Section II
Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it can affect the
Happiness of other People
Introduction
The character of every individual, so far as it can affect
the happiness of other people, must do so by its disposition
either to hurt or to benefit them.
Proper resentment for injustice attempted, or actually
committed, is the only motive which, in the eyes of the impartial
spectator, can justify our hurting or disturbing in any respect
the happiness of our neighbour. To do so from any other motive is
itself a violation of the laws of justice, which force ought to
be employed either to restrain or to punish. The wisdom of every
state or commonwealth endeavours, as well as it can, to employ
the force of the society to restrain those who are subject to its
authority, from hurting or disturbing the happiness of one
another. The rules which it establishes for this purpose,
constitute the civil and criminal law of each particular state or
country. The principles upon which those rules either are, or
ought to be founded, are the subject of a particular science, of
all sciences by far the most important, but hitherto, perhaps,
the least cultivated, that of natural jurisprudence,. concerning
which it belongs not to our present subject to enter into any
detail. A sacred and religious regard not to hurt or disturb in
any respect the happiness of our neighbour, even in those cases
where no law can properly protect him, constitutes the character
of the perfectly innocent and just man; a character which, when
carried to a certain delicacy of attention, is always highly
respectable and even venerable for its own sake, and can scarce
ever fail to be accompanied with many other virtues, with great
feeling for other people, with great humanity and great
benevolence. It is a character sufficiently understood, and
requires no further explanation. In the present section I shall
only endeavour to explain the foundation of that order which
nature seems to have traced out for the distribution of our good
offices, or for the direction and employment of our very limited
powers of beneficence: first, towards individuals; and secondly,
towards societies.
The same unerring wisdom, it will be found, which regulates
every other part of her conduct, directs, in this respect too,
the order of her recommendations; which are always stronger or
weaker in proportion as our beneficence is more or less
necessary, or can be more or less useful.
6.2.1. Chap. I
Of the Order in which Individuals are recommended by Nature to
our care and attention
Every man, as the Stoics used to say, is first and
principally recommended to his own care; and every man is
certainly, in every respect, fitter and abler to take care of
himself than of any other person. Every man feels his own
pleasures and his own pains more sensibly than those of other
people. The former are the original sensations; the latter the
reflected or sympathetic images of those sensations. The former
may be said to be the substance; the latter the shadow.
After himself, the members of his own family, those who
usually live in the same house with him, his parents, his
children, his brothers and sisters, are naturally the objects of
his warmest affections. They are naturally and usually the
persons upon whose happiness or misery his conduct must have the
greatest influence. He is more habituated to sympathize with
them. He knows better how every thing is likely to affect them,
and his sympathy with them is more precise and determinate, than
it can be with the greater part of other people. It approaches
nearer, in short, to what he feels for himself.
This sympathy too, and the affections which are founded on
it, are by nature more strongly directed towards his children
than towards his parents, and his tenderness for the former seems
generally a more active principle, than his reverence and
gratitude towards the latter. In the natural state of things, it
has already been observed, the existence of the child, for some
time after it comes into the world, depends altogether upon the
care of the parent; that of the parent does not naturally depend
upon the care of the child. In the eye of nature, it would seem,
a child is a more important object than an old man; and excites a
much more lively, as well as a much more universal sympathy. It
ought to do so. Every thing may be expected, or at least hoped,
from the child. In ordinary cases, very little can be either
expected or hoped from the old man. The weakness of childhood
interests the affections of the most brutal and hard-hearted. It
is only to the virtuous and humane, that the infirmities of old
age are not the objects of contempt and aversion. In ordinary
cases, an old man dies without being much regretted by any body.
Scarce a child can die without rending asunder the heart of
somebody.
The earliest friendships, the friendships which are naturally
contracted when the heart is most susceptible of that feeling,
are those among brothers and sisters. Their good agreement, while
they remain in the same family, is necessary for its tranquillity
and happiness. They are capable of giving more pleasure or pain
to one another than to the greater part of other people. Their
situation renders their mutual sympathy of the utmost importance
to their common happiness; and, by the wisdom of nature, the same
situation, by obliging them to accommodate to one another,
renders that sympathy more habitual, and thereby more lively,
more distinct, and more determinate.
The children of brothers and sisters are naturally connected
by the friendship which, after separating into different
families, continues to take place between their parents. Their
good agreement improves the enjoyment of that friendship; their
discord would disturb it. As they seldom live in the same family,
however, though of more importance to one another, than to the
greater part of other people, they are of much less than brothers
and sisters. As their mutual sympathy is less necessary, so it is
less habitual, and therefore proportionably weaker.
The children of cousins, being still less connected, are of
still less importance to one another; and the affection gradually
diminishes as the relation grows more and more remote.
What is called affection, is in reality nothing but habitual
sympathy. Our concern in the happiness or misery of those who are
the objects of what we call our affections; our desire to promote
the one, and to prevent the other; are either the actual feeling
of that habitual sympathy, or the necessary consequences of that
feeling. Relations being usually placed in situations which
naturally create this habitual sympathy, it is expected that a
suitable degree of affection should take place among them. We
generally find that it actually does take place; we therefore
naturally expect that it should; and we are, upon that account,
more shocked when, upon any occasion, we find that it does not.
The general rule is established, that persons related to one
another in a certain degree, ought always to be affected towards
one another in a certain manner, and that there is always the
highest impropriety, and sometimes even a sort of impiety, in
their being affected in a different manner. A parent without
parental tenderness, a child devoid of all filial reverence,
appear monsters, the objects, not of hatred only, but of horror.
Though in a particular instance, the circumstances which
usually produce those natural affections, as they are called,
may, by some accident, not have taken place, yet respect for the
general rule will frequently, in some measure, supply their
place, and produce something which, though not altogether the
same, may bear, however, a very considerable resemblance to those
affections. A father is apt to be less attached to a child, who,
by some accident, has been separated from him in its infancy, and
who does not return to him till it is grown up to manhood. The
father is apt to feel less paternal tenderness for the child; the
child, less filial reverence for the father. Brothers and
sisters, when they have been educated in distant countries, are
apt to feel a similar diminution of affection. With the dutiful
and the virtuous, however, respect for the general rule will
frequently produce something which, though by no means the same,
yet may very much resemble those natural affections. Even during
the separation, the father and the child, the brothers or the
sisters, are by no means indifferent to one another. They all
consider one another as persons to and from whom certain
affections are due, and they live in the hopes of being some time
or another in a situation to enjoy that friendship which ought
naturally to have taken place among persons so nearly connected.
Till they meet, the absent son, the absent brother, are
frequently the favourite son, the favourite brother. They have
never offended, or, if they have, it is so long ago, that the
offence is forgotten, as some childish trick not worth the
remembering. Every account they have heard of one another, if
conveyed by people of any tolerable good nature, has been, in the
highest degree, flattering and favourable. The absent son, the
absent brother, is not like other ordinary sons and brothers; but
an all-perfect son, an all-perfect brother; and the most romantic
hopes are entertained of the happiness to be enjoyed in the
friendship and conversation of such persons. When they meet, it
is often with so strong a disposition to conceive that habitual
sympathy which constitutes the family affection, that they are
very apt to fancy they have actually conceived it, and to behave
to one another as if they had. Time and experience, however, I am
afraid, too frequently undeceive them. Upon a more familiar
acquaintance, they frequently discover in one another habits,
humours, and inclinations, different from what they expected, to
which, from want of habitual sympathy, from want of the real
principle and foundation of what is properly called
family-affection, they cannot now easily accommodate themselves.
They have never lived in the situation which almost necessarily
forces that easy accommodation, and though they may now be
sincerely desirous to assume it, they have really become
incapable of doing so. Their familiar conversation and
intercourse soon become less pleasing to them, and, upon that
account, less frequent. They may continue to live with one
another in the mutual exchange of all essential good offices, and
with every other external appearance of decent regard. But that
cordial satisfaction, that delicious sympathy, that confidential
openness and ease, which naturally take place in the conversation
of those who have lived long and familiarly with one another, it
seldom happens that they can completely enjoy.
It is only, however, with the dutiful and the virtuous, that
the general rule has even this slender authority. With the
dissipated, the profligate, and the vain, it is entirely
disregarded. They are so far from respecting it, that they seldom
talk of it but with the most indecent derision. and an early and
long separation of this kind never fails to estrange them most
completely from one another. With such persons, respect for the
general rule can at best produce only a cold and affected
civility (a very slender semblance of real regard); and even
this, the slightest offence, the smallest opposition of interest,
commonly puts an end to altogether.
The education of boys at distant great schools, of young men
at distant colleges, of young ladies in distant nunneries and
boarding-schools, seems, in the higher ranks of life, to have
hurt most essentially the domestic morals, and consequently the
domestic happiness, both of France and England. Do you wish to
educate your children to be dutiful to their parents, to be kind
and affectionate to their brothers and sisters? put them under
the necessity of being dutiful children, of being kind and
affectionate brothers and sisters: educate them in your own
house. From their parent's house they may, with propriety and
advantage, go out every day to attend public schools: but let
their dwelling be always at home. Respect for you must always
impose a very useful restraint upon their conduct; and respect
for them may frequently impose no useless restraint upon your
own. Surely no acquirement, which can possibly be derived from
what is called a public education, can make any sort of
compensation for what is almost certainly and necessarily lost by
it. Domestic education is the institution of nature; public
education, the contrivance of man. It is surely unnecessary to
say, which is likely to be the wisest.
In some tragedies and romances, we meet with many beautiful
and interesting scenes, founded upon, what is called, the force
of blood, or upon the wonderful affection which near relations
are supposed to conceive for one another, even before they know
that they have any such connection. This force of blood, however,
I am afraid, exists no-where but in tragedies and romances. Even
in tragedies and romances, it is never supposed to take place
between any relations, but those who are naturally bred up in the
same house; between parents and children, between brothers and
sisters. To imagine any such mysterious affection between
cousins, or even between aunts or uncles, and nephews or nieces,
would be too ridiculous.
In pastoral countries, and in all countries where the
authority of law is not alone sufficient to give perfect security
to every member of the state, all the different branches of the
same family commonly chuse to live in the neighbourhood of one
another. Their association is frequently necessary for their
common defence. They are all, from the highest to the lowest, of
more or less importance to one another. Their concord strengthens
their necessary association; their discord always weakens, and
might destroy it. They have more intercourse with one another,
than with the members of any other tribe. The remotest members of
the same tribe claim some connection with one another; and, where
all other circumstances are equal, expect to be treated with more
distinguished attention than is due to those who have no such
pretensions. It is not many years ago that, in the Highlands of
Scotland, the Chieftain used to consider the poorest man of his
clan, as his cousin and relation. The same extensive regard to
kindred is said to take place among the Tartars, the Arabs, the
Turkomans, and, I believe, among all other nations who are nearly
in the same state of society in which the Scots Highlanders were
about the beginning of the present century.
In commercial countries, where the authority of law is always
perfectly sufficient to protect the meanest man in the state, the
descendants of the same family, having no such motive for keeping
together, naturally separate and disperse, as interest or
inclination may direct. They soon cease to be of importance to
one another; and, in a few generations, not only lose all care
about one another, but all remembrance of their common origin,
and of the connection which took place among their ancestors.
Regard for remote relations becomes, in every country, less and
less, according as this state of civilization has been longer and
more completely established. It has been longer and more
completely established in England than in Scotland; and remote
relations are, accordingly, more considered in the latter country
than in the former, though, in this respect, the difference
between the two countries is growing less and less every day.
Great lords, indeed, are, in every country, proud of remembering
and acknowledging their connection with one another, however
remote. The remembrance of such illustrious relations flatