 Section 10 of the Theory of Moral Sentiments This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ashvenjan The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 3 of the Utility of this Constitution of Nature It is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for which he was made. All members of human society stand in need of each other's assistance and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection and are, as it were, drawn to one common center of mutual good offices. But though the necessary assistance should not be afforded from such generous and disinterested motives, though among the different members of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, the society, though less happy and agreeable, will not necessarily be dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or affection. And though no man in it should owe any obligation or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation. Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity takes place, all the bands of it are broke, ascender. And the different members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of the discordant affections. If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another beneficent. Therefore, it is less essential to the existence of society than justice. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence, hurt and the prevalence of injustice met utterly destroyed it. Though nature, therefore, exhausts mankind to acts of beneficence by the pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought it necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament which embellishes not the foundation which supports the building and which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend but by no means necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense fabric of human society that fabric which to raise and support seems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the particular and darling care of nature must in a moment crumble into atoms in order to enforce the observation of justice. Therefore, nature has implanted in the human breast a consciousness of ill-desert, though steriles of merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safeguards of the association of mankind to protect the weak, to curb the violent and to chastise the guilty. Then, though naturally sympathetic, feel so little for another with whom they have no particular connections, in comparison of what they feel for themselves, the misery of one who is merely their fellow preacher with so little importance to them in comparison even of a small convenience of their own. They have it so much in their power to hurt him and may have so many temptations to do so that if this principle not stand up within them in his defence and owe of them to respect for his innocence, they would, like wild beasts, be at all times ready to fly upon him and a man would enter an assembly of men as he enters a den of lions. In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce and in the mechanism of plant or animal body admire how everything is contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature the support of the individual and the propagation of the species. But in these, in all such objects we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause of the several motions and organizations the digestion of the food the circulation of the blood and the secretion of several juices which are drawn from it are operations all of them necessary for the great purposes of animal life yet we never endeavor to account for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes nor imagine that the blood circulates as the food digest of its own accord and with the view or intention to the purposes of circulation or digestion the wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end for which it was made the pointing of the hour all their various motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect if they were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it they could not do it better yet we never ascribe any such desire or intention to them but to the watchmaker and we know that they are put into motion by a spring which intends the effect it produces as little as they do but though in accounting for the operations of bodies we never fail to distinguish in this manner the efficient from the final cause in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with one another when by natural principles we are led to advance those ends which are refined in enlightened reason to recommend to us we are very apt to impute to that reason as to their efficient cause the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man which in reality is a wisdom of God upon a superficial view this cause seems sufficient to produce the effects which are ascribed to it and the system of human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable and all its different operations are in this manner deduced from a single principle as society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably observed and no social intercourse can take place among men who do not generally abstain from injuring one another the consideration of necessity it has been thought was the ground upon which we approved the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those who violated them man it has been said as a natural love for society and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own sake and though he himself was to derive no benefit from it the orderly and flourishing state of the society is agreeable to him and he takes delight in contemplating it its disorder and confusion on the contrary is the object of his aversion and his judgment at whatever tends to produce it he is sensible too that in his own interest is connected with the prosperity of society and that the happiness perhaps the preservation of its existence depends upon its preservation upon every account therefore he has an abhorrence of whatever it contains destroys society and is willing to make use of every means which can hinder so hated its dreadful an event injustice necessarily tends to destroy it every appearance of injustice therefore alarms him and he runs if I may say so to stop the progress of what if allowed to go on would quickly put an end to everything that is dear to him if he cannot restrain it by gentle and fair means he must beat it down by force and violence and at any rate must put a stop to its further progress hence it is they say that he often approves of the enforcement of the laws of justice and the capital punishment of those who violate them the disturbance of the public peace is hereby removed out of the world and are those terrified by his fate from imitating his example such is the account commonly given for approbation of the punishment of injustice and so far this account is undoubtedly true and we frequently have occasion to confirm our national sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment by reflecting how necessary it is for preserving the order of society when the guilty is about to suffer an unjust retaliation with the natural indignation of mankind tells them is due to his crimes that when the insolence of his injustice is broken and humbled by the terror of his approaching punishment when he ceases to be an object of fear with the generous and humane he begins to be an object of pity the thought of what he is about to suffer extinguishes the resentment from the sufferings of others to which he has given occasion they are disposed to pardon and forgive him and to save him from that punishment which in all their cool hours they are considered as a retribution due to such crimes here therefore they have occasion to call to the resistance the consideration of the general interest of society the counterbalance the impulse of this weak and partial humanity by the dictates of a humanity that is more generous and comprehensive the reflected mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent and opposed to the emotions of compassion with the feel for a particular person a more enlarged compassion with the feel for mankind sometimes too we have occasion to defend the propriety of observing the general rules of justice by the consideration of the necessity to support of society we frequently hear the young at the licentious ridiculing the most sacred rules of morality and professing sometimes from the corruption but more frequently from the vanity of their hearts the most abominable maxims of conduct our indignation rouses and we are eager to refute and expose these stable principles but though it is their intrinsic hatefulness and its destableness which originally inflames us against them we are unwilling to assign this as a sole reason why we condemn them or to pretend that it is merely because we ourselves hate and detest them the reason we think would not appear to be conclusive yet why should it not if we hate and detest them because they are natural and proper objects of hatred and detestation but when we are asked why we should not act in such or such manner the very question seems to suppose that to those who ask it this manner of acting did not appear to be for its own sake the natural and proper object of those sentiments we must show them therefore that it ought to be so for the sake of something else upon this account we generally cast about for other arguments and the consideration which first occurs to us is the disorder and confusion of society which should result from the universal prevalence of such practices we seldom fail therefore to insist upon this topic but though it commonly requires no great discreetment to see the destructive tendency of all licentious practices to the welfare of society it is seldom this consideration which first animates us against them all men even the most stupid and unthink a bold fraud profitedly and injustice and delight to see them punished but few men have reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of society how obvious, so ever that necessity may appear to be that it is not a regard to the preservation of society which originally interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against individuals may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations the concern which we take in the fortune and happiness of individuals does not in common cases arise from that which we take in the fortune and happiness of society we are no more concerned for the destruction or loss of a single man because this man is a member or part of society and because we should concern for the destruction of society that we are concerned for the loss of a single guinea because this guinea is a part of a thousand guineas and because we should be concerned for the loss of the whole sum in neither case does our regard for the individuals arise from our regard for the multitude but in both cases our regard for the multitude is compounded and made up of a particular regard which we feel for the different individuals of which it is composed as when a small sum is unjustly taken from us we do not so much prosecute the injury from our regard to the preservation of the whole fortune as from our regard to that particular sum which we have lost so when a single man is injured or destroyed we demand the punishment of the wrong that has been done to him not so much from a concern for the general interest of society has from a concern for that very individual who has been injured it is to be observed however this concern does not necessarily include in it a degree of those exclusive sentiments which are commonly called love, esteem and affection and by which we distinguish our particular friends and acquaintance the concern which is requested for this is no more than a general fellow feeling which we have with every man merely because he is our fellow creature we enter into the resentment even of an odious person when he is injured by those to whom he has given no provocation our disapprobation of this ordinary character and conduct does not in this case altogether prevent our fellow feeling with his natural indignation though with those who are not either extremely candid or have not been accustomed to correct and regulate their natural sentiments by general rules it is very apt to damp it upon some occasions indeed we both punish in a proof of punishment merely from a view to the general interest of the society which we imagine cannot otherwise be secured of this kind are all the punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil police or military discipline such crimes do not immediately or directly hurt any particular person but the remote consequences it is supposed do produce or might produce either a considerable inconvenience or a great disorder in society a sentinel for example who falls asleep upon his watch suffers death by the laws of war because such carelessness might endanger the whole army this severity may upon many odd occasions appear necessary and for that reason just and proper when the preservation of an individual is inconsistent with the safety of our multitude nothing can be more just than that the many should be preferred to the one yet this punishment how necessary so ever always appears to be excessively severe the natural atrocity of the crime seems to be so little and the punishment so great that it is with great difficulty that our heart can reconcile itself to it though such carelessness appears very blameable yet the thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resentment as would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge a man of humanity must recollect himself must make an effort and exert his whole firmness and resolution before he can bring himself either to inflict it or to go along with it when it is inflicted by others it is not however in this manner that he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful murderer of parasite this art in this case applauses with ardor and even with transport the just retaliation seems to do such testable crimes and which if by any accident they should happen to escape it would be highly enraged and disappointed the very different sentiments with which the spectator views the different punishments is a proof that his approbation of the one is far from being founded upon the same principles with that of the other he looks upon the sentinel as an unfortunate victim who indeed must and ought to be devoted to the safety of numbers but whom still in his heart he would be glad to save and his only sorry with the interests of the many should oppose it but if the murderer should escape from punishment it would excite his highest indignation and would call upon God to avenge in another world that crime with the injustice of mankind and neglected to chastise upon Earth for it well deserves to be taken notice of that we are so far from imagining that injustice ought to be punished in this life merely on account of the order of society which cannot otherwise be maintained that nature teaches us to hope and religion, suppose, authorizes us to expect that it will be punished even in a life to come our senses of its ill desert pursues it if I may say so even beyond the grave though the example of this punishment there cannot serve to deter the rest of mankind who see it not who know it not from being guilty of the life practises here the justice of God however we think still requires that he should hereafter avenge the injuries of the widow and the fatherless who are here so often insulted with impunity in every religion and in every superstition that the world has ever beheld accordingly there has been a Tartarus as well as an Elysium a place provided for the punishment of the wicked as well as one for the reward of the just End of Section 10 Recording by Ashwin Jain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by James Christopher The Theory of the Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith Part 2 Section 3 Introduction and Chapter 1 Part 2 of Merit and Demerit or of the Objects of Reward and Punishment Consisting of Three Parts Section 3 of the Influence of Fortune Upon the Sentiments of Mankind with regard to the Merit or Demerit of Actions Introduction Whatever praise or blame can be due to any action must belong either first to the intention or affection of the heart from which it proceeds or secondly to the external action or movement of the body which this affection gives occasion to or lastly to the good or bad consequences which actually and in fact These three different things constitute the whole nature and circumstance of the action and must be the foundation of whatever quality can belong to it that the last two of these three circumstances cannot be the foundation of any praise or blame is abundantly evident nor has the contrary ever been asserted by anybody The external action or movement of the body is often the same in the most innocent and in the most blamable actions He who shoots a bird who shoots a man both of them perform the same external movement Each of them draws the trigger of a gun The consequences which actually and in fact happen to proceed from any action are if possible still more indifferent either to praise or blame than even the external movements of the body as they depend not upon the agent but upon fortune they cannot be the proper foundation for any sentiment of which his character and conduct are the objects the only consequences for which he can be answerable or by which he can deserve either approbation or disapprobation of any kind are those which were some way or other intended or those which at least show some agreeable or disagreeable quality in the intention of the heart from which he acted to the intention or affection of the heart therefore, to the propriety or impropriety to the beneficence or hurtfulness of the design all praise or blame all approbation or disapprobation of any kind which can justly be bestowed upon any action must ultimately belong when this maxim is thus proposed in abstract or general terms there is nobody who does not agree to it its self evident justice is acknowledged by all the world and there is not a dissenting voice among all mankind everybody allows that however different so ever the accidental the unintended and unforeseen consequences of different actions yet if the intentions or affections from which they arose were, on the other hand equally proper and equally beneficent or on the other equally improper and equally malevolent the merit or demerit of the actions is still the same and the agent is equally the suitable object either of gratitude or of resentment but how well so ever we may seem to be persuaded of the truth of this equitable maxim when we consider it after this matter in abstract in two particular cases the actual consequences which happen to proceed from any action have a very great effect upon our sentiments concerning its merit or demerit and almost always either enhance or diminish our sense of both scarce in any one instance perhaps will our sentiments be found after examination to be entirely regulated by this rule which we all acknowledge ought entirely to regulate them this irregularity of sentiment which nobody feels which scarce anybody is sufficiently aware of and which nobody is willing to acknowledge I proceed now to explain and I shall consider first the cause which gives occasion to it or the mechanism by which nature produces it secondly the extent of its influence and last of all the end which it answers or the purpose which the author of nature seems to have intended by it chapter one of the causes of this influence of fortune the causes of pleasure and pain whatever they are or however they operate seem to be the objects which in all animals immediately excite those two passions of gratitude and resentment they are excited by inanimate as well as by animated objects we are angry for a moment even at the stone that hurts us a child beats it a dog a caloric man is apt to curse it the least reflection indeed corrects this sentiment and we soon become sensible that what has no feeling is a very improper object of revenge when the mischief however is very great the object which caused it becomes disagreeable to us ever after and we take pleasure to burn or destroy it we should treat in this manner the instrument which had accidentally been the cause of the death of a friend and we should often think ourselves guilty of humanity if we neglected to vent this absurd sort of vengeance upon it we can see even the same manner the sort of gratitude for those inanimate objects which have been the causes of great or frequent pleasure to us the sailor who as soon as he got ashore should mend his fire with the plank upon which he had just escaped from a shipwreck would seem to be guilty of an unnatural action we should expect that he would rather preserve it with care and affection as a monument that was in some measure dear to him a man grows fond of a snuffbox of a pen knife of a staff which he has made long use of and conceives something like a real love and affection for them if he breaks or loses them he is vexed out of all proportion to the value of the damage the house which we have long lived in the tree whose verdure and shade we have long enjoyed are both looked upon with a sort of respect that seems due to such benefactors the decay of one or the ruin of the other affects us with a kind of melancholy though we should sustain the loss by it the dryads and the lairies of the ancients a sort of genie of trees and houses were probably first suggested by this sort of affection which the authors of those superstitions felt for such objects and which seemed unreasonable if there are nothing animated about them but before anything can be the proper object of gratitude or resentment it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain it must likewise be capable of feeling them without this other quality those passions cannot vent themselves with any sort of satisfaction upon it as they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain so their gratification consist in retaliating those sensations upon which gave occasion to them which it is to no purpose to attempt upon that which has no sensibility animals therefore are less improper objects of gratitude and resentment than in animated objects the dog that bites the ox that gores are both of them punished if they have been the causes of the death of any person neither the public nor the relations of the slain can be satisfied unless they are put to death in their turn nor is this merely for the security of the living but in some measure to revenge the injury of the dead those animals on the contrary that have been remarkably serviceable to their masters become the objects of a very lively gratitude we are shocked at the brutality of that officer mentioned in the Turkish spy who stabbed the horse that had carried him across an arm of the sea lest that animal should afterwards distinguish some other person by a similar adventure but though animals are not the only causes of pleasure and pain but are also capable of feeling those sensations they are still far from being complete in perfect objects either of gratitude or resentment and those passions still feel that there is something wanting to their entire gratification what gratitude chiefly desires is not only to make the benefactor feel pleasure in his turn but to make him conscious that he meets with his reward on account of his past conduct to make him pleased with that conduct and to satisfy him that the person upon whom he bestowed his good offices was not unworthy of them what most of all charms us in our benefactor is the concord between his sentiments and our own with regard to what interests us so nearly as the worth of our own character and the esteem that is due to us we are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind with an