3.1.2. Chap. II
Of the love of Praise, and of that of Praise-worthiness; and of
the dread of Blame, and of that of Blame-worthiness
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. He naturally dreads, 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 blame-worthiness; or to be
that thing which, though it should be blamed by nobody, is,
however, the natural and proper object of blame.
The love of praise-worthiness 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 conceive for those
whose character and conduct we approve of, necessarily dispose 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 endeavour 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
endeavouring to view them, see them precisely in the same light
in which we ourselves had 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 is the love of
praise-worthiness 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 praise-worthiness.
The most sincere praise can give little pleasure when it
cannot be considered as some sort of proof of praise-worthiness.
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
favourably 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 applauds us
either for actions which we did not perform, or for motives which
had no sort of influence upon our conduct, applauds 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. These, 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 is 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 spark of common sense would save us from. The
foolish liar, who endeavours to excite the admiration of the
company by the relation of adventures which never had any
existence; the important coxcomb, who gives himself airs 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 hinder
them from ever turning their eyes inwards, or from seeing
themselves in that despicable point of view in which their own
consciences must tell them that they would appear to every body,
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 behaviour. 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 acquainted with 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,
which he knows are the natural and ordinary effects of such
conduct, which his imagination strongly connects with it, and
which he has acquired a habit of conceiving as something that
naturally and in propriety 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 mean
time, anticipated that fame which was in future times to be
bestowed upon them. Those applauses 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 behaviour. 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 unfavourable 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 a desire of being approved of, but
with a 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 virtue, and with
the real abhorrence 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, he often feels 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 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 deserves
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 conceive for
some characters, dispose us to wish to become ourselves the
proper objects of such agreeable sentiments; so the hatred and
contempt which we as naturally conceive for others, dispose 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 despised that we are
afraid of, as that of being hateful and despicable. We dread the
thought of doing any thing which can render us 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 assurance that what he had done was for
ever 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 actions 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, he could never think 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 habit 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
conscience are the daemons, the avenging furies, 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 honour 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 of 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 blame-worthiness seems, even in
persons who cannot be suspected of any extraordinary delicacy or
sensibility of character, completely to conquer the dread of
blame. In order to allay that horror, in order to pacify, in some
degree, the remorse of their own consciences, 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 are 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, and 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 humbled to find that any body 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 dishonour upon his character. His just
indignation, too, at 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, brought 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 as 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. 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 disgraceful
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 tranquillity 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 Calas, a man of
much more than ordinary constancy (broke upon the wheel and burnt
at Tholouse 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 Calas, 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. Every thing 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 world of more
candour, 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 into triumphant vice, affords the only effectual
consolation to disgraced and insulted innocence.
In smaller offences, 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 to an innocent
virgin. The person who is deliberately guilty of a disgraceful
action, we may lay it down, I believe, as a general rule, can
seldom have much sense of the disgrace; and the person who is
habitually guilty of it, can scarce ever have any.
When every man, even of middling understanding, so readily
despises unmerited applause, how it comes to pass that unmerited
reproach should often be capable of mortifying so severely men of
the soundest and best judgment, may, perhaps, deserve some
consideration.
