4.1.2. Chap. II
Of the Beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon the
Characters and Actions of Men; and how far the Perception of this
Beauty may be regarded as one of the original Principles of
approbation
The characters of men, as well as the contrivances of art, or
the institutions of civil government, may be fitted either to
promote or to disturb the happiness both of the individual and of
the society. The prudent, the equitable, the active, resolute,
and sober character promises prosperity and satisfaction, both to
the person himself and to every one connected with him. The rash,
the insolent, the slothful, effeminate, and voluptuous, on the
contrary, forebodes ruin to the individual, and misfortune to all
who have any thing to do with him. The first turn of mind has at
least all the beauty which can belong to the most perfect machine
that was ever invented for promoting the most agreeable purpose:
and the second, all the deformity of the most awkward and clumsy
contrivance. What institution of government could tend so much to
promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of
wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for
the deficiency of these. Whatever beauty, therefore, can belong
to civil government upon account of its utility, must in a far
superior degree belong to these. On the contrary, what civil
policy can be so ruinous and destructive as the vices of men? The
fatal effects of bad government arise from nothing, but that it
does not sufficiently guard against the mischiefs which human
wickedness gives occasion to.
This beauty and deformity which characters appear to derive
from their usefulness or inconveniency, are apt to strike, in a
peculiar manner, those who consider, in an abstract and
philosophical light, the actions and conduct of mankind. When a
philosopher goes to examine why humanity is approved of, or
cruelty condemned, he does not always form to himself, in a very
clear and distinct manner, the conception of any one particular
action either of cruelty or of humanity, but is commonly
contented with the vague and indeterminate idea which the general
names of those qualities suggest to him. But it is in particular
instances only that the propriety or impropriety, the merit or
demerit of actions is very obvious and discernible. It is only
when particular examples are given that we perceive distinctly
either the concord or disagreement between our own affections and
those of the agent, or feel a social gratitude arise towards him
in the one case, or a sympathetic resentment in the other. When
we consider virtue and vice in an abstract and general manner,
the qualities by which they excite these several sentiments seem
in a great measure to disappear, and the sentiments themselves
become less obvious and discernible. On the contrary, the happy
effects of the one and the fatal consequences of the other seem
then to rise up to the view, and as it were to stand out and
distinguish themselves from all the other qualities of either.
The same ingenious and agreeable author who first explained
why utility pleases, has been so struck with this view of things,
as to resolve our whole approbation of virtue into a perception
of this species of beauty which results from the appearance of
utility. No qualities of the mind, he observes, are approved of
as virtuous, but such as are useful or agreeable either to the
person himself or to others; and no qualities are disapproved of
as vicious but such as have a contrary tendency. And Nature,
indeed, seems to have so happily adjusted our sentiments of
approbation and disapprobation, to the conveniency both of the
individual and of the society, that after the strictest
examination it will be found, I believe, that this is universally
the case. But still I affirm, that it is not the view of this
utility or hurtfulness which is either the first or principal
source of our approbation and disapprobation. These sentiments
are no doubt enhanced and enlivened by the perception of the
beauty or deformity which results from this utility or
hurtfulness. But still, I say, they are originally and
essentially different from this perception.
For first of all, it seems impossible that the approbation of
virtue should be a sentiment of the same kind with that by which
we approve of a convenient and well-contrived building; or that
we should have no other reason for praising a man than that for
which we commend a chest of drawers.
And secondly, it will be found, upon examination, that the
usefulness of any disposition of mind is seldom the first ground
of our approbation; and that the sentiment of approbation always
involves in it a sense of propriety quite distinct from the
perception of utility. We may observe this with regard to all the
qualities which are approved of as virtuous, both those which,
according to this system, are originally valued as useful to
ourselves, as well as those which are esteemed on account of
their usefulness to others.
The qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of all,
superior reason and understanding, by which we are capable of
discerning the remote consequences of all our actions, and of
foreseeing the advantage or detriment which is likely to result
from them: and secondly, self-command, by which we are enabled to
abstain from present pleasure or to endure present pain, in order
to obtain a greater pleasure or to avoid a greater pain in some
future time. In the union of those two qualities consists the
virtue of prudence, of all the virtues that which is most useful
to the individual.
With regard to the first of those qualities, it has been
observed on a former occasion, that superior reason and
understanding are originally approved of as just and right and
accurate, and not merely as useful or advantageous. It is in the
abstruser sciences, particularly in the higher parts of
mathematics, that the greatest and most admired exertions of
human reason have been displayed. But the utility of those
sciences, either to the individual or to the public, is not very
obvious, and to prove it, requires a discussion which is not
always very easily comprehended. It was not, therefore, their
utility which first recommended them to the public admiration.
This quality was but little insisted upon, till it became
necessary to make some reply to the reproaches of those, who,
having themselves no taste for such sublime discoveries,
endeavoured to depreciate them as useless.
That self-command, in the same manner, by which we restrain
our present appetites, in order to gratify them more fully upon
another occasion, is approved of, as much under the aspect of
propriety, as under that of utility. When we act in this manner,
the sentiments which influence our conduct seem exactly to
coincide with those of the spectator. The spectator does not feel
the solicitations of our present appetites. To him the pleasure
which we are to enjoy a week hence, or a year hence, is just as
interesting as that which we are to enjoy this moment. When for
the sake of the present, therefore, we sacrifice the future, our
conduct appears to him absurd and extravagant in the highest
degree, and he cannot enter into the principles which influence
it. On the contrary, when we abstain from present pleasure, in
order to secure greater pleasure to come, when we act as if the
remote object interested us as much as that which immediately
presses upon the senses, as our affections exactly correspond
with his own, he cannot fail to approve of our behaviour: and as
he knows from experience, how few are capable of this
self-command, he looks upon our conduct with a considerable
degree of wonder and admiration. Hence arises that eminent esteem
with which all men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the
practice of frugality, industry, and application, though directed
to no other purpose than the acquisition of fortune. The resolute
firmness of the person who acts in this manner, and in order to
obtain a great though remote advantage, not only gives up all
present pleasures, but endures the greatest labour both of mind
and body, necessarily commands our approbation. That view of his
interest and happiness which appears to regulate his conduct,
exactly tallies with the idea which we naturally form of it.
There is the most perfect correspondence between his sentiments
and our own, and at the same time, from our experience of the
common weakness of human nature, it is a correspondence which we
could not reasonably have expected. We not only approve,
therefore, but in some measure admire his conduct, and think it
worthy of a considerable degree of applause. It is the
consciousness of this merited approbation and esteem which is
alone capable of supporting the agent in this tenour of conduct.
The pleasure which we are to enjoy ten years hence interests us
so little in comparison with that which we may enjoy to-day, the
passion which the first excites, is naturally so weak in
comparison with that violent emotion which the second is apt to
give occasion to, that the one could never be any balance to the
other, unless it was supported by the sense of propriety, by the
consciousness that we merited the esteem and approbation of every
body, by acting in the one way, and that we became the proper
objects of their contempt and derision by behaving in the other.
Humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the
qualities most useful to others. Wherein consists the propriety
of humanity and justice has been explained upon a former
occasion, where it was shewn how much our esteem and approbation
of those qualities depended upon the concord between the
affections of the agent and those of the spectators.
The propriety of generosity and public spirit is founded upon
the same principle with that of justice. Generosity is different
from humanity. Those two qualities, which at first sight seem so
nearly allied, do not always belong to the same person. Humanity
is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man. The fair-sex, who
have commonly much more tenderness than ours, have seldom so much
generosity. That women rarely make considerable donations, is an
observation of the civil law.
Humanity consists merely in the
exquisite fellow-feeling which the spectator entertains with the
sentiments of the persons principally concerned, so as to grieve
for their sufferings, to resent their injuries, and to rejoice at
their good fortune. The most humane actions require no
self-denial, no self-command, no great exertion of the sense of
propriety. They consist only in doing what this exquisite
sympathy would of its own accord prompt us to do. But it is
otherwise with generosity. We never are generous except when in
some respect we prefer some other person to ourselves, and
sacrifice some great and important interest of our own to an
equal interest of a friend or of a superior. The man who gives up
his pretensions to an office that was the great object of his
ambition, because he imagines that the services of another are
better entitled to it; the man who exposes his life to defend
that of his friend, which he judges to be of more importance;
neither of them act from humanity, or because they feel more
exquisitely what concerns that other person than what concerns
themselves. They both consider those opposite interests, not in
the light in which they naturally appear to themselves, but in
that in which they appear to others. To every bystander, the
success or preservation of this other person may justly be more
interesting than their own; but it cannot be so to themselves.