attention not unlike that which we distinguish ourselves to maintain in him these agreeable and flattering sentiments is one of the chief ends proposed by the returns we are disposed to make of him a generous mind often disdains the interest of thought of extorting new favors from his benefactor by what may be called the importunities of its gratitude but to preserve and to increase his esteem is an interest which the greatest mind does not think unworthy of its attention and this is the foundation of what I formally observed that when we cannot enter into the motives of our benefactor when his conduct and character appear unworthy of our approbation let his services have been ever so great our gratitude is always sensibly diminished we are less flattered by the distinction and to preserve the esteem of so weak a patron seems to be an object which does not deserve to be pursued for its own sake the object on the contrary which resentment is chiefly intent upon is not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his turn as to make him conscious that he feels it upon account of his past conduct to make him repent of that conduct and to make him sensible that the person whom he injured did not deserve to be treated in that manner what chiefly enrages us against the man who injures or insults us is a little account which he seems to make of us the unreasonable preference which he gives to himself above us and that absurd self-love by which he seems to imagine that other people may be sacrificed at any time to his convenience or his humor the glaring impropriety of his conduct the gross insolence and injustice which it seems to involve in it often shock and exasperate us more than all the mischief which we have suffered to bring him back to a more just sense of what is due to other people to make him sensible of what he owes us and of the wrong that he has done to us is frequently the principal end proposed in our revenge which is always imperfect when it cannot accomplish this when our enemy appears to have done us no injury when we are sensible that he acted quite properly that in his situation we should have done the same thing and that we deserve from him all the mischief we met with in that case if we have the least spark either of candor or justice we can entertain no sort of resentment before anything therefore can be the complete or proper object either of gratitude or resentment it must possess three different qualifications first it must be the cause of pleasure in the one case and of pain on the other secondly it must be capable of feeling those sensations and thirdly it must not have only produced those sensations but it must have produced them from design and from a design that is approved of in one case and disapproved of in the other it is by the first qualification that any object is capable of exciting those passions it is by the second that it is in any respect capable of gratifying them the third qualification is not only necessary for their complete satisfaction but as it gives a pleasure or pain that is both exquisite and peculiar it is likewise an additional exciting cause of those passions as what gives pleasure or pain either in one way or another it is a sole exciting cause of gratitude and resentment though the intentions of any person should ever be so proper and beneficial on the one hand or ever so improper and malevolent on the other yet if he has failed in producing either the good or the evil which he intended as one of the exciting causes is wanting in both cases less gratitude seems due to him in the one and less resentment in the other and on the contrary though in the intentions of any person there was no laudable degree of benevolence on the one hand or no blamable degree of malice on the other yet if his actions should produce either great good or great evil as one of the exciting causes takes place upon both these occasions some gratitude is apt to arise towards him in the one and some resentment in the other a shadow of merit seems to fall upon him in the first a shadow of demerit in the second and as the consequences of actions are altogether under the empire of fortune hence arises her influence upon the sentiments of mankind with regard to merit and demerit end of section 11 recording by james christopher jxchristopher at yahoo.com section 12 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 2 section 3 chapter 2 of the extent of this influence of fortune the effect of this influence of fortune is first to diminish our sense of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the most laudable or blamable intentions when they fail at producing their proposed effects and secondly to increase our sense of the merit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the motives or affections from which they proceed when they accidentally give occasion either to extraordinary pleasure or pain one first I say though the intentions of any person should be ever so proper and beneficent on one hand or ever so improper and benevolent on the other yet if they fail in producing their effects his merit seems imperfect in the one case and his demerit incomplete in the other nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who are immediately affected by the consequences of any action it is felt in some measure even by the impartial spectator the man who solicits an office for another without obtaining it is regarded as his friend and seems to deserve his love and affection but the man who not only solicits but procures it is more peculiarly considered as his patron and benefactor and is entitled to his respect and gratitude the person obliged we are apt to think may with some justice imagine himself level with the first but we cannot enter into his sentiments if he does not feel himself inferior to the second it is common indeed to say that we are equally obliged to the man who is endeavored to service as to him who actually did so it is the speech which we constantly make upon every unsuccessful attempt of this kind but which like all other fine speeches must be understood with a grain of allowance the sentiments which a man of generosity entertains for the friend who fails may often indeed be nearly the same as those which he conceives for him who succeeds and the more generous he is the more nearly will those sentiments approach to an exact level with the truly generous to be beloved to be esteemed by those whom they think worthy of esteem gives more pleasure and thereby excites more gratitude than all the advantages which they can ever expect from those sentiments when they lose those advantages therefore they seem to lose but a trifle which is scarce in their hearting they still however lose something their pleasure is therefore and consequently their gratitude is not perfectly complete and accordingly if between the friend who fails and the friend who succeeds all other circumstances are equal there well even in the noblest and the best mind be some little difference of affection and favor of him who succeeds nay so unjust or mankind in this respect that though the intended benefit should be procured if it is not procured by the means of a particular benefactor they're apt to think that the less gratitude is due to the man who with the best intentions in the world could do no more than help it a little forward as their gratitude is in this case divided among the different persons who contributed to their pleasure a smaller share of it seems due to any one such a person we hear men commonly say intended no doubt to service and we really believe exerted himself to the utmost of his abilities for that purpose we are not however obliged to him for this benefit since had it not been for the concurrence of others all that he could have done would never have brought it about this consideration they imagine should even in the eyes of the impartial spectator diminish the debt which they owe him the person himself who has unsuccessfully endeavored to confer a benefit has by no means the same dependency upon the gratitude of the man whom he meant to oblige nor the same sense of his own merit toward him which he would have had in the case of success even in the merit of talents and abilities which some accident has hindered from producing their effects seems in some measure imperfect even to those who are fully convinced of their capacity to produce them the general who has been hindered by the envy of ministers from gaining some great advantage over the enemies of his country regrets the loss of this opportunity for ever after nor is it only upon account of the public that he regrets it he laments that he was hindered from performing an action which would have added a new luster to the character in his own eyes as well as in those of every other person it satisfies neither himself nor others to reflect that the plan or design was all that depended on him that no greater capacity was required to execute it than what was necessary to concert it that he was allowed to be every way capable of executing it and that he had been permitted to go on success was infallible still he did not execute it and though he might deserve all the approbation which is due a magnanimous and great design he still wanted the actual merit of having performed a great action to take the management of any affair of public concern from the man who has almost brought it to a conclusion is regarded as the most invidious injustice as he had done so much he should, we think have been allowed to acquire the complete merit of putting an end to it it was objected to Pompey that he came in upon the victories of Lucullus and gathered those laurels which were due to the fortune and valor of another the glory of Lucullus it seems was less complete even in the opinion of his own friends when he was not permitted to finish that conquest which his conduct and courage had put in the power of almost any man to finish it mortifies an architect when his plans are either not executed at all or when they are so far altered as to spoil the effect of the building the plan, however, is all that depends upon the architect the whole of his genius is to good judges as completely discovered in that as in the actual execution but a plan does not even to the most intelligent give the same pleasure as a noble and magnificent building there is much both of taste and genius in the one as in the other but their effects are still vastly different and the amusement derived from the first never approaches to the wonder and admiration which are sometimes excited by the second we may believe of many men that their talents are superior to those of Caesar and Alexander and that in the same situations they would perform still greater actions in the meantime, however, we do not behold them with that astonishment with which those two heroes have been regarded in all ages and nations the calm judgments of the mind may approve of them more but they want the splendor of great actions to dazzle and transport it the superiority of virtues and talents has not even upon those who acknowledge that superiority the same effect with the superiority of achievements as the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to do good seems thus in the eyes of ungrateful mankind to be diminished by the miscarriage so does likewise the demerit of an unsuccessful attempt to do evil the design to commit a crime how clearly so ever it may be proved is scarce ever punished with the same severity as the actual commission of it the case of treason is perhaps the only exception that crime immediately affecting the being of the government itself the government is naturally more jealous of it than of any other in the punishment of treason the sovereign resents the injuries which are immediately done to himself in the punishment of other crimes he resents those which are done to other men in his own resentment which he indulges in the one case it is that of his subjects which by sympathy