Pain, I have already had occasion to observe, is, in almost
all cases, a more pungent sensation than the opposite and
correspondent pleasure. The one, almost always, depresses us much
more below the ordinary, or what may be called the natural state
of our happiness, than the other ever raises us above it. A man
of sensibility is apt to be more humiliated by just censure than
he is ever elevated by just applause. Unmerited applause a wise
man rejects with contempt upon all occasions; but he often feels
very severely the injustice of unmerited censure. By suffering
himself to be applauded for what he has not performed, by
assuming a merit which does not belong to him, he feels that he
is guilty of a mean falsehood, and deserves, not the admiration,
but the contempt of those very persons who, by mistake, had been
led to admire him. It may, perhaps, give him some well-founded
pleasure to find that he has been, by many people, thought
capable of performing what he did not perform. But, though he may
be obliged to his friends for their good opinion, he would think
himself guilty of the greatest baseness if he did not immediately
undeceive them. It gives him little pleasure to look upon himself
in the light in which other people actually look upon him, when
he is conscious that, if they knew the truth, they would look
upon him in a very different light. A weak man, however, is often
much delighted with viewing himself in this false and delusive
light. He assumes the merit of every laudable action that is
ascribed to him, and pretends to that of many which nobody ever
thought of ascribing to him. He pretends to have done what he
never did, to have written what another wrote, to have invented
what another discovered; and is led into all the miserable vices
of plagiarism and common lying. But though no man of middling
good sense can derive much pleasure from the imputation of a
laudable action which he never performed, yet a wise man may
suffer great pain from the serious imputation of a crime which he
never committed. Nature, in this case, has rendered the pain, not
only more pungent than the opposite and correspondent pleasure,
but she has rendered it so in a much greater than the ordinary
degree. A denial rids a man at once of the foolish and ridiculous
pleasure; but it will not always rid him of the pain. When he
refuses the merit which is ascribed to him, nobody doubts his
veracity. It may be doubted when he denies the crime which he is
accused of. He is at once enraged at the falsehood of the
imputation, and mortified to find that any credit should be given
to it. He feels that his character is not sufficient to protect
him. He feels that his brethren, far from looking upon him in
that light in which he anxiously desires to be viewed by them,
think him capable of being guilty of what he is accused of. He
knows perfectly that he has not been guilty. He knows perfectly
what he has done; but, perhaps, scarce any man can know perfectly
what he himself is capable of doing. What the peculiar
constitution of his own mind may or may not admit of, is,
perhaps, more or less a matter of doubt to every man. The trust
and good opinion of his friends and neighbours, tends more than
any thing to relieve him from this most disagreeable doubt; their
distrust and unfavourable opinion to increase it. He may think
himself very confident that their unfavourable judgment is wrong:
but this confidence can seldom be so great as to hinder that
judgment from making some impression upon him; and the greater
his sensibility, the greater his delicacy, the greater his worth
in short, this impression is likely to be the greater.
The agreement or disagreement both of the sentiments and
judgments of other people with our own, is, in all cases, it must
be observed, of more or less importance to us, exactly in
proportion as we ourselves are more or less uncertain about the
propriety of our own sentiments, about the accuracy of our own
judgments.
A man of sensibility may sometimes feel great uneasiness lest
he should have yielded too much even to what may be called an
honourable passion; to his just indignation, perhaps, at the
injury which may have been done either to himself or to his
friend. He is anxiously afraid lest, meaning only to act with
spirit, and to do justice, he may, from the too great vehemence
of his emotion, have done a real injury to some other person;
who, though not innocent, may not have been altogether so guilty
as he at first apprehended. The opinion of other people becomes,
in this case, of the utmost importance to him. Their approbation
is the most healing balsam; their disapprobation, the bitterest
and most tormenting poison that can be poured into his uneasy
mind. When he is perfectly satisfied with every part of his own
conduct, the judgment of other people is often of less importance
to him.
There are some very noble and beautiful arts, in which the
degree of excellence can be determined only by a certain nicety
of taste, of which the decisions, however, appear always, in some
measure, uncertain. There are others, in which the success
admits, either of clear demonstration, or very satisfactory
proof. Among the candidates for excellence in those different
arts, the anxiety about the public opinion is always much greater
in the former than in the latter.
The beauty of poetry is a matter of such nicety, that a young
beginner can scarce ever be certain that he has attained it.
Nothing delights him so much, therefore, as the favourable
judgments of his friends and of the public; and nothing mortifies
him so severely as the contrary. The one establishes, the other
shakes, the good opinion which he is anxious to entertain
concerning his own performances. Experience and success may in
time give him a little more confidence in his own judgment. He is
at all times, however, liable to be most severely mortified by
the unfavourable judgments of the public. Racine was so disgusted
by the indifferent success of his Phaedra, the finest tragedy,
perhaps, that is extant in any language, that, though in the
vigour of his life, and at the height of his abilities, he
resolved to write no more for the stage. That great poet used
frequently to tell his son, that the most paltry and impertinent
criticism had always given him more pain, than the highest and
justest eulogy had ever given him pleasure. The extreme
sensibility of Voltaire to the slightest censure of the same kind
is well known to every body. The Dunciad of Mr Pope is an
everlasting monument of how much the most correct, as well as the
most elegant and harmonious of all the English poets, had been
hurt by the criticisms of the lowest and most contemptible
authors. Gray (who joins to the sublimity of Milton the elegance
and harmony of Pope, and to whom nothing is wanting to render
him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have
written a little more) is said to have been so much hurt, by a
foolish and impertinent parody of two of his finest odes, that he
never afterwards attempted any considerable work. Those men of
letters who value themselves upon what is called fine writing in
prose, approach somewhat to the sensibility of poets.
