3.1.6. Chap. VI
In what cases the Sense of Duty ought to be the sole Principle of our
Conduct; and in what cases it ought to concur with other Motives
Religion affords such strong motives to the practice of
virtue, and guards us by such powerful restraints from the
temptations of vice, that many have been led to suppose, that
religious principles were the sole laudable motives of action. We
ought neither, they said, to reward from gratitude, nor punish
from resentment; we ought neither to protect the helplessness of
our children, nor afford support to the infirmities of our
parents, from natural affection. All affections for particular
objects, ought to be extinguished in our breast, and one great
affection take the place of all others, the love of the Deity,
the desire of rendering ourselves agreeable to him, and of
directing our conduct, in every respect, according to his will.
We ought not to be grateful from gratitude, we ought not to be
charitable from humanity, we ought not to be public-spirited from
the love of our country, nor generous and just from the love of
mankind. The sole principle and motive of our conduct in the
performance of all those different duties, ought to be a sense
that God has commanded us to perform them. I shall not at present
take time to examine this opinion particularly; I shall only
observe, that we should not have expected to have found it
entertained by any sect, who professed themselves of a religion
in which, as it is the first precept to love the Lord our God
with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength,
so it is the second to love our neighbour as we love ourselves;
and we love ourselves surely for our own sakes, and not merely
because we are commanded to do so. That the sense of duty should
be the sole principle of our conduct, is no where the precept of
Christianity; but that it should be the ruling and the governing
one, as philosophy, and as, indeed, common sense directs. It may
be a question, however, in what cases our actions ought to arise
chiefly or entirely from a sense of duty, or from a regard to
general rules; and in what cases some other sentiment or
affection ought to concur, and have a principal influence.
The decision of this question, which cannot, perhaps, be
given with any very great accuracy, will depend upon two
different circumstances; first, upon the natural agreeableness or
deformity of the sentiment or affection which would prompt us to
any action independent of all regard to general rules; and,
secondly, upon the precision and exactness, or the looseness and
inaccuracy, of the general rules themselves.
I. First, I say, it will depend upon the natural
agreeableness or deformity of the affection itself, how far our
actions ought to arise from it, or entirely proceed from a regard
to the general rule.
All those graceful and admired actions, to which the
benevolent affections would prompt us, ought to proceed as much
from the passions themselves, as from any regard to the general
rules of conduct. A benefactor thinks himself but ill requited,
if the person upon whom he has bestowed his good offices, repays
them merely from a cold sense of duty, and without any affection
to his person. A husband is dissatisfied with the most obedient
wife, when he imagines her conduct is animated by no other
principle besides her regard to what the relation she stands in
requires. Though a son should fail in none of the offices of
filial duty, yet if he wants that affectionate reverence which it
so well becomes him to feel, the parent may justly complain of
his indifference. Nor could a son be quite satisfied with a
parent who, though he performed all the duties of his situation,
had nothing of that fatherly fondness which might have been
expected from him. With regard to all such benevolent and social
affections, it is agreeable to see the sense of duty employed
rather to restrain than to enliven them, rather to hinder us from
doing too much, than to prompt us to do what we ought. It gives
us pleasure to see a father obliged to check his own fondness, a
friend obliged to set bounds to his natural generosity, a person
who has received a benefit, obliged to restrain the too sanguine
gratitude of his own temper.
The contrary maxim takes place with regard to the malevolent
and unsocial passions. We ought to reward from the gratitude and
generosity of our own hearts, without any reluctance, and without
being obliged to reflect how great the propriety of rewarding:
but we ought always to punish with reluctance, and more from a
sense of the propriety of punishing, than from any savage
disposition to revenge. Nothing is more graceful than the
behaviour of the man who appears to resent the greatest injuries,
more from a sense that they deserve, and are the proper objects
of resentment, than from feeling himself the furies of that
disagreeable passion; who, like a judge, considers only the
general rule, which determines what vengeance is due for each
particular offence; who, in executing that rule, feels less for
what himself has suffered, than for what the offender is about to
suffer; who, though in wrath, remembers mercy, and is disposed to
interpret the rule in the most gentle and favourable manner, and
to allow all the alleviations which the most candid humanity
could, consistently with good sense, admit of.
As the selfish passions, according to what has formerly been
observed, hold, in other respects, a sort of middle place,
between the social and unsocial affections, so do they likewise
in this. The pursuit of the objects of private interest, in all
common, little, and ordinary cases, ought to flow rather from a
regard to the general rules which prescribe such conduct, than
from any passion for the objects themselves; but upon more
important and extraordinary occasions, we should be awkward,
insipid, and ungraceful, if the objects themselves did not appear
to animate us with a considerable degree of passion. To be
anxious, or to be laying a plot either to gain or to save a
single shilling, would degrade the most vulgar tradesman in the
opinion of all his neighbours. Let his circumstances be ever so
mean, no attention to any such small matters, for the sake of the
things themselves, must appear in his conduct. His situation may
require the most severe oeconomy and the most exact assiduity:
but each particular exertion of that oeconomy and assiduity must
proceed, not so much from a regard for that particular saving or
gain, as for the general rule which to him prescribes, with the
utmost rigour, such a tenor of conduct. His parsimony to-day must
not arise from a desire of the particular three-pence which be
will save by it, nor his attendance in his shop from a passion
for the particular ten-pence which he will acquire by it: both
the one and the other ought to proceed solely from a regard to
the general rule, which prescribes, with the most unrelenting
severity, this plan of conduct to all persons in his way of life.
In this consists the difference between the character of a miser
and that of a person of exact oeconomy and assiduity. The one is
anxious about small matters for their own sake; the other attends
to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has
laid down to himself.
It is quite otherwise with regard to the more extraordinary
and important objects of self-interest. A person appears
mean-spirited, who does not pursue these with some degree of
earnestness for their own sake. We should despise a prince who
was not anxious about conquering or defending a province. We
should have little respect for a private gentleman who did not
exert himself to gain an estate, or even a considerable office,
when he could acquire them without either meanness or injustice.
A member of parliament who shews no keenness about his own
election, is abandoned by his friends, as altogether unworthy of
their attachment. Even a tradesman is thought a poor-spirited
fellow among his neighbours, who does not bestir himself to get
what they call an extraordinary job, or some uncommon advantage.
This spirit and keenness constitutes the difference between the
man of enterprise and the man of dull regularity. Those great
objects of self-interest, of which the loss or acquisition quite
changes the rank of the person, are the objects of the passion
properly called ambition; a passion, which when it keeps within
the bounds of prudence and justice, is always admired in the
world, and has even sometimes a certain irregular greatness,
which dazzles the imagination, when it passes the limits of both
these virtues, and is not only unjust but extravagant. Hence the
general admiration for heroes and conquerors, and even for
statesmen, whose projects have been very daring and extensive,
though altogether devoid of justice; such as those of the
Cardinals of Richlieu and of Retz. The objects of avarice and
ambition differ only in their greatness. A miser is as furious
about a halfpenny, as a man of ambition about the conquest of a
kingdom.
II. Secondly, I say, it will depend partly upon the precision
and exactness, or the looseness and inaccuracy of the general
rules themselves, how far our conduct ought to proceed entirely
from a regard to them.
The general rules of almost all the virtues, the general
rules which determine what are the offices of prudence, of
charity, of generosity, of gratitude, of friendship, are in many
respects loose and inaccurate, admit of many exceptions, and
require so many modifications, that it is scarce possible to
regulate our conduct entirely by a regard to them. The common
proverbial maxims of prudence, being founded in universal
experience, are perhaps the best general rules which can be given
about it. To affect, however, a very strict and literal adherence
to them would evidently be the most absurd and ridiculous
pedantry. Of all the virtues I have just now mentioned, gratitude
is that, perhaps, of which the rules are the most precise, and
admit of the fewest exceptions. That as soon as we can we should
make a return of equal, and if possible of superior value to the
services we have received, would seem to be a pretty plain rule,
and one which admitted of scarce any exceptions. Upon the most
superficial examination, however, this rule will appear to be in
the highest degree loose and inaccurate, and to admit of ten
thousand exceptions. If your benefactor attended you in your
sickness, ought you to attend him in his? or can you fulfil the
obligation of gratitude, by making a return of a different kind?
If you ought to attend him, how long ought you to attend him? The
same time which he attended you, or longer, and how much longer?