he enters into the other in the first case therefore as he judges in his own cause he is very apt to be more violent and sanguinary in his punishments than the impartial spectator can approve of resentment too rises here upon smaller occasions and does not always as in other cases wait for the perpetration of the crime or even for the attempt to commit it a treasonable concert though nothing has been done or even attempted in the consequence of it may a treasonable conversation is in many countries punished in the same manner as the actual commission of treason with regard to all other crimes the mere design upon which no attempt is followed is seldom punished at all and is never punished severely a criminal design and a criminal action it may be said indeed do not necessarily suppose the same degree of depravity and ought not therefore to be subjected to the same punishment we are capable it may be said of resolving and even of taking measures to execute many things which when it comes to the point we feel ourselves altogether incapable of executing but this reason can have no place when the design carried the length of the last attempt the man however who fires a pistol at his enemy but misses him is punished with death by the laws of scarce any country by the old law of Scotland though he should wound him yet unless death ensues within a certain time the assassin is not liable to the last punishment the resentment of mankind however runs so high against this crime their terror for the man who shows himself capable of committing it is so great that the mere attempt to commit it ought in all countries to be capital the attempt to commit smaller crimes is almost always punished very lightly and sometimes is not punished at all the thief whose hand has been caught in his neighbor's pocket before he had taken anything out of it is punished with ignominy only if he had got time to take away a handkerchief he would have been put to death the housebreaker who has been found setting a ladder to his neighbor's window but has not got into it is not exposed to the capital's punishment the attempt to ravish is not punished as a rape the attempt to seduce a married woman is not punished at all though seduction is punished severely our resentment against the person who only attempted to do a mischief is seldom so strong as to bear us out and inflicting the same punishment upon him which we should have thought do if he had actually done it in the one case the joy of our deliverance alleviates our sense of atrocity of his conduct in the other our grief of our misfortune increases it his real demerit however is undoubtedly the same in both cases since his intentions were equally criminal and there is in this respect therefore an irregularity in the sentiments of all men in a consequent relaxation of discipline in the laws of I believe all nations of the most civilized as well as of the most barbarous the humanity of a civilized people is not to condemn them either to dispense with or to mitigate punishments wherever their natural indignation is not goaded on by the consequences of the crime barbarians on the other hand when no actual consequences happened from any action are not apt to be very delicate or inquisitive about the motives the person himself who either from passion or from the influence of bad company has resolved and perhaps taken measures prevented by an accident which put it out of his power is sure if he has any remains of conscience to regard this event all his life after as a great and signal deliverance he can never think of it without returning thanks to heaven for having been thus graciously pleased to save him from the guilt in which he was just ready to plunge himself and to hinder him from rendering all the rest of his life a scene of horror, remorse and repentance as his hands are innocent he is conscious that his heart is equally guilty as if he had actually executed what he was so fully resolved upon it gives great ease to his conscience however to consider that the crime was not executed though he knows that the failure arose from no virtue in him he still considers himself as less deserving of punishment and resentment and this good fortune either diminishes or takes away altogether all sense of guilt to remember how much he was resolved upon it has no other effect than to make him regard his escape as the greater and more miraculous for he still fancies that he has escaped and he looks back upon the danger to which his peace of mind was exposed with that terror with which one who is in safety may sometimes remember the hazard he was in of falling over a precipice and shudder with horror at the thought 2. the second effect of this influence of fortune is to increase our sense of the merit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the motives or affection from which they proceed when they happen to give occasion to extraordinary pleasure or pain the agreeable or disagreeable effects of the action often throw a shadow of merit or demerit upon the agent though in his intention there was nothing that deserved either praise or blame or at least that deserved them in the degree in which we are apt to bestow them thus even the messenger of bad news is disagreeable to us and on the contrary we feel a sort of gratitude for the man who brings us good tidings for a moment we look upon them both as the authors the one of our good the other of our bad fortune and regard them in some measure as if they had really brought about the events which they only give an account of the first author of our joy is naturally the object of a transitory gratitude we embrace him with warmth and affection and should be glad during the instant of our prosperity to reward him for some signal service by the custom of all courts the officer who brings the news of a victory is entitled to considerable performance and the general always chooses one of his principal favorites to go upon so agreeable and errands the first author of our sorrow is on the contrary just as naturally the object of a transitory resentment we can scare Savoyd looking upon him with chagrin and uneasiness and the rude and brutal or apt to vent upon him to explain which his intelligence gives occasion to Tigranius the king of Armenia struck off the head of a man who brought him the first account of the approach of a formidable enemy to punish in this manner the author of bad tidings seems barbarous and inhuman yet to reward the messenger of good news is not disagreeable to us we think it's suitable to the bounty of kings but why do we make this difference since if there is no fault in the one whether is there any merit in the other it is because any sort of reason seems sufficient to authorize the exertion of the social and benevolent affections but it requires the most solid and substantial to make us enter into that of the unsocial and malevolent but though in general we are adverse to enter into the unsocial and malevolent affections though we lay it down for a rule that we ought never to approve of their gratification unless so far as the malicious action against whom they are directed renders them the proper object yet upon some occasions we relax of this severity when the negligence of one man has occasioned some unintended damage to another we generally enter so far into the resentment of the sufferer as to approve of his inflicting a punishment upon the offender much beyond what the offense would have appeared to deserve and no such unlucky consequence followed from it there is a degree of negligence to deserve some chastisement though it should occasion no damage to anybody thus if a person should throw a large stone over a wall into a public street without giving warning to those who might be passing by and without regarding where it is likely to fall he would undoubtedly deserve some chastisement a very accurate police would punish so absurd an action even though it had done no mischief the person who has been guilty of it shows an insolent contempt of the happiness and safety of others there is real injustice in his conduct he wantonly exposes his neighbor to what no man in his senses would choose to expose himself and evidently wants that sense of what is due to his fellow creatures which is the basis of justice and of society gross negligence is therefore in the law and said to be almost equal to malicious design when any unlucky consequences happen from such carelessness the person who has been guilty of it is often punished as if he had really intended these consequences and his conduct which was only thoughtless and insolent and what deserved some chastisement is considered as atrocious and as liable to the severest punishment thus if by the imprudent action above mentioned he should accidentally kill a man he is by the laws of many countries particularly by the law of old Scotland liable to the last punishment and though this is no doubt extremely severe it is not altogether inconsistent with our natural sentiments our just indignation against the folly and inhumanity of his conduct is exacerbated by our sympathy with the unfortunate sufferer nothing however would appear more shocking to our natural sense of equity than to bring a man to the scaffold merely for having thrown a stone carelessly into the street without hurting anybody the folly and inhumanity of his conduct however would be the same but still our sentiments would be very different the consideration of this difference may satisfy as how much the indignation even of the spectator is apt to be animated by the actual consequences of the action in cases of this kind there will if I am not mistaken be found a great degree of severity in the laws of almost all nations as I have already observed that in those of an opposite kind there was a very general relaxation of discipline another degree of negligence which does not involve in it any sort of injustice the person who is guilty of it treats his neighbors as he treats himself means no harm to anybody and is far from entertaining any insolent contempt for the safety and happiness of others he is not however so careful in circumspect in his conduct as he ought to be and deserves upon this account some degree of blame and censure but no sort of punishment yet if by a negligence of this kind he should occasion some damage to another person he is by the laws of I believe all countries obliged to compensate it and though this is no doubt a real punishment and what no mortal would have thought of inflicting upon him had it not been for the unlucky accident which his conduct gave occasion to yet this decision of the law is approved of by the natural sentiments of all mankind nothing we think can be more just than that one man should not suffer by the carelessness of another and that the damage occasioned by blameable negligence should be made up by the person who was guilty of it there is another species of negligence which consists merely in a want of the most anxious timidity and circumspection with regard to all the possible consequences of our actions the want of this painful attention when no bad consequences follow from it is so far from being regarded as blameable that the contrary quality is rather considered as such a timid circumspection which is afraid of everything is never regarded as a virtue but as a quality which more than any other incapacitates for action and business yet when from a want of this excessive care a person happens to occasion some damage to another he is often by the law obliged to compensate it thus by the Aquilian law the man who not being able to manage a horse that it accidentally taken fright should happen to ride down a neighbor slave is obliged to compensate the damage when an accident of this kind happens we are apt to think that he ought not to have rode such a horse and to regard his attempting it as an unpardonable levy though without this accident we should not only have made no such reflection but should have regarded his refusing it as the effect of a timid weakness and of an anxiety about merely possible events which it is to no purpose to be aware of himself who by an accident even of this kind has involuntarily heard another seems to have some sense of his own ill-desert with regard to him he naturally runs up to the sufferer to express his concern for what has happened and to make every acknowledgement in his power if he has any sensibility he necessarily desires to compensate the damage and do everything he can to appease that animal resentment which he is sensible will be apt to rise in the breast of the sufferer to make no apology to offer no atonement is regarded as the highest brutality yet why should he make an apology any more than any other person why should he since he was equally innocent with any other bystander be thus singled out from among all mankind to make up for the bad fortune of another this task would surely never be imposed upon him did not even the impartial spectator feel some indulgence for what may be regarded as the unjust resentment of that other final cause of this irregularity of sentiments such as the effect of the good or bad consequences of actions upon the sentiments both of the person who performs them and of others and thus fortune which governs the world has some influence where we should be least willing to allow her any and directs in some measure the sentiments of mankind with regard to the character and conduct both of themselves and others that the world judges by the event and not by the design has been in all ages the complaint and is the great discouragement of virtue everybody agrees to the general maximum that as the event does not depend on the agent it ought to have no influence upon our sentiments with regard to the merit or propriety of his conduct but when we come to particulars we find that our sentiments are scarce in any one instance exactly conformable to what this equitable maximum would direct the happy or unprosperous event of any action is not only apt to give us a good or bad opinion of the prudence with which it was conducted but almost always too animates our gratitude or resentment our sense of the merit or demerit of the design nature however when she implanted the seeds of this irregularity in the human breast seems as upon all other occasions to have intended the happiness and perfection of the species if the hurtfulness of the design if the malevolence of the affection were alone the causes which excited our resentment we should feel all the theories of that passion against any person in whose breast we suspected or believe such designs or affections were harbored although they had never broke out into any action sentiments thoughts and tensions would become the objects of punishment and if the indignation of mankind run as high against them as against actions if the baseness of the thought which had given birth to no action seemed in the eyes of the world as much to call allowed for vengeance as the baseness of the action every court of judicature would become a real inquisition there would be no safety for the most innocent and circumspect conduct bad wishes bad views bad designs might still be suspected and while these excited the same indignation with bad conduct while bad intentions were as much resented as bad actions they would equally expose the person to punishment and resentment actions therefore which either produce actual evil or attempt to produce it and thereby put us in the immediate fear of it are by the author of nature rendered the only proper and approved objects of human punishment and resentment sentiments designs affections though it is from these that according to cool human reason actions to ride their whole merit or demerit are placed by the great judge of hearts beyond the limits of every human jurisdiction and are reserved for the cognizance of his own unerring tribunal that necessary rule of justice therefore that men in this life are liable to punishment for their actions only not for their designs and intentions is founded upon the salutary and useful irregularity in human sentiments concerning merit or demerit which at first sight appear so absurd and unaccountable but every part of nature when attentively surveyed equally demonstrates the providential care of its author and we may admire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of man nor is that irregularity of sentiments altogether without its utility by which the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to serve and much more that of mere good inclinations and kind wishes appears to be imperfect man was made for action and to promote by the exertion of his faculties such changes in the external circumstances both of himself and others as may seem most favorable to the happiness of all he must not be satisfied with indolent benevolence nor fancy himself the friend of mankind because in his heart he wishes well to the prosperity of the world that he may call forth the whole vigor of his soul and strain every nerve in order to produce those ends which it is the purpose of his being to advance nature has taught him that neither himself nor mankind can be fully satisfied with his conduct nor bestow upon it the full measure of applause unless he has actually produced them he is made to know that the praise of good intentions without the merit of good offices will be but of little avail to excite their loudest acclamations of the world or even the highest degree of self applause the man who has performed no single action of importance but whose whole conversation and deportment expresses the justice the noblest and the most generous sentiments can be entitled to demand no very high reward even though his in utility should be owing to nothing but the rewards of an opportunity to serve we can still refuse it him without blame we can still ask him what have you done what actual service can you produce to entitle you to so great a recompense we esteem you and love you but we owe you nothing to reward indeed that latent virtue which has been useless for want of an opportunity to serve to bestow upon it those honors and performance which though in some measure said to deserve them it could not with propriety have insisted upon is the effect of the most divine benevolence to punish on the contrary for the affections of the heart only where no crime has been committed is the most insolent and barbarous tyranny the benevolent affection seem to deserve most praise and when they do not wait until it becomes almost a crime for them not to exert themselves the malevolent on the contrary can scarce be too tardy too slow or deliberate it is even of considerable importance that the evil which is done without design should be regarded as a misfortune to the juror as well as to the sufferer man is thereby taught to reverence the happiness of his brethren to tremble lest he should even unknowingly do anything that can hurt them and to dread the minimal resentment which he feels is ready to burst out against him if he should without design be the unhappy instrument of their calamity as in the ancient heathen religion that holy ground which had been consecrated to some god was not to be trod upon but solemn and necessary occasions and the man who even ignorantly violated it became peacular from that moment and until proper atonement could be made the vengeance of that powerful and invisible being to whom it had been set apart so by the wisdom of nature the happiness of every innocent man is in the same manner rendered holy, consecrated and hedged around against the approach of every other man not to be wantonly trod upon not even to be in any respect ignorantly and involuntarily violated without requiring some expiation or atonement in proportion to the greatness of such undesigned violation a man of humanity who accidentally and without the smallest degree of blamable negligence has been the cause of the death of another man feels himself behacular though not guilty during his whole life he considers this accident as one of the greatest misfortunes that could have befallen him if the family of the slain is poor and he himself in tolerable circumstances he immediately takes them under his protection and without any other merit thinks them entitled to every degree of favor and kindness if they are in better circumstances he endeavors by every submission by every expression of sorrow by rendering them every good office which he can devise or they accept of to atone for what has happened and to appropriate as much as possible they are perhaps natural though no doubt most unjust resentment for that great though involuntary offense which he has given them the distress which an innocent person feels who by some accident has been led to do something which if it had been done with knowledge and design would have justly exposed him to the deepest reproach has given occasion to some of the finest and most interesting scenes both of ancient and modern drama it is this fallacious sense of guilt if I may call it so which constitutes the whole distress of Oedipus and Jacasta upon the Greek of Monimia and Isabella upon the English theater they are all of them in the highest degree peacular though not one of them is in the smallest degree guilty notwithstanding however all of these seeming irregularities if man should unfortunately either give occasion to those evils which he did not intend or fail in producing that good which he had intended nature has not left his innocence altogether without consolation nor his virtue altogether without reward he then calls to his assistance that just an equitable maxim that those events which did not depend upon our conduct ought not to diminish the esteem that is due to us he summons up his whole magnanimity and firmness of soul and strives to regard himself not in the light in which he at present appears but in that in which he ought to appear in which he would have appeared had his generous designs been crowned with success and in which he would still appear notwithstanding their miscarriage if the sentiments of mankind were either altogether candid inequitable or even perfectly consistent with themselves the more candid and humane part of mankind entirely go along with the effort which he thus makes to support himself in his own opinion they exert their whole generosity and greatness of mind to correct in themselves this irregularity of human nature and endeavor to regard his unfortunate magnanimity in the same light in which had it been successful they would have any such generous exertion have naturally been disposed to consider it. To ascribe in this manner our natural sense of the ill desert of human actions to a sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer may seem to the greater part of people to be a degradation of that sentiment. Resentment is commonly regarded as so odious a passion perhaps to think it impossible that so laudable a principle as the sense of the ill desert of vice should in any respect be founded upon it. They will be more willing perhaps to admit that our sense of the merit of good actions is founded upon a sympathy with a gratitude of the persons who receive the benefit of them because gratitude as well as all the other benevolent passions is regarded as an amiable principle which can take on the worth of whatever is founded upon it. Gratitude and resentment however are in every respect it is evident counterparts to one another and if our sense of merit arises from a sympathy with the one our sense of demerit can scarce miss to proceed from a fellow feeling with the other. Let it be considered too that resentment though in the degrees in which we too often see it the most odious perhaps of all the passions proved of when properly humbled and entirely brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the spectator. When we who are the bystanders feel that our own animosity entirely corresponds with that of the sufferer