Mathematicians, on the contrary, who may have the most
perfect assurance, both of the truth and of the importance of
their discoveries, are frequently very indifferent about the
reception which they may meet with from the public. The two
greatest mathematicians that I ever have had the honour to be
known to, and, I believe, the two greatest that have lived in my
time, Dr Robert Simpson of Glasgow, and Dr Matthew Stewart of
Edinburgh, never seemed to feel even the slightest uneasiness
from the neglect with which the ignorance of the public received
some of their most valuable works. The great work of Sir Isaac
Newton, his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, I have
been told, was for several years neglected by the public. The
tranquillity of that great man, it is probable, never suffered,
upon that account, the interruption of a single quarter of an
hour. Natural philosophers, in their independency upon the public
opinion, approach nearly to mathematicians, and, in their
judgments concerning the merit of their own discoveries and
observations, enjoy some degree of the same security and
tranquillity.
The morals of those different classes of men of letters are,
perhaps, sometimes somewhat affected by this very great
difference in their situation with regard to the public.
Mathematicians and natural philosophers, from their
independency upon the public opinion, have little temptation to
form themselves into factions and cabals, either for the support
of their own reputation, or for the depression of that of their
rivals. They are almost always men of the most amiable simplicity
of manners, who live in good harmony with one another, are the
friends of one another's reputation, enter into no intrigue in
order to secure the public applause, but are pleased when their
works are approved of, without being either much vexed or very
angry when they are neglected.
It is not always the same case with poets, or with those who
value themselves upon what is called fine writing. They are very
apt to divide themselves into a sort of literary factions; each
cabal being often avowedly, and almost always secretly, the
mortal enemy of the reputation of every other, and employing all
the mean arts of intrigue and solicitation to preoccupy the
public opinion in favour of the works of its own members, and
against those of its enemies and rivals. In France, Despreaux and
Racine did not think it below them to set themselves at the head
of a literary cabal, in order to depress the reputation, first of
Quinault and Perreault, and afterwards of Fontenelle and La
Motte, and even to treat the good La Fontaine with a species of
most disrespectful kindness. In England, the amiable Mr Addison
did not think it unworthy of his gentle and modest character to
set himself at the head of a little cabal of the same kind, in
order to keep down the rising reputation of Mr Pope. Mr
Fontenelle, in writing the lives and characters of the members of
the academy of sciences, a society of mathematicians and natural
philosophers, has frequent opportunities of celebrating the
amiable simplicity of their manners; a quality which, he
observes, was so universal among them as to be characteristical,
rather of that whole class of men of letters, than of any
individual Mr D'Alembert, in writing the lives and characters of
the members of the French academy, a society of poets and fine
writers, or of those who are supposed to be such, seems not to
have had such frequent opportunities of making any remark of this
kind, and nowhere pretends to represent this amiable quality as
characteristical of that class of men of letters whom he
celebrates.
Our uncertainty concerning our own merit, and our anxiety to
think favourably of it, should together naturally enough make us
desirous to know the opinion of other people concerning it; to be
more than ordinarily elevated when that opinion is favourable,
and to be more than ordinarily mortified when it is otherwise:
but they should not make us desirous either of obtaining the
favourable, or of avoiding the unfavourable opinion, by intrigue
and cabal. When a man has bribed all the judges, the most
unanimous decision of the court, though it may gain him his
law-suit, cannot give him any assurance that he was in the right:
and had he carried on his lawsuit merely to satisfy himself that
he was in the right, he never would have bribed the judges. But
though he wished to find himself in the right, he wished likewise
to gain his law-suit; and therefore he bribed the judges. If
praise were of no consequence to us, but as a proof of our own
praiseworthiness, we never should endeavour to obtain it by
unfair means. But, though to wise men it is, at least in doubtful
cases, of principal consequence upon this account; it is likewise
of some consequence upon its own account: and therefore (we
cannot, indeed, upon such occasions, call them wise men, but) men
very much above the common level have sometimes attempted both to
obtain praise, and to avoid blame, by very unfair means.
Praise and blame express what actually are; praise-worthiness
and blameworthiness, what naturally ought to be the sentiments of
other people with regard to our character and conduct. The love
of praise is the desire of obtaining the favourable sentiments of
our brethren. The love of praiseworthiness is the desire of
rendering ourselves the proper objects of those sentiments. So
far those two principles resemble and are akin to one another.
The like affinity and resemblance take place between the dread of
blame and that of blame-worthiness.
The man who desires to do, or who actually does, a
praise-worthy action, may likewise desire the praise which is due
to it, and sometimes, perhaps, more than is due to it. The two
principles are in this case blended together. How far his conduct
may have been influenced by the one, and how far by the other,
may frequently be unknown even to himself. It must almost always
be so to other people. They who are disposed to lessen the merit
of his conduct, impute it chiefly or altogether to the mere love
of praise, or to what they call mere vanity. They who are
disposed to think more favourably of it, impute it chiefly or
altogether to the love of praise-worthiness; to the love of what
is really honourable and noble in human conduct; to the desire,
not merely of obtaining, but of deserving the approbation and
applause of his brethren. The imagination of the spectator throws
upon it either the one colour or the other, according either to
his habits of thinking, or to the favour or dislike which he may
bear to the person whose conduct he is considering.
Some splenetic philosophers, in judging of human nature, have
done as peevish individuals are apt to do in judging of the
conduct of one another, and have imputed to the love of praise,
or to what they call vanity , every action which ought to be
ascribed to that of praise-worthiness. I shall hereafter have
occasion to give an account of some of their systems, and shall
not at present stop to examine them.
Very few men can be satisfied with their own private
consciousness that they have attained those qualities, or
performed those actions, which they admire and think
praise-worthy in other people; unless it is, at the same time,
generally acknowledged that they possess the one, or have
performed the other; or, in other words, unless they have
actually obtained that praise which they think due both to the
one and to the other. In this respect, however, men differ
considerably from one another. Some seem indifferent about the
praise, when, in their own minds, they are perfectly satisfied
that they have attained the praise-worthiness. Others appear much
less anxious about the praise-worthiness than about the praise.
No man can be completely, or even tolerably satisfied, with
having avoided every thing blame-worthy in his conduct; unless he
has likewise avoided the blame or the reproach. A wise man may
frequently neglect praise, even when he has best deserved it;
but, in all matters of serious consequence, he will most
carefully endeavour so to regulate his conduct as to avoid, not
only blame-worthiness, but, as much as possible, every probable
imputation of blame. He will never, indeed, avoid blame by doing
any thing which he judges blame-worthy; by omitting any part of
his duty, or by neglecting any opportunity of doing any thing
which he judges to be really and greatly praise-worthy. But, with
these modifications, he will most anxiously and carefully avoid
it. To show much anxiety about praise, even for praise-worthy
actions, is seldom a mark of great wisdom, but generally of some
degree of weakness. But, in being anxious to avoid the shadow of
blame or reproach, there may be no weakness, but frequently the
most praise-worthy prudence.
'Many people,' says Cicero, 'despise glory, who are yet most
severely mortified by unjust reproach; and that most
inconsistently.' This inconsistency, however, seems to be founded
in the unalterable principles of human nature.