If your friend lent you money in your distress, ought you to lend
him money in his? How much ought you to lend him? When ought you
to lend him? Now, or to-morrow, or next month? And for how long a
time? It is evident, that no general rule can be laid down, by
which a precise answer can, in all cases, be given to any of
these questions. The difference between his character and yours,
between his circumstances and yours, may be such, that you may be
perfectly grateful, and justly refuse to lend him a halfpenny:
and, on the contrary, you may be willing to lend, or even to give
him ten times the sum which he lent you, and yet justly be
accused of the blackest ingratitude, and of not having fulfilled
the hundredth part of the obligation you lie under. As the duties
of gratitude, however, are perhaps the most sacred of all those
which the beneficent virtues prescribe to us, so the general
rules which determine them are, as I said before, the most
accurate. Those which ascertain the actions required by
friendship, humanity, hospitality, generosity, are still more
vague and indeterminate.
There is, however, one virtue of which the general rules
determine with the greatest exactness every external action which
it requires. This virtue is justice. The rules of justice are
accurate in the highest degree, and admit of no exceptions or
modifications, but such as may be ascertained as accurately as
the rules themselves, and which generally, indeed, flow from the
very same principles with them. If I owe a man ten pounds,
justice requires that I should precisely pay him ten pounds,
either at the time agreed upon, or when he demands it. What I
ought to perform, how much I ought to perform, when and where I
ought to perform it, the whole nature and circumstances of the
action prescribed, are all of them precisely fixt and determined.
Though it may be awkward and pedantic, therefore, to affect too
strict an adherence to the common rules of prudence or
generosity, there is no pedantry in sticking fast by the rules of
justice. On the contrary, the most sacred regard is due to them;
and the actions which this virtue requires are never so properly
performed, as when the chief motive for performing them is a
reverential and religious regard to those general rules which
require them. In the practice of the other virtues, our conduct
should rather be directed by a certain idea of propriety, by a
certain taste for a particular tenor of conduct, than by any
regard to a precise maxim or rule; and we should consider the end
and foundation of the rule, more than the rule itself. But it is
otherwise with regard to justice: the man who in that refines the
least, and adheres with the most obstinate stedfastness to the
general rules themselves, is the most commendable, and the most
to be depended upon. Though the end of the rules of justice be,
to hinder us from hurting our neighbour, it may frequently be a
crime to violate them, though we could pretend, with some pretext
of reason, that this particular violation could do no hurt. A man
often becomes a villain the moment he begins, even in his own
heart, to chicane in this manner. The moment he thinks of
departing from the most staunch and positive adherence to what
those inviolable precepts prescribe to him, he is no longer to be
trusted, and no man can say what degree of guilt he may not
arrive at. The thief imagines he does no evil, when he steals
from the rich, what he supposes they may easily want, and what
possibly they may never even know has been stolen from them. The
adulterer imagines he does no evil, when he corrupts the wife of
his friend, provided he covers his intrigue from the suspicion of
the husband, and does not disturb the peace of the family. When
once we begin to give way to such refinements, there is no
enormity so gross of which we may not be capable.
The rules of justice may be compared to the rules of grammar;
the rules of the other virtues, to the rules which critics lay
down for the attainment of what is sublime and elegant in
composition. The one, are precise, accurate, and indispensable.
The other, are loose, vague, and indeterminate, and present us
rather with a general idea of the perfection we ought to aim at,
than afford us any certain and infallible directions for
acquiring it. A man may learn to write grammatically by rule,
with the most absolute infallibility; and so, perhaps, he may be
taught to act justly. But there are no rules whose observance
will infallibly lead us to the attainment of elegance or
sublimity in writing; though there are some which may help us, in
some measure, to correct and ascertain the vague ideas which we
might otherwise have entertained of those perfections. And there
are no rules by the knowledge of which we can infallibly be
taught to act upon all occasions with prudence, with just
magnanimity, or proper beneficence: though there are some which
may enable us to correct and ascertain, in several respects, the
imperfect ideas which we might otherwise have entertained of
those virtues.
It may sometimes happen, that with the most serious and
earnest desire of acting so as to deserve approbation, we may
mistake the proper rules of conduct, and thus be misled by that
very principle which ought to direct us. It is in vain to expect,
that in this case mankind should entirely approve of our
behaviour. They cannot enter into that absurd idea of duty which
influenced us, nor go along with any of the actions which follow
from it. There is still, however, something respectable in the
character and behaviour of one who is thus betrayed into vice, by
a wrong sense of duty, or by what is called an erroneous
conscience. How fatally soever he may be misled by it, he is
still, with the generous and humane, more the object of
commiseration than of hatred or resentment. They lament the
weakness of human nature, which exposes us to such unhappy
delusions, even while we are most sincerely labouring after
perfection, and endeavouring to act according to the best
principle which can possibly direct us. False notions of religion
are almost the only causes which can occasion any very gross
perversion of our natural sentiments in this way; and that
principle which gives the greatest authority to the rules of
duty, is alone capable of distorting our ideas of them in any
considerable degree. In all other cases common sense is
sufficient to direct us, if not to the most exquisite propriety
of conduct, yet to something which is not very far from it; and
provided we are in earnest desirous to do well, our behaviour
will always, upon the whole, be praise-worthy. That to obey the
will of the Deity, is the first rule of duty, all men are agreed.
But concerning the particular commandments which that will may
impose upon us, they differ widely from one another. In this,
therefore, the greatest mutual forbearance and toleration is due;
and though the defence of society requires that crimes should be
punished, from whatever motives they proceed, yet a good man will
always punish them with reluctance, when they evidently proceed
from false notions of religious duty. He will never feel against
those who commit them that indignation which he feels against
other criminals, but will rather regret, and sometimes even
admire their unfortunate firmness and magnanimity, at the very
time that he punishes their crime. In the tragedy of Mahomet, one
of the finest of Mr Voltaire's, it is well represented, what
ought to be our sentiments for crimes which proceed from such
motives. In that tragedy, two young people of different sexes, of
the most innocent and virtuous dispositions, and without any
other weakness except what endears them the more to us, a mutual
fondness for one another, are instigated by the strongest motives
of a false religion, to commit a horrid murder, that shocks all
the principles of human nature. A venerable old man, who had
expressed the most tender affection for them both, for whom,
notwithstanding he was the avowed enemy of their religion, they
had both conceived the highest reverence and esteem, and who was
in reality their father, though they did not know him to be such,
is pointed out to them as a sacrifice which God had expressly
required at their hands, and they are commanded to kill him.
While they are about executing this crime, they are tortured with
all the agonies which can arise from the struggle between the
idea of the indispensableness of religious duty on the one side,
and compassion, gratitude, reverence for the age, and love for
the humanity and virtue of the person whom they are going to
destroy, on the other. The representation of this exhibits one of
the most interesting, and perhaps the most instructive spectacle
that was ever introduced upon any theatre. The sense of duty,
however, at last prevails over all the amiable weaknesses of
human nature. They execute the crime imposed upon them; but
immediately discover their error, and the fraud which had
deceived them, and are distracted with horror, remorse, and
resentment. Such as are our sentiments for the unhappy Seid and
Palmira, such ought we to feel for every person who is in this
manner misled by religion, when we are sure that it is really
religion which misleads him, and not the pretence of it, which is
made a cover to some of the worst of human passions.
As a person may act wrong by following a wrong sense of duty,
so nature may sometimes prevail, and lead him to act right in
opposition to it. We cannot in this case be displeased to see
that motive prevail, which we think ought to prevail, though the
person himself is so weak as to think otherwise. As his conduct,
however, is the effect of weakness, not principle, we are far
from bestowing upon it any thing that approaches to complete
approbation. A bigoted Roman Catholic, who, during the massacre
of St Bartholomew, had been so overcome by compassion, as to save
some unhappy Protestants, whom he thought it his duty to destroy,
would not seem to be entitled to that high applause which we
should have bestowed upon him, had he exerted the same generosity
with complete self-approbation. We might be pleased with the
humanity of his temper, but we should still regard him with a
sort of pity which is altogether inconsistent with the admiration
that is due to perfect virtue. It is the same case with all the
other passions. We do not dislike to see them exert themselves
properly, even when a false notion of duty would direct the
person to restrain them. A very devout Quaker, who upon being
struck upon one cheek, instead of turning up the other, should so
far forget his literal interpretation of our Saviour's precept,
as to bestow some good discipline upon the brute that insulted
him, would not be disagreeable to us. We should laugh and be
diverted with his spirit, and rather like him the better for it.
But we should by no means regard him with that respect and esteem
which would seem due to one who, upon a like occasion, had acted
properly from a just sense of what was proper to be done. No
action can properly be called virtuous, which is not accompanied
with the sentiment of self-approbation.