when the resentment of this last does not in any respect go beyond our own. When no word no gesture escapes him that denotes an emotion more violent than what we keep time to and when he never aims at inflicting any punishment beyond what we should rejoice to see inflicted or what we ourselves would upon this account even desire to be the instruments of inflicting it is impossible that we should not entirely approve of his sentiments our own emotion in this case must in our eyes undoubtedly justify his and as experience teaches us how much the greater part of mankind are incapable of this moderation and how great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and undisciplined impulse of this resentment to the suitable temper we cannot avoid conceiving a considerable decree of esteem and admiration for one who appears capable of exerting so much self-command over one of the most ungovernable of his nature when indeed the animosity of the sufferer exceeds as it almost always does what we can go along with as we cannot enter into it we necessarily disapprove of it we even disapprove of it more than we should of an equal access of almost any other passion derived from the imagination and this too violent resentment instead of carrying us along with it becomes itself the object of and indignation we enter into the opposite resentment of the person who is the object of this unjust emotion and who is in danger of suffering from it revenge therefore the excess of resentment appears to be the most detestable of all the passions and is the object of the horror and indignation of everybody and as in the way in which this passion commonly discovers itself among mankind it is excessive a hundred times for once that it is moderate we are very apt to consider it as altogether odious and detestable because in its most ordinary appearances it is so nature however even in the present depraved state of mankind does not seem to have dealt so unkindly with us as to have endowed us with any principle which is holy and free respect evil or which in no degree and in no direction can be the proper object of praise and approbation upon some occasions we are sensible that this passion which is generally too strong may likewise be too weak we sometimes complain that a particular person shows too little spirit and has too little sense of the injuries that have been done to him but we are as ready to despise him for the defect as to hate him for the excess of this passion the inspired writers would not surely have talked so frequently or so strongly of the wrath and anger of God if they had regarded every degree of those passions as vicious and evil even in so weak and imperfect a creature as man let it be considered too that the present inquiry is a matter of right if I may say so but concerning a matter of fact we are not at present examining upon what principles a perfect being would approve the punishment of bad actions but upon what principles so weak and imperfect a creature as man actually and in fact approves of it the principles which I have just now mentioned it is evident have a very great effect upon and wisely ordered that it should be so the very existence of society requires that unmerited and unprovoked malice should be restrained by proper punishments and consequently that to inflict those punishments should be regarded as a proper and laudable action though man therefore be naturally endowed with a desire of the welfare and preservation of society yet the author of nature has not entrusted it to his reason to find out that a certain application of punishments is the proper means of attaining this end but has endowed him with an immediate and instinctive approbation of that very application which is most proper to attain it the economy of nature is in this respect exactly a piece of what it is upon many other occasions with regard to all those ends which upon account of their peculiar importance may be regarded if such an expression is allowable as the favorable ends of nature she has constantly in this manner not only endowed mankind with an appetite for the end of which she proposes but likewise with an appetite for the means by which alone this end can be brought about for their own sakes and independent of their tendency to produce it thus self-preservation and the propagation of the species are the great ends which nature seems to have proposed in the formation of all animals mankind are endowed with a desire of those ends and an aversion to the contrary with a love of life and a dread of disillusion with a desire of the continuance and perpetuity of the species and with an aversion to the thoughts of its entire extinction but though we are in this manner endowed with a very strong desire to those ends it has not been entrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason to find out the proper means of bringing them about nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes the love of pleasure and the dread of pain prompt us to apply those means for their own sakes and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great director of nature intended to produce by them before I conclude this note I must take notice of a difference between the approbation of propriety and that of merit or beneficence before we approve of the sentiments of any person as proper and suitable to their objects we must not only be affected in the same manner as he is but we must perceive this harmony and correspondence of sentiments and ourselves thus though upon hearing of a misfortune that had befallen my friend I should conceive precisely that degree of concern which he gives way to yet till I am informed of the manner in which he behaves till I perceive the harmony between his emotions and mine I could not be said to approve of the sentiments which influence his behavior the approbation of propriety therefore requires not only that we should entirely empathize with the person who acts but that we should perceive this perfect concord between his sentiments and our own on the contrary when I hear of a benefit that has been bestowed upon another person let him who has received it be affected by what manner he pleases if by bringing his case home to myself I feel gratitude arise in my own breast I necessarily approve of the conduct of his behavior and regarded as meritous and the proper object of reward whether the person who has received the benefit conceives gratitude or not cannot it is evident in any degree alter our sentiments with regard to the merit of him who has bestowed it no actual correspondence of sentiments therefore is here required it is sufficient that if he was grateful they would correspond and our sense of merit is often founded upon one of those elusive sympathies by which we bring home to ourselves the case of another we are often affected in a manner in which the person principally concerned is incapable of being affected there is a similar difference between our disapprobation of demerit and that of impropriety two la da colpe prope dolemest three colpa leves four end of section 13 section 14 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 Meg Triton the theory of moral sentiments by Adam Smith part 3 chapter 1 through chapter 2a part 3 of the foundation of our judgments concerning our own sentiments and conduct and of the sense of duty consisting of one section chapter 1 of the principle of self-approbation and of self-disapprobation in the two foregoing parts of this discourse I have chiefly considered the origin and foundation of our judgments concerning the sentiments and conduct of others I come now to consider more particularly the origin of those concerning our own the principle by which we naturally either approve or disapprove of our own conduct seems to be all together the same with that by which we exercise the like judgments concerning the character of other people we either approve or disapprove of the conduct of another man according as we feel that when we bring his case home to ourselves we either can or cannot entirely sympathize with the sentiments and motives which directed it and in the same manner we either approve or disapprove of our own conduct according as we feel that when we place ourselves in the situation of another man and view it as it were with his eyes and from his station we either can or cannot entirely enter into and sympathize with the sentiments and motives which influenced it we can never survey our own sentiments and motives we can never form any judgment concerning them unless we remove ourselves as it were from our own natural station and endeavor to view them as at a certain distance from us but we can do this in no other way than by endeavoring to view them with the eyes of other people or as other people are likely to view them whatever judgment we can form concerning them accordingly must always bear some secret reference either to what are or to what upon a certain condition would be or to what we imagine ought to be the judgment of others we endeavor to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it if upon placing ourselves in his situation we thoroughly enter into all the passions and motives which influenced it we approve of it by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed equitable judge if otherwise we enter into his disapprobation and condemn it is it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in some solitary place without any communication with his own species he could no more think of his own character of the propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and conduct of the beauty or deformity of his own mind than of the beauty or deformity of his own face all these objects which he cannot easily see which naturally he does not look at and with regard to which he has provided with no mirror which can present them in his view bring him into society and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before it is placed in the countenance and behavior of those he lives with which always mark when they enter into and when they disapprove of his sentiments and it is here that he first views the propriety and impropriety of his own passions the beauty and deformity of his own mind to a man who from his birth was a stranger to society the objects of his passions the external bodies which either pleased or hurt him would occupy his whole attention the passions themselves the desires or aversions the joys or sorrows which those objects excited though of all things the most immediately present to him could scarce ever be the objects of his thoughts the idea of them could never interest him so much as to call upon his attentive consideration the consideration of his joy could in him excite no new joy nor that of his sorrow any new sorrow though the consideration of the causes of those passions might often excite both bring him into society and all his own passions will immediately become the causes of new passions he will observe that mankind approve of some and are disgusted by others he will be elevated in the one case and cast down in the other his desires and aversions his joys and sorrows will now often become the causes of new desires and new aversions new joys and new sorrows they will now therefore interest him deeply and often call upon his most attentive consideration our first ideas of personal beauty and deformity are drawn from the shape and appearance of others not from our own we soon become sensible however that others excercise the same criticism upon us we are pleased when they approve of our figure and are disablaged when they seem to be disgusted we become anxious to know how far our appearance deserves either their blame or approbation we examine our persons limb by limb and by placing ourselves before a looking glass or by some such expedient endeavor as much as possible to view ourselves at the distance and with the eyes of other people if after this examination we are satisfied with our own appearance