The all-wise Author of Nature has, in this manner, taught man
to respect the sentiments and judgments of his brethren; to be
more or less pleased when they approve of his conduct, and to be
more or less hurt when they disapprove of it. He has made man, if
I may say so, the immediate judge of mankind; and has, in this
respect, as in many others, created him after his own image, and
appointed him his vicegerent upon earth, to superintend the
behaviour of his brethren. They are taught by nature, to
acknowledge that power and jurisdiction which has thus been
conferred upon him, to be more or less humbled and mortified when
they have incurred his censure, and to be more or less elated
when they have obtained his applause.
But though man has, in this manner, been rendered the
immediate judge of mankind, he has been rendered so only in the
first instance; and an appeal lies from his sentence to a much
higher tribunal, to the tribunal of their own consciences, to
that of the supposed impartial and well-informed spectator, to
that of the man within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of
their conduct. The jurisdictions of those two tribunals are
founded upon principles which, though in some respects resembling
and akin, are, however, in reality different and distinct. The
jurisdiction of the man without, is founded altogether in the
desire of actual praise, and in the aversion to actual blame. The
jurisdiction of the man within, is founded altogether in the
desire of praise-worthiness, and in the aversion to
blame-worthiness; in the desire of possessing those qualities,
and performing those actions, which we love and admire in other
people; and in the dread of possessing those qualities, and
performing those actions, which we hate and despise in other
people. If the man without should applaud us, either for actions
which we have not performed, or for motives which had no
influence upon us; the man within can immediately humble that
pride and elevation of mind which such groundless acclamations
might otherwise occasion, by telling us, that as we know that we
do not deserve them, we render ourselves despicable by accepting
them. If, on the contrary, the man without should reproach us,
either for actions which we never performed, or for motives which
had no influence upon those which we may have performed; the man
within may immediately correct this false judgment, and assure
us, that we are by no means the proper objects of that censure
which has so unjustly been bestowed upon us. But in this and in
some other cases, the man within seems sometimes, as it were,
astonished and confounded by the vehemence and clamour of the man
without. The violence and loudness, with which blame is sometimes
poured out upon us, seems to stupify and benumb our natural sense
of praise-worthiness and blame-worthiness; and the judgments of
the man within, though not, perhaps, absolutely altered or
perverted, are, however, so much shaken in the steadiness and
firmness of their decision, that their natural effect, in
securing the tranquillity of the mind, is frequently in a great
measure destroyed. We scarce dare to absolve ourselves, when all
our brethren appear loudly to condemn us. The supposed impartial
spectator of our conduct seems to give his opinion in our favour
with fear and hesitation; when that of all the real spectators,
when that of all those with whose eyes and from whose station he
endeavours to consider it, is unanimously and violently against
us. In such cases, this demigod within the breast appears, like
the demigods of the poets, though partly of immortal, yet partly
too of mortal extraction. When his judgments are steadily and
firmly directed by the sense of praiseworthiness and
blame-worthiness, he seems to act suitably to his divine
extraction: But when he suffers himself to be astonished and
confounded by the judgments of ignorant and weak man, he
discovers his connexion with mortality, and appears to act
suitably, rather to the human, than to the divine, part of his
origin.
In such cases, the only effectual consolation of humbled and
afflicted man lies in an appeal to a still higher tribunal, to
that of the all-seeing Judge of the world, whose eye can never be
deceived, and whose judgments can never be perverted. A firm
confidence in the unerring rectitude of this great tribunal,
before which his innocence is in due time to be declared, and his
virtue to be finally rewarded, can alone support him under the
weakness and despondency of his own mind, under the perturbation
and astonishment of the man within the breast, whom nature has
set up as, in this life, the great guardian, not only of his
innocence, but of his tranquillity. Our happiness in this life is
thus, upon many occasions, dependent upon the humble hope and
expectation of a life to come: a hope and expectation deeply
rooted in human nature; which can alone support its lofty ideas
of its own dignity; can alone illumine the dreary prospect of its
continually approaching mortality, and maintain its cheerfulness
under all the heaviest calamities to which, from the disorders of
this life, it may sometimes be exposed. That there is a world to
come, where exact justice will be done to every man, where every
man will be ranked with those who, in the moral and intellectual
qualities, are really his equals; where the owner of those humble
talents and virtues which, from being depressed by fortune, had,
in this life, no opportunity of displaying themselves; which were
unknown, not only to the public, but which he himself could
scarce be sure that he possessed, and for which even the man
within the breast could scarce venture to afford him any distinct
and clear testimony; where that modest, silent, and unknown
merit, will be placed upon a level, and sometimes above those
who, in this world, had enjoyed the highest reputation, and who,
from the advantage of their situation, had been enabled to
perform the most splendid and dazzling actions; is a doctrine, in
every respect so venerable, so comfortable to the weakness, so
flattering to the grandeur of human nature, that the virtuous man
who has the misfortune to doubt of it, cannot possibly avoid
wishing most earnestly and anxiously to believe it. It could
never have been exposed to the derision of the scoffer, had not
the distributions of rewards and punishments, which some of its
most zealous assertors have taught us was to be made in that
world to come, been too frequently in direct opposition to all
our moral sentiments.
