4. Part IV
Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation
Consisting of One Section
4.1.1. Chap. I
Of the Beauty which the Appearance of Utility bestows upon all
the Productions of Art, and of the extensive Influence of this
Species of Beauty
That utility is one of the principal sources of beauty has
been observed by every body, who has considered with any
attention what constitutes the nature of beauty. The conveniency
of a house gives pleasure to the spectator as well as its
regularity, and he is as much hurt when he observes the contrary
defect, as when he sees the correspondent windows of different
forms, or the door not placed exactly in the middle of the
building. That the fitness of any system or machine to produce
the end for which it was intended, bestows a certain propriety
and beauty upon the whole, and renders the very thought and
contemplation of it agreeable, is so very obvious that nobody has
overlooked it.
The cause too, why utility pleases, has of late been assigned
by an ingenious and agreeable philosopher, who joins the greatest
depth of thought to the greatest elegance of expression, and
possesses the singular and happy talent of treating the
abstrusest subjects not only with the most perfect perspicuity,
but with the most lively eloquence. The utility of any object,
according to him, pleases the master by perpetually suggesting to
him the pleasure or conveniency which it is fitted to promote.
Every time he looks at it, he is put in mind of this pleasure;
and the object in this manner becomes a source of perpetual
satisfaction and enjoyment. The spectator enters by sympathy into
the sentiments of the master, and necessarily views the object
under the same agreeable aspect. When we visit the palaces of the
great, we cannot help conceiving the satisfaction we should enjoy
if we ourselves were the masters, and were possessed of so much
artful and ingeniously contrived accommodation. A similar account
is given why the appearance of inconveniency should render any
object disagreeable both to the owner and to the spectator.
But that this fitness, this happy contrivance of any
production of art, should often be more valued, than the very end
for which it was intended; and that the exact adjustment of the
means for attaining any conveniency or pleasure, should
frequently be more regarded, than that very conveniency or
pleasure, in the attainment of which their whole merit would seem
to consist, has not, so far as I know, been yet taken notice of
by any body. That this however is very frequently the case, may
be observed in a thousand instances, both in the most frivolous
and in the most important concerns of human life.
When a person comes into his chamber, and finds the chairs
all standing in the middle of the room, he is angry with his
servant, and rather than see them continue in that disorder,
perhaps takes the trouble himself to set them all in their places
with their backs to the wall. The whole propriety of this new
situation arises from its superior conveniency in leaving the
floor free and disengaged. To attain this conveniency he
voluntarily puts himself to more trouble than all he could have
suffered from the want of it; since nothing was more easy, than
to have set himself down upon one of them, which is probably what
he does when his labour is over. What he w.anted therefore, it
seems, was not so much this conveniency, as that arrangement of
things which promotes it. Yet it is this conveniency which
ultimately recommends that arrangement, and bestows upon it the
whole of its propriety and beauty.
A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind above two
minutes in a day, is despised by one curious in watches. He sells
it perhaps for a couple of guineas, and purchases another at
fifty, which will not lose above a minute in a fortnight. The
sole use of watches however, is to tell us what o'clock it is,
and to hinder us from breaking any engagement, or suffering any
other inconveniency by our ignorance in that particular point.
But the person so nice with regard to this machine, will not
always be found either more scrupulously punctual than other men,
or more anxiously concerned upon any other account, to know
precisely what time of day it is. What interests him is not so
much the attainment of this piece of knowledge, as the perfection
of the machine which serves to attain it.
How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on
trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys
is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which
are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with
little conveniencies. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the
clothes of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They
walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and
sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew's-box, some of
which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might
at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility
is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.
Nor is it only with regard to such frivolous objects that our
conduct is influenced by this principle; it is often the secret
motive of the most serious and important pursuits of both private
and public life.
The poor man's son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with
ambition, when he begins to look around him, admires the
condition of the rich. He finds the cottage of his father too
small for his accommodation, and fancies he should be lodged more
at his ease in a palace. He is displeased with being obliged to
walk a-foot, or to endure the fatigue of riding on horseback. He
sees his superiors carried about in machines, and imagines that
in one of these he could travel with less inconveniency. He feels
himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve himself with his
own hands as little as possible; and judges, that a numerous
retinue of servants would save him from a great deal of trouble.