we can more easily support the most disadvantageous judgments of others if on the contrary we are sensible that we are the natural objects of distaste every appearance of their disapprobation mortifies us beyond all measure a man who is tolerably handsome will allow you to laugh at any little irregularity in his person but all such jokes are commonly unsupportable to one who is really deformed it is evident however that we are anxious about our own beauty and deformity only upon account of its effect upon others if we had no connection with society we should be all together indifferent about either in the same manner our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the characters and conduct of other people and we are all very forward to observe how each of these affects us but we soon learn that other people are equally frank with regard to our own we become anxious to know how far we deserve their censure or applause and whether to them we must necessarily appear those agreeable or disagreeable creatures which they represent us we begin upon this account to examine our own passions and conduct and to consider how these must appear to them by considering how they would appear to us if in their situation we suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behavior and endeavor to imagine what effect it would in this light produce upon us this is the only looking glass by which we can in some measure with the eyes of other people recognize the propriety of our own conduct if in this view it pleases us we are tolerably satisfied we can be more indifferent about the applause and in some measure despise the censure of the world secure that however misunderstood or misrepresented we are the natural and proper objects of approbation on the contrary if we are doubtful about it we are often upon that very account more anxious to gain their approbation and provided we have not already as they say shaken hands with infamy we are all together distracted at the thoughts of their censure which then strikes us with double severity when I endeavor to examine my own conduct when I endeavor to pass sentence upon it and either to approve or condemn it it is evident that in all such cases I divide myself as it were into two persons and that I, the examiner and judge represent a different character from that other I the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of the first is the spectator whose sentiments with regard to my own conduct I endeavor to enter into by placing myself in his situation and by considering how it would appear to me when seen from that particular point of view the second is the agent the person whom I properly call myself and of whose conduct under the character of a spectator I was endeavoring to form some opinion the first is the judge the person judged of but that the judge should in every respect be the same with the person judged of is as impossible as that the cause should in every respect be the same with the effect to be amiable and to be meritorious that is to deserve love and to deserve reward are the great characters of virtue and to be odious and punishable of vice but all these characters have an immediate reference to the sentiments of others virtue is not said to be amiable or to be meritorious because it is the object of its own love or of its own gratitude but because it excites those sentiments and other men the consciousness that it is the object of such favorable regards is the source of that inward tranquility and self-satisfaction with which it is naturally attended as the suspicion of the contrary gives occasion to the torments of vice to be beloved and to know that we deserve to be beloved what so great misery is to be hated and to know that we deserve to be hated chapter 2 of the love of praise and of that of praiseworthiness and of the dread of blame and of that of blameworthiness man naturally desires not only to be loved but to be lovely or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love not only to be hated but to be hateful or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred he desires not only praise but praiseworthiness or to be that thing which though it should be praised by nobody is however the natural and proper object of praise he dreads not only blame but blameworthiness or to be that thing which though it should be blamed by nobody the love of praiseworthiness is by no means derived altogether from the love of praise those two principles though they resemble one another though they are connected and often blended with one another are yet in many respects distinct and independent of one another the love and admiration which we naturally can see for those whose character and conduct we approve of necessarily disposes us to desire to become ourselves the objects of the like agreeable sentiments and to be as amiable and as admirable as those whom we love and admire the most emulation the anxious desire that we ourselves should excel is originally founded in our admiration of the excellence of others neither can we be satisfied with being merely admired for what other people are admired we must at least believe ourselves to be admirable for what they are admirable but in order to attain this satisfaction we must become the impartial spectators of our own character and conduct we must endeavor to view them with the eyes of other people or as other people are likely to view them when seen in this light if they appear to us as we wish we are happy and contented but it greatly confirms this happiness and contentment when we find that other people viewing them with those very eyes with which we in imagination only were endeavoring to view them see them precisely in the same light in which we ourselves have seen them their approbation necessarily confirms our own self approbation their praise necessarily strengthens our own sense of our own praiseworthiness in this case so far as the love of praiseworthiness from being derived altogether from that of praise that the love of praise seems at least in a great measure to be derived from that of praiseworthiness the most sincere praise can give little pleasure when it cannot be considered as some sort of proof of praiseworthiness it is by no means sufficient that from ignorance or mistake esteem and admiration should in some way or other be bestowed upon us if we are conscious that we do not deserve to be so favorably thought of and that if the truth were known we should be regarded with very different sentiments our satisfaction is far from being complete the man who applause us either for actions which we did not perform or for motives which had no sort of influence upon our conduct applause not us but another person we can derive no sort of satisfaction from his praises to us they should be more mortifying than any censure and should perpetually call to our minds the most humbling of all reflections the reflection of what we ought to be but what we are not a woman who paints could derive one should imagine but little vanity from the compliments that are paid to her complexion we should expect ought rather to put her in mind of the sentiments which her real complexion would excite and mortify her the more by the contrast to be pleased with such groundless applause as a proof of the most superficial levity and weakness it is what is properly called vanity and is the foundation of the most ridiculous and contemptible vices the vices of affectation and common lying follies which if experience did not teach us how common they are one should imagine the least the spark of common sense would save us from the foolish liar who endeavors to excite the admiration of the company by the relation of adventures which never had any existence the important coxcomb who gives himself heirs of rank and distinction which he well knows he has no just pretensions to are both of them no doubt pleased with the applause which they fancy they meet with but their vanity arises from so gross an illusion of the imagination that it is difficult to conceive how any rational creature should be imposed upon by it when they place themselves in the situation of those whom they fancy they have deceived they are struck with the highest admiration for their own persons they look upon themselves not in that light in which they know they ought to appear to their companions but in that in which they believe their companions actually look upon them their superficial weakness and trivial folly hindered them from ever turning their eyes inwards or from seeing themselves in that despicable point of view in which their own consciousness must tell them that they would appear to everybody if the real truth should ever come to be known as ignorant and groundless praise can give no solid joy no satisfaction that will bear any serious examination so on the contrary it often gives real comfort to reflect that though no praise should actually be bestowed upon us our conduct however has been such as to deserve it and has been in every respect suitable to those measures and rules by which praise and approbation are naturally and commonly bestowed we are pleased not only with praise but with having done what is praise worthy we are pleased to think that we have rendered ourselves the natural objects of approbation though no approbation should ever actually be bestowed upon us and we are mortified to reflect that we have justly merited the blame of those we live with though that sentiment should never actually be exerted against us the man who is conscious to himself that he has exactly observed those measures of conduct which experience informs him are generally agreeable reflects with satisfaction on the propriety of his own behavior when he views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it he thoroughly enters into all the motives which influenced it he looks back upon every part of it with pleasure and approbation and though mankind should never be aware of what he has done he regards himself not so much according to the light in which they actually regard him as according to that in which they would regard him if they were better informed he anticipates the applause and admiration which in this case would be bestowed upon him and he applauds and admires himself by sympathy with sentiments which do not indeed actually take place but which the ignorance of the public alone hinders from taking place he knows are the natural and ordinary effects of such conduct which his imagination strongly connects with it in which he has acquired a habit of conceiving as something that naturally an impropriety ought to follow from it men have voluntarily thrown away life to acquire after death a renown which they could no longer enjoy their imagination in the meantime anticipated that fame which was in future times to be bestowed upon them which they were never to hear rung in their ears the thoughts of that admiration whose effects they were never to feel played about their hearts banished from their breasts the strongest of all natural fears and transported them to perform actions which seem almost beyond the reach of human nature but in point of reality there is surely no great difference between that approbation which is not to be bestowed till we can no longer enjoy it and that which indeed is never to be bestowed but which would be bestowed if the world was ever made to understand properly the real circumstances of our behavior if the one often produces such violent effects we cannot wonder that the other should always be highly regarded nature when she formed man for society endowed him with an original desire to please and an original aversion to offend his brethren she taught him to feel pleasure in their favourable and pain in their unfavorable regard she rendered their approbation most flattering and most agreeable to him for its own sake and their disapprobation most mortifying and most offensive but this desire of the approbation and this aversion to the disapprobation