That the assiduous courtier is often more favoured than the
faithful and active servant; that attendance and adulation are
often shorter and surer roads to preferment than merit or
service; and that a campaign at Versailles or St James's is often
worth two either in Germany or Flanders, is a complaint which we
have all heard from many a venerable, but discontented, old
officer. But what is considered as the greatest reproach even to
the weakness of earthly sovereigns, has been ascribed, as an act
of justice, to divine perfection; and the duties of devotion, the
public and private worship of the Deity, have been represented,
even by men of virtue and abilities, as the sole virtues which
can either entitle to reward or exempt from punishment in the
life to come. They were the virtues, perhaps, most suitable to
their station, and in which they themselves chiefly excelled; and
we are all naturally disposed to over-rate the excellencies of
our own characters. In the discourse which the eloquent and
philosophical Massillon pronounced, on giving his benediction to
the standards of the regiment of Catinat, there is the following
address to the officers: 'What is most deplorable in your
situation, Gentlemen, is, that in a life hard and painful, in
which the services and the duties sometimes go beyond the rigour
and severity. of the most austere cloisters; you suffer always in
vain for the life to come, and frequently even for this life.
Alas! the solitary monk in his cell, obliged to mortify the flesh
and to subject it to the spirit, is supported by the hope of an
assured recompence, and by the secret unction of that grace which
softens the yoke of the Lord. But you, on the bed of death, can
you dare to represent to Him your fatigues and the daily
hardships of your employment? can you dare to solicit Him for any
recompence? and in all the exertions that you have made, in all
the violences that you have done to yourselves, what is there
that He ought to place to His own account? The best days of your
life, however, have been sacrificed to your profession, and ten
years service has more worn out your body, than would, perhaps,
have done a whole life of repentance and mortification. Alas! my
brother, one single day of those sufferings, consecrated to the
Lord, would, perhaps, have obtained you an eternal happiness. One
single action, painful to nature, and offered up to Him, would,
perhaps, have secured to you the inheritance of the Saints. And
you have done all this, and in vain, for this world.'
To compare, in this manner, the futile mortifications of a
monastery, to the ennobling hardships and hazards of war; to
suppose that one day, or one hour, employed in the former should,
in the eye of the great Judge of the world, have more merit than
a whole life spent honourably in the latter, is surely contrary
to all our moral sentiments; to all the principles by which
nature has taught us to regulate our contempt or admiration. It
is this spirit, however, which, while it has reserved the
celestial regions for monks and friars, or for those whose
conduct and conversation resembled those of monks and friars, has
condemned to the infernal all the heroes, all the statesmen and
lawgivers, all the poets and philosophers of former ages; all
those who have invented, improved, or excelled in the arts which
contribute to the subsistence, to the conveniency, or to the
ornament of human life; all the great protectors, instructors,
and benefactors of mankind; all those to whom our natural sense
of praise-worthiness forces us to ascribe the highest merit and
most exalted virtue. Can we wonder that so strange an application
of this most respectable doctrine should sometimes have exposed
it to contempt and derision; with those at least who had
themselves, perhaps, no great taste or turn for the devout and
contemplative virtues?[1]
[1.]
See Voltaire.
Vous y grillez sage et docte Platon,
Divin Homere, eloquent Ciceron, etc.