He thinks if he had attained all these, he would sit still
contentedly, and be quiet, enjoying himself in the thought of the
happiness and tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with
the distant idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy like
the life of some superior rank of beings, and, in order to arrive
at it, he devotes himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth and
greatness. To obtain the conveniencies which these afford, he
submits in the first year, nay in the first month of his
application, to more fatigue of body and more uneasiness of mind
than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from
the want of them. He studies to distinguish himself in some
laborious profession. With the most unrelenting industry he
labours night and day to acquire talents superior to all his
competitors. He endeavours next to bring those talents into
public view, and with equal assiduity solicits every opportunity
of employment. For this purpose he makes his court to all
mankind; he serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to
those whom he despises. Through the whole of his life he pursues
the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may
never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquillity that
is at all times in his power, and which, if in the extremity of
old age he should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no
respect preferable to that humble security and contentment which
he had abandoned for it. It is then, in the last dregs of life,
his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and
ruffled by the memory of a thousand injuries and disappointments
which he imagines he has met with from the injustice of his
enemies, or from the perfidy and ingratitude of his friends, that
he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are mere
trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease
of body or tranquillity of mind than the tweezer-cases of the
lover of toys; and like them too, more troublesome to the person
who carries them about with him than all the advantages they can
afford him are commodious. There is no other real difference
between them, except that the conveniencies of the one are
somewhat more observable than those of the other. The palaces,
the gardens, the equipage, the retinue of the great, are objects
of which the obvious conveniency strikes every body. They do not
require that their masters should point out to us wherein
consists their utility. Of our own accord we readily enter into
it, and by sympathy enjoy and thereby applaud the satisfaction
which they are fitted to afford him. But the curiosity of a
tooth-pick, of an ear-picker, of a machine for cutting the nails,
or of any other trinket of the same kind, is not so obvious.
Their conveniency may perhaps be equally great, but it is not so
striking, and we do not so readily enter into the satisfaction of
the man who possesses them. They are therefore less reasonable
subjects of vanity than the magnificence of wealth and greatness;
and in this consists the sole advantage of these last. They more
effectually gratify that love of distinction so natural to man.
To one who was to live alone in a desolate island it might be a
matter of doubt, perhaps, whether a palace, or a collection of
such small conveniencies as are commonly contained in a
tweezer-case, would contribute most to his happiness and
enjoyment. If he is to live in society, indeed, there can be no
comparison, because in this, as in all other cases, we constantly
pay more regard to the sentiments of the spectator, than to those
of the person principally concerned, and consider rather how his
situation will appear to other people, than how it will appear to
himself. If we examine, however, why the spectator distinguishes
with such admiration the condition of the rich and the great, we
shall find that it is not so much upon account of the superior
ease or pleasure which they are supposed to enjoy, as of the
numberless artificial and elegant contrivances for promoting this
ease or pleasure. He does not even imagine that they are really
happier than other people: but he imagines that they possess more
means of happiness. And it is the ingenious and artful adjustment
of those means to the end for which they were intended, that is
the principal source of his admiration. But in the languor of
disease and the weariness of old age, the pleasures of the vain
and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this
situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those
toilsome pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his
heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the
indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which
he has foolishly sacrificed for what, when he has got it, can
afford him no real satisfaction. In this miserable aspect does
greatness appear to every man when reduced either by spleen or
disease to observe with attention his own situation, and to
consider what it is that is really wanting to his happiness.
Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and
operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling
conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice
and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious
attention, and which in spite of all our care are ready every
moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their
unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics, which it
requires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten every
moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them, and which
while they stand, though they may save him from some smaller
inconveniencies, can protect him from none of the severer
inclemencies of the season. They keep off the summer shower, not
the winter storm, but leave him always as much, and sometimes
more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to
diseases, to danger, and to death.
But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of
sickness or low spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely
depreciates those great objects of human desire, when in better
health and in better humour, we never fail to regard them under a
more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow
seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in
times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around
us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that accommodation
which reigns in the palaces and oeconomy of the great; and admire
how every thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent
their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain
their most frivolous desires. If we consider the real
satisfaction which all these things are capable of affording, by
itself and separated from the beauty of that arrangement which is
fitted to promote it, it will always appear in the highest degree
contemptible and trifling. But we rarely view it in this abstract
and philosophical light. We naturally confound it in our
imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement
of the system, the machine or oeconomy by means of which it is
produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered
in this complex view, strike the imagination as something grand
and beautiful and noble, of which the attainment is well worth
all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it.