of his brethren would not alone have rendered him fit for that society for which he was made nature accordingly has endowed him not only with the desire of being approved of but with the desire of being what ought to be approved of or of being what he himself approves of in other men the first desire could only have made him wish to appear to be fit for society the second was necessary in order to render him anxious to be really fit the first could only have prompted him to the affectation of virtue and to the concealment of vice the second was necessary in order to inspire him with the real love of the ignorance of vice in every well-formed mind this second desire seems to be the strongest of the two it is only the weakest and most superficial of mankind who can be much delighted with that praise which they themselves know to be altogether unmerited a weak man may sometimes be pleased with it but a wise man rejects it upon all occasions but though a wise man feels little pleasure from praise where he knows there is no praise worthiness of the highest in doing what he knows to be praise worthy though he knows equally well that no praise is ever to be bestowed upon it to obtain the approbation of mankind where no approbation is due can never be an object of any real importance to him to obtain that approbation where it is really due may sometimes be an object of no great importance to him but to be that thing which desires approbation must always be an object of the highest to desire or even to accept of praise where no praise is due can be the effect only of the most contemptible vanity to desire it where it is really due is to desire no more than that a most essential act of justice should be done to us the love of just fame of true glory even for its own sake and independent of any advantage which he can derive from it is not unworthy even of a wise man he sometimes however neglects and even despises it and he is never more apt to do so than when he has the most perfect assurance of the perfect propriety of every part of his own conduct his self-approbation in this case stands in need of no confirmation from the approbation of other men it is alone sufficient and he is contented with it this self-approbation if not the only is at least the principal object about which he can or ought to be anxious the love of it is the love of virtue as the love and admiration which we naturally concede for some characters disposed us to wish to become ourselves the proper objects of such agreeable sentiments so the hatred and contempt which we as naturally concede for others disposed us perhaps still more strongly to dread the very thought of resembling them in any respect neither is it in this case too so much the thought of being hated and despicable afraid of is that of being hateful and despicable we dread the thought of doing anything which can render as the just and proper objects of the hatred and contempt of our fellow creatures even though we had the most perfect security that those sentiments were never actually to be exerted against us the man who has broke through all those measures of conduct which can alone render him agreeable to mankind though he should have the most perfect what he had done was forever to be concealed from every human eye it is all to no purpose when he looks back upon it and views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it he finds that he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it he is abashed and confounded at the thoughts of it and necessarily feels a very high degree of that shame which he would be exposed to if his action should ever come to be generally known his imagination in this case too anticipates the contempt and derision from which nothing saves him but the ignorance of those he lives with he still feels that he is the natural object of these sentiments and still trembles at the thought of what he would suffer if they were ever actually exerted against him but if what he had been guilty of was not merely one of those improprieties which are the objects of simple disapprobation but one of those enormous crimes which excite detestation and resentment of it as long as he had any sensibility left without feeling all the agony of horror and remorse and though he could be assured that no man was ever to know it and could even bring himself to believe that there was no God to revenge it he would still feel enough of both these sentiments to embitter the whole of his life he would still regard himself as the natural object of the hatred and indignation of all his fellow creatures and if his heart was not grown callous by the amount of crimes he could not think without terror and astonishment even of the manner in which mankind would look upon him of what would be the expression of their countenance and of their eyes if the dreadful truth should ever come to be known these natural pangs of an affrighted conscious are the demons the avenging theories which in this life haunt the guilty which allow them neither quiet nor repose which often drive them to despair and distraction from which no assurance of secrecy can protect them from which no principles of irreligion can entirely deliver them and from which nothing can free them but the vilest and most abject of all states a complete insensibility to honor and infamy to vice and virtue men of the most detestable characters who in the execution of the most dreadful crimes had taken their measures so coolly as to avoid even the suspicion of guilt have sometimes been driven by the horror of their situation to discover of their own accord what no human sagacity could ever have investigated by acknowledging their guilt by submitting themselves to the resentment of their offended fellow citizens and by thus satiating that vengeance of which they were sensible that they had become the proper objects they hoped by their death to reconcile themselves at least in their own imagination to the natural sentiments of mankind to be able to consider themselves as less worthy of hatred and resentment to atone in some measure for their crimes and by thus becoming the objects rather of compassion than horror if possible to die in peace and with the forgiveness of all their fellow creatures compared to what they felt before the discovery even the thought of this it seems was happiness in such cases the horror of blameworthiness seems even in persons who cannot be suspected of any extraordinary delicacy or sensibility of character completely to conquer the dread of play in order to allay that horror in order to pacify in some degree the remorse of their own consciousness they voluntarily submitted themselves both to the reproach and to the punishment which they knew were due to their crimes but which at the same time they might easily have avoided they're the most frivolous and superficial of mankind only who can be much delighted with that praise which they themselves know to be altogether unmerited unmerited reproach however is frequently capable of mortifying very severely even men of more than ordinary constancy men of the most ordinary constancy indeed easily learn to despise those foolish tales which are so frequently circulated in society in which from their own absurdity and falsehood never fail to die away in the course of a few weeks or of a few days but an innocent man though of more than ordinary constancy is often not only shocked but most severely mortified by the serious though false imputation of a crime especially when that imputation happens unfortunately to be supported by some circumstances which give it an air of probability he is humble to find that anybody should think so meanly of his character as to suppose him capable of being guilty of it though perfectly conscious of his own innocence the very imputation seems often even in his own imagination to throw a shadow of disgrace and dishonor upon his character his just indignation too as so very gross an injury which however it may frequently be improper and sometimes even impossible to revenge is itself a very painful sensation there is no greater tormentor of the human breast than violent resentment which cannot be gratified an innocent man to the scaffold by the false imputation of an infamous or odious crime suffers the most cruel misfortune which it is possible for innocence to suffer the agony of his mind may in this case frequently be greater than that of those who suffer for the like crimes of which they have been actually guilty profligate criminals such as common thieves and highwaymen have frequently little sense of the baseness of their own conduct and consequently no remorse without troubling themselves about the justice or injustice of the punishment they have always been accustomed to look upon the gibbet as a lot very likely to fall to them when it does fall to them therefore they consider themselves only is not quite so lucky as some of their companions and submit to their fortune without any other uneasiness than what may arise from the fear of death a fear which even by such worthless wretches we frequently see can be so easily and so very completely conquered by the innocent man on the contrary over and above the uneasiness which this fear may occasion is tormented by his own indignation at the injustice which has been done to him he is struck with horror at the thoughts of the infamy which the punishment may shed upon his memory and foresees with the most exquisite anguish that he is hereafter to be remembered by his dearest friends and relations not with regret and affection but with shame and even with horror for his supposed conduct and the shades of death appear to close round him with a darker and more melancholy gloom than naturally belongs to them such fatal accidents for the tranquility of mankind it is to be hoped happen very rarely in any country but they happen sometimes in all countries even in those where justice is in general very well administered the unfortunate class a man of much more than ordinary constancy broke upon the wheel and burnt at the loose for the supposed murder of his own son of which he was perfectly innocent seemed with his last breath to deprecate not so much the cruelty of the punishment as the disgrace which the imputation might bring upon his memory after he had been broke and was just going to be thrown into the fire the monk who attended the execution exhorted him to confess the crime for which he had been condemned my father said class can you yourself bring yourself to believe that I am guilty to persons in such unfortunate circumstances that humble philosophy which confines its views to this life can afford perhaps but little consolation everything that could render either life or death respectable is taken from them they are condemned to death and to everlasting infamy religion can alone afford them any effectual comfort she alone can tell them that it is of little importance what man may think of their conduct while the all-seeing judge of the world approves of it she alone can present to them the view of another world a view of more candor humanity and justice than the present where their innocence is in due time to be declared and their virtue to be finally rewarded and the same great principle which can alone strike terror and vice affords the only effectual consolation to disgraced and insulted innocence in smaller offenses as well as in greater crimes it frequently happens that a person of sensibility is much more hurt by the unjust imputation than the real criminal is by the actual guilt a woman of gallantry laughs even at the well-founded surmises which are circulated concerning her conduct the worst founded surmise of the same kind is a mortal stab by the innocent virgin the person who is deliberately guilty of a disgraceful action we may lay it down I believe as general rule can seldom have much sense of the disgrace and the person who is habitually guilty of it can scarce ever have any end of section 14