2.2.1. Chap. I
Comparison of those two Virtues
Actions of a beneficent tendency, which proceed from proper
motives, seem alone to require reward. because such alone are the
approved objects of gratitude, or excite the sympathetic
gratitude of the spectator.
Actions of a hurtful tendency, which proceed from improper
motives, seem alone to deserve punishment; because such alone are
the approved objects of resentment, or excite the sympathetic
resentment of the spectator.
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force,
the mere want of it exposes to no punishment; because the mere
want of beneficence tends to do no real positive evil. It may
disappoint of the good which might reasonably have been expected,
and upon that account it may justly excite dislike and
disapprobation: it cannot, however, provoke any resentment which
mankind will go along with. The man who does not recompense his
benefactor when he has it in his power, and when his benefactor
needs his assistance, is, no doubt, guilty of the blackest
ingratitude. The heart of every impartial spectator rejects all
fellow-feeling with the selfishness of his motives, and he is the
proper object of the highest disapprobation. But still he does no
positive hurt to any body. He only does not do that good which in
propriety he ought to have done. He is the object of hatred, a
passion which is naturally excited by impropriety of sentiment
and behaviour. not of resentment, a passion which is never
properly called forth but by actions which tend to do real and
positive hurt to some particular persons. His want of gratitude,
therefore, cannot be punished. To oblige him by force to perform
what in gratitude he ought to perform, and what every impartial
spectator would approve of him for performing, would, if
possible, be still more improper than his neglecting to perform
it. His benefactor would dishonour himself if he attempted by
violence to constrain him to gratitude, and it would be
impertinent for any third person, who was not the superior of
either, to intermeddle. But of all the duties of beneficence,
those which gratitude recommends to us approach nearest to what
is called a perfect and complete obligation. What friendship,
what generosity, what charity, would prompt us to do with
universal approbation, is still more free, and can still less be
extorted by force than the duties of gratitude. We talk of the
debt of gratitude, not of charity, or generosity, nor even of
friendship, when friendship is mere esteem, and has not been
enhanced and complicated with gratitude for good offices.
Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for defence,
and for defence only. It is the safeguard of justice and the
security of innocence. It prompts us to beat off the mischief
which is attempted to be done to us, and to retaliate that which
is already done; that the offender may be made to repent of his
injustice, and that others, through fear of the like punishment,
may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. It must
be reserved therefore for these purposes, nor can the spectator
ever go along with it when it is exerted for any other. But the
mere want of the beneficent virtues, though it may disappoint us
of the good which might reasonably be expected, neither does, not
attempts to do, any mischief from which we can have occasion to
defend ourselves.
There is, however, another virtue, of which the observance is
not left to the freedom of our own wills, which may be extorted
by force, and of which the violation exposes to resentment, and
consequently to punishment. This virtue is justice: the violation
of justice is injury: it does real and positive hurt to some
particular persons, from motives which are naturally disapproved
of. It is, therefore, the proper object of resentment, and of
punishment, which is the natural consequence of resentment. As
mankind go along with, and approve of the violence employed to
avenge the hurt which is done by injustice, so they much more go
along with, and approve of, that which is employed to prevent and
beat off the injury, and to restrain the offender from hurting
his neighbours. The person himself who meditates an injustice is
sensible of this, and feels that force may, with the utmost
propriety, be made use of, both by the person whom he is about to
injure, and by others, either to obstruct the execution of his
crime, or to punish him when he has executed it. And upon this is
founded that remarkable distinction between justice and all the
other social virtues, which has of late been particularly
insisted upon by an author of very great and original genius,
that we feel ourselves to be under a stricter obligation to act
according to justice, than agreeably to friendship, charity, or
generosity; that the practice of these last mentioned virtues
seems to be left in some measure to our own choice, but that,
somehow or other, we feel ourselves to be in a peculiar manner
tied, bound, and obliged to the observation of justice. We feel,
that is to say, that force may, with the utmost propriety, and
with the approbation of all mankind, be made use of to constrain
us to observe the rules of the one, but not to follow the
precepts of the other.
