the greatest individuals and the greatest orders of the state as incapable of opposing their commands as the weakest and most insignificant. Part 6, Section 3, Chapter 3 of Universal Benevolence Though our effectual good offices can very seldom be extended to any wider society than that of our own country, our good will is circumscribed by no boundary, but may embrace the immensity of the universe. We cannot form the idea of any innocent and sensible being whose happiness we should not desire, or whose misery, when distinctly brought home to the imagination, we should not have some degree of aversion. The idea of a mischievous though sensible being indeed naturally provokes our hatred, but the ill-will which, in this case, we bear to it, is really the effect of our universal benevolence. It is the effect of the sympathy which we feel with the misery and resentment of those other innocent and sensible beings whose happiness is disturbed by its malice. This universal benevolence, how noble and generous, so ever, can be the source of no solid happiness to any man who is not thoroughly convinced that all the inhabitants of the universe, the meanest as well as the greatest, are under the immediate care and protection of that great benevolent and all-wise being who directs all the movements of nature and who is determined by his own unalterable perfections to maintain in it at all times the greatest possible quantity of happiness. To this universal benevolence, on the contrary, the very suspicion of a fatherless world must be the most melancholy of all reflections, from the thought that all the unknown regions of infinite and incomprehensible space may be filled with nothing but endless misery and wretchedness. All the splendor of the highest prosperity can never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful an idea must necessarily overshadow the imagination, nor in a wise and virtuous man can all the sorrow of the most afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the habitual and thorough conviction of the truth of the contrary system. The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular order or society. He is at all times willing, too, that the interest of this order or society should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the state or sovereignty, of which it is only a subordinate part. He should, therefore, be equally willing that all those inferior interests should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the universe, and to the interest of that great society of all sensible and intelligent beings, of which God himself is the immediate administrator and director, if he is deeply impressed with the habitual and thorough conviction that this benevolent and all wise being can admit into the system of his government no partial evil which is not necessary for the universal good. He must consider all the misfortunes which may befall himself, his friends, his society, or his country, as necessary for the prosperity of the universe, and, therefore, as what he ought not only to submit to with resignation, but as what he himself, if he had known all the connections and dependencies of things, ought sincerely and devoutly to have wished for. Nor does this magnanimous resignation to the will of the great director of the universe seem in any respect beyond the reach of human nature. Good soldiers who both love and trust their general frequently march with more gaiety and accolarity to the forlorn station from which they never expect a return than they would to one where there was neither difficulty nor danger. In marching to the latter they could feel no other sentiment than that of the dullness of ordinary duty. In marching to the former they feel that they are making the noblest exertion which it is possible for man to make. They know that their general would not have ordered them upon this station had it not been necessary for the safety of the army, for the success of the war. They cheerfully sacrifice their own little systems to the prosperity of a greater system. They take an affectionate leave of their comrades, to whom they wish all happiness and success, and march out not only with submissive obedience but often with shouts of the most joyful exultation to that fatal but splendid and honourable station to which they are appointed. No conductor of an army can deserve more unlimited trust, more ardent and zealous affection than the great conductor of the universe. In the greatest public as well as private disasters a wise man ought to consider that he himself, his friends and countrymen, have only been ordered upon the forlorn station of the universe that had it not been necessary for the good of the whole, and they would not have been so ordered, and that is their duty, not only with humble resignation to submit to this allotment, but to endeavor to embrace it with accolarity and joy. A wise man should surely be capable of doing what a good soldier holds himself at all times in readiness to do. The idea of that divine being whose benevolence and wisdom has from all eternity contrived and conducted the immense machine of the universe, so as at all times to produce the greatest possible quantity of happiness, is certainly of all the objects of human contemplation by far the most sublime. Every other thought necessarily appears mean in comparison. The man whom we believe to be principally occupied in this sublime contemplation seldom fails to be the object of our highest veneration, and though his life should be altogether contemplative, we often regard him with a sort of religious respect much superior to that which we look upon the most active and useful servant of the commonwealth. The meditations of Marcus Antoninus, which turned principally upon this subject, have contributed more perhaps to the general admiration of his character than all the different transactions of his just, merciful, and beneficent reign. The administration of the great system of the universe, however, the care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers and to the narrowness of his comprehension, the care of his own happiness, that of his family, his friends, his country. That he is occupied in contemplating the more sublime can never be an excuse for his neglecting the more humble department. And he must not expose himself to the charge which Advidius Caches is said to have brought, perhaps unjustly, against Marcus Antoninus, that while he employed himself in the philosophical speculations and contemplated the prosperity of the universe, he neglected that of the Roman Empire. The most sublime speculation of the contemplative philosopher can scarce compensate the neglect of the smallest active duty.