And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It
is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the
industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to
cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and
commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and
arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely
changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests
of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the
trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the
great high road of communication to the different nations of the
earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to
redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater
multitude of inhabitants. It is to no purpose, that the proud and
unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a
thought for the wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes
himself the whole harvest that grows upon them. The homely and
vulgar proverb, that the eye is larger than the belly, never was
more fully verified than with regard to him. The capacity of his
stomach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires, and
will receive no more than that of the meanest peasant. The rest
he is obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the
nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of, among
those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be
consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the
different baubles and trinkets, which are employed in the
oeconomy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury
and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they
would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice. The
produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of
inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only
select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They
consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural
selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own
conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the
labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the
gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they
divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They
are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution
of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the
earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants,
and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the
interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication
of the species. When Providence divided the earth among a few
lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed
to have been left out in the partition. These last too enjoy
their share of all that it produces. In what constitutes the real
happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those
who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of
mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level,
and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway,
possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
The same principle, the same love of system, the same regard
to the beauty of order, of art and contrivance, frequently serves
to recommend those institutions which tend to promote the public
welfare. When a patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any
part of the public police, his conduct does not always arise from
pure sympathy with the happiness of those who are to reap the
benefit of it. It is not commonly from a fellow-feeling with
carriers and waggoners that a public-spirited man encourages the
mending of high roads. When the legislature establishes premiums
and other encouragements to advance the linen or woollen
manufactures, its conduct seldom proceeds from pure sympathy with
the wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much less from that with
the manufacturer or merchant. The perfection of police, the
extension of trade and manufactures, are noble and magnificent
objects. The contemplation of them pleases us, and we are
interested in whatever can tend to advance them. They make part
of the great system of government, and the wheels of the
political machine seem to move with more harmony and ease by
means of them. We take pleasure in beholding the perfection of so
beautiful and grand a system, and we are uneasy till we remove
any obstruction that can in the least disturb or encumber the
regularity of its motions. All constitutions of government,
however, are valued only in proportion as they tend to promote
the happiness of those who live under them. This is their sole
use and end. From a certain spirit of system, however, from a
certain love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value
the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the
happiness of our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to perfect
and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any
immediate sense or feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy.
There have been men of the greatest public spirit, who have shown
themselves in other respects not very sensible to the feelings of
humanity. And on the contrary, there have been men of the
greatest humanity, who seem to have been entirely devoid of
public spirit. Every man may find in the circle of his
acquaintance instances both of the one kind and the other. Who
had ever less humanity, or more public spirit, than the
celebrated legislator of Muscovy? The social and well-natured
James the First of Great Britain seems, on the contrary, to have
had scarce any passion, either for the glory or the interest of
his country. Would you awaken the industry of the man who seems
almost dead to ambition, it will often be to no purpose to
describe to him the happiness of the rich and the great; to tell
him that they are generally sheltered from the sun and the rain,
that they are seldom hungry, that they are seldom cold, and that
they are rarely exposed to weariness, or to want of any kind. The
most eloquent exhortation of this kind will have little effect
upon him. If you would hope to succeed, you must describe to him
the conveniency and arrangement of the different apartments in
their palaces; you must explain to him the propriety of their
equipages, and point out to him the number, the order, and the
different offices of all their attendants. If any thing is
capable of making impression upon him, this will. Yet all these
things tend only to keep off the sun and the rain, to save them
from hunger and cold, from want and weariness. In the same
manner, if you would implant public virtue in the breast of him
who seems heedless of the interest of his country, it will often
be to no purpose to tell him, what superior advantages the
subjects of a well-governed state enjoy; that they are better
lodged, that they are better clothed, that they are better fed.
These considerations will commonly make no great impression. You
will be more likely to persuade, if you describe the great system
of public police which procures these advantages, if you explain
the connexions and dependencies of its several parts, their
mutual subordination to one another, and their general
subserviency to the happiness of the society; if you show how
this system might be introduced into his own country, what it is
that hinders it from taking place there at present, how those
obstructions might be removed, and all the several wheels of the
machine of government be made to move with more harmony and
smoothness, without grating upon one another, or mutually
retarding one another's motions. It is scarce possible that a man
should listen to a discourse of this kind, and not feel himself
animated to some degree of public spirit. He will, at least for
the moment, feel some desire to remove those obstructions, and to
put into motion so beautiful and so orderly a machine. Nothing
tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of politics,
of the several systems of civil government, their advantages and
disadvantages, of the constitution of our own country, its
situation, and interest with regard to foreign nations, its
commerce, its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the
dangers to which it may be exposed, how to remove the one, and
how to guard against the other. Upon this account political
disquisitions, if just, and reasonable, and practicable, are of
all the works of speculation the most useful. Even the weakest
and the worst of them are not altogether without their utility.
They serve at least to animate the public passions of men, and
rouse them to seek out the means of promoting the happiness of
the society.
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.