We must always, however, carefully distinguish what is only
blamable, or the proper object of disapprobation, from what force
may be employed either to punish or to prevent. That seems
blamable which falls short of that ordinary degree of proper
beneficence which experience teaches us to expect of every body;
and on the contrary, that seems praise-worthy which goes beyond
it. The ordinary degree itself seems neither blamable nor
praise-worthy. A father, a son, a brother, who behaves to the
correspondent relation neither better nor worse than the greater
part of men commonly do, seems properly to deserve neither praise
nor blame. He who surprises us by extraordinary and unexpected,
though still proper and suitable kindness, or on the contrary by
extraordinary and unexpected, as well as unsuitable unkindness,
seems praise-worthy in the one case, and blamable in the other.
Even the most ordinary degree of kindness or beneficence,
however, cannot, among equals, be extorted by force. Among equals
each individual is naturally, and antecedent to the institution
of civil government, regarded as having a right both to defend
himself from injuries, and to exact a certain degree of
punishment for those which have been done to him. Every generous
spectator not only approves of his conduct when he does this, but
enters so far into his sentiments as often to be willing to
assist him. When one man attacks, or robs, or attempts to murder
another, all the neighbours take the alarm, and think that they
do right when they run, either to revenge the person who has been
injured, or to defend him who is in danger of being so. But when
a father fails in the ordinary degree of parental affection
towards a son; when a son seems to want that filial reverence
which might be expected to his father; when brothers are without
the usual degree of brotherly affection; when a man shuts his
breast against compassion, and refuses to relieve the misery of
his fellow-creatures, when he can with the greatest ease; in all
these cases, though every body blames the conduct, nobody
imagines that those who might have reason, perhaps, to expect
more kindness, have any right to extort it by force. The sufferer
can only complain, and the spectator can intermeddle no other way
than by advice and persuasion. Upon all such occasions, for
equals to use force against one another, would be thought the
highest degree of insolence and presumption.
A superior may, indeed, sometimes, with universal
approbation, oblige those under his jurisdiction to behave, in
this respect, with a certain degree of propriety to one another.
The laws of all civilized nations oblige parents to maintain
their children, and children to maintain their parents, and
impose upon men many other duties of beneficence. The civil
magistrate is entrusted with the power not only of preserving the
public peace by restraining injustice, but of promoting the
prosperity of the commonwealth, by establishing good discipline,
and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety; he may
prescribe rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual
injuries among fellow-citizens, but command mutual good offices
to a certain degree. When the sovereign commands what is merely
indifferent, and what, antecedent to his orders, might have been
omitted without any blame, it becomes not only blamable but
punishable to disobey him. When he commands, therefore, what,
antecedent to any such order, could not have been omitted without
the greatest blame, it surely becomes much more punishable to be
wanting in obedience. Of all the duties of a law-giver, however,
this, perhaps, is that which it requires the greatest delicacy
and reserve to execute with propriety and judgment. To neglect it
altogether exposes the commonwealth to many gross disorders and
shocking enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all
liberty, security, and justice.
Though the mere want of beneficence seems to merit no
punishment from equals, the greater exertions of that virtue
appear to deserve the highest reward. By being productive of the
greatest good, they are the natural and approved objects of the
liveliest gratitude. Though the breach of justice, on the
contrary, exposes to punishment, the observance of the rules of
that virtue seems scarce to deserve any reward. There is, no
doubt, a propriety in the practice of justice, and it merits,
upon that account, all the approbation which is due to propriety.
But as it does no real positive good, it is entitled to very
little gratitude. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a
negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour.
The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or
the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very
little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what
is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his
equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can
punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of
justice by sitting still and doing nothing.
As every man doth, so shall it be done to him, and
retaliation seems to be the great law which is dictated to us by
Nature. Beneficence and generosity we think due to the generous
and beneficent. Those whose hearts never open to the feelings of
humanity, should, we think, be shut out, in the same manner, from
the affections of all their fellow-creatures, and be allowed to
live in the midst of society, as in a great desert where there is
nobody to care for them, or to inquire after them. The violator
of the laws of justice ought to be made to feel himself that evil
which he has done to another; and since no regard to the
sufferings of his brethren is capable of restraining him, he
ought to be over-awed by the fear of his own. The man who is
barely innocent, who only observes the laws of justice with
regard to others, and merely abstains from hurting his
neighbours, can merit only that his neighbours in their turn
should respect his innocence, and that the same laws should be
religiously observed with regard to him.
