Conclusion of the Sixth Part
Concern for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of
prudence: concern for that of other people, the virtues of
justice and beneficence; of which, the one restrains us from
hurting, the other prompts us to promote that happiness.
Independent of any regard either to what are, or to what ought to
be, or to what upon a certain condition would be, the sentiments
of other people, the first of those three virtues is originally
recommended to us by our selfish, the other two by our benevolent
affections. Regard to the sentiments of other people, however,
comes afterwards both to enforce and to direct the practice of
all those virtues; and no man during, either the whole of his
life, or that of any considerable part of it, ever trod steadily
and uniformly in the paths of prudence, of justice, or of proper
beneficence, whose conduct was not principally directed by a
regard to the sentiments of the supposed impartial spectator, of
the great inmate of the breast, the great judge and arbiter of
conduct. If in the course of the day we have swerved in any
respect from the rules which he prescribes to us; if we have
either exceeded or relaxed in our frugality; if we have either
exceeded or relaxed in our industry; if, through passion or
inadvertency, we have hurt in any respect the interest or
happiness of our neighbour; if we have neglected a plain and
proper opportunity of promoting that interest and happiness; it
is this inmate who, in the evening, calls us to an account for
all those omissions and violations, and his reproaches often make
us blush inwardly both for our folly and inattention to our own
happiness, and for our still greater indifference and
inattention, perhaps, to that of other people.
But though the virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence,
may, upon different occasions, be recommended to us almost
equally by two different principles; those of self-command are,
upon most occasions, principally and almost entirely recommended
to us by one; by the sense of propriety, by regard to the
sentiments of the supposed impartial spectator. Without the
restraint which this principle imposes, every passion would, upon
most occasions, rush headlong, if I may say so, to its own
gratification. Anger would follow the suggestions of its own
fury; fear those of its own violent agitations. Regard to no time
or place would induce vanity to refrain from the loudest and most
impertinent ostentation; or voluptuousness from the most open,
indecent, and scandalous indulgence. Respect for what are, or for
what ought to be, or for what upon a certain condition would be,
the sentiments of other people, is the sole principle which, upon
most occasions, overawes all those mutinous and turbulent
passions into that tone and temper which the impartial spectator
can enter into and sympathize with.
Upon some occasions, indeed, those passions are restrained,
not so much by a sense of their impropriety, as by prudential
considerations of the bad consequences which might follow from
their indulgence. In such cases, the passions, though restrained,
are not always subdued, but often remain lurking in the breast
with all their original fury. The man whose anger is restrained
by fear, does not always lay aside his anger, but only reserves
its gratification for a more safe opportunity. But the man who,
in relating to some other person the injury which has been done
to him, feels at once the fury of his passion cooled and becalmed
by sympathy with the more moderate sentiments of his companion,
who at once adopts those more moderate sentiments, and comes to
view that injury, not in the black and atrocious colours in which
he had originally beheld it, but in the much milder and fairer
light in which his companion naturally views it; not only
restrains, but in some measure subdues, his anger. The passion
becomes really less than it was before, and less capable of
exciting him to the violent and bloody revenge which at first,
perhaps, he might have thought of inflicting.
Those passions which are restrained by the sense of
propriety, are all in some degree moderated and subdued by it.
But those which are restrained only by prudential considerations
of any kind, are, on the contrary, frequently inflamed by the
restraint, and sometimes (long after the provocation given, and
when nobody is thinking about it) burst out absurdly and
unexpectedly, and with tenfold fury and violence.
Anger, however, as well as every other passion, may, upon
many occasions, be very properly restrained by prudential
considerations. Some exertion of manhood and self-command is even
necessary for this sort of restraint; and the impartial spectator
may sometimes view it with that sort of cold esteem due to that
species of conduct which he considers as a mere matter of vulgar
prudence; but never with that affectionate admiration with which
he surveys the same passions, when, by the sense of propriety,
they are moderated and subdued to what he himself can readily
enter into. In the former species of restraint, he may frequently
discern some degree of propriety, and, if you will, even of
virtue; but it is a propriety and virtue of a much inferior order
to those which he always feels with transport and admiration in
the latter.
The virtues of prudence, justice, and beneficence, have no
tendency to produce any but the most agreeable effects. Regard to
those effects, as it originally recommends them to the actor, so
does it afterwards to the impartial spectator. In our approbation
of the character of the prudent man, we feel, with peculiar
complacency, the security which he must enjoy while he walks
under the safeguard of that sedate and deliberate virtue. In our
approbation of the character of the just man, we feel, with equal
complacency, the security which all those connected with him,
whether in neighbourhood, society, or business, must derive from
his scrupulous anxiety never either to hurt or offend. In our
approbation of the character of the beneficent man, we enter into
the gratitude of all those who are within the sphere of his good
offices, and conceive with them the highest sense of his merit.
In our approbation of all those virtues, our sense of their
agreeable effects, of their utility, either to the person who
exercises them, or to some other persons, joins with our sense of
their propriety, and constitutes always a considerable,
frequently the greater part of that approbation.
But in our approbation of the virtues of self-command,
complacency with their effects sometimes constitutes no part, and
frequently but a small part, of that approbation. Those effects
may sometimes be agreeable, and sometimes disagreeable; and
though our approbation is no doubt stronger in the former case,
it is by no means altogether destroyed in the latter. The most
heroic valour may be employed indifferently in the cause either
of justice or of injustice; and though it is no doubt much more
loved and admired in the former case, it still appears a great
and respectable quality even in the latter. In that, and in all
the other virtues of self-command, the splendid and dazzling
quality seems always to be the greatness and steadiness of the
exertion, and the strong sense of propriety which is necessary in
order to make and to maintain that exertion. The effects are too
often but too little regarded.