When to the interest of this other person, therefore, they
sacrifice their own, they accommodate themselves to the
sentiments of the spectator, and by an effort of magnanimity act
according to those views of things which, they feel, must
naturally occur to any third person. The soldier who throws away
his life in order to defend that of his officer, would perhaps be
but little affected by the death of that officer, if it should
happen without any fault of his own; and a very small disaster
which had befallen himself might excite a much more lively
sorrow. But when he endeavours to act so as to deserve applause,
and to make the impartial spectator enter into the principles of
his conduct, he feels, that to every body but himself, his own
life is a trifle compared with that of his officer, and that when
he sacrifices the one to the other, he acts quite properly and
agreeably to what would be the natural apprehensions of every
impartial bystander.
It is the same case with the greater exertions of public
spirit. When a young officer exposes his life to acquire some
inconsiderable addition to the dominions of his sovereign, it is
not because the acquisition of the new territory is, to himself,
an object more desireable than the preservation of his own life.
To him his own life is of infinitely more value than the conquest
of a whole kingdom for the state which he serves. But when he
compares those two objects with one another, he does not view
them in the light in which they naturally appear to himself, but
in that in which they appear to the nation he fights for. To them
the success of the war is of the highest importance; the life of
a private person of scarce any consequence. When he puts himself
in their situation, he immediately feels that he cannot be too
prodigal of his blood, if, by shedding it, he can promote so
valuable a purpose. In thus thwarting, from a sense of duty and
propriety, the strongest of all natural propensities, consists
the heroism of his conduct. There is many an honest Englishman,
who, in his private station, would be more seriously disturbed by
the loss of a guinea, than by the national loss of Minorca, who
yet, had it been in his power to defend that fortress, would have
sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than, through his
fault, have let it fall into the hands of the enemy. When the
first Brutus led forth his own sons to a capital punishment,
because they had conspired against the rising liberty of Rome, he
sacrificed what, if he had consulted his own breast only, would
appear to be the stronger to the weaker affection. Brutus ought
naturally to have felt much more for the death of his own sons,
than for all that probably Rome could have suffered from the want
of so great an example. But he viewed them, not with the eyes of
a father, but with those of a Roman citizen. He entered so
thoroughly into the sentiments of this last character, that he
paid no regard to that tie, by which he himself was connected
with them; and to a Roman citizen, the sons even of Brutus seemed
contemptible, when put into the balance with the smallest
interest of Rome. In these and in all other cases of this kind,
our admiration is not so much founded upon the utility, as upon
the unexpected, and on that account the great, the noble, and
exalted propriety of such actions. This utility, when we come to
view it, bestows upon them, undoubtedly, a new beauty, and upon
that account still further recommends them to our approbation.
This beauty, however, is chiefly perceived by men of reflection
and speculation, and is by no means the quality which first
recommends such actions to the natural sentiments of the bulk of
mankind.
It is to be observed, that so far as the sentiment of
approbation arises from the perception of this beauty of utility,
it has no reference of any kind to the sentiments of others. If
it was possible, therefore, that a person should grow up to
manhood without any communication with society, his own actions
might, notwithstanding, be agreeable or disagreeable to him on
account of their tendency to his happiness or disadvantage. He
might perceive a beauty of this kind in prudence, temperance, and
good conduct, and a deformity in the opposite behaviour: he might
view his own temper and character with that sort of satisfaction
with which we consider a well-contrived machine, in the one case;
or with that sort of distaste and dissatisfaction with which we
regard a very awkward and clumsy contrivance, in the other. As
these perceptions, however, are merely a matter of taste, and
have all the feebleness and delicacy of that species of
perceptions, upon the justness of which what is properly called
taste is founded, they probably would not be much attended to by
one in this solitary and miserable condition. Even though they
should occur to him, they would by no means have the same effect
upon him, antecedent to his connexion with society, which they
would have in consequence of that connexion. He would not be cast
down with inward shame at the thought of this deformity; nor
would he be elevated with secret triumph of mind from the
consciousness of the contrary beauty. He would not exult from the
notion of deserving reward in the one case, nor tremble from the
suspicion of meriting punishment in the other. All such
sentiments suppose the idea of some other being, who is the
natural judge of the person that feels them; and it is only by
sympathy with the decisions of this arbiter of his conduct, that
he can conceive, either the triumph of self-applause, or the
shame of self-condemnation.
[1.]
Raro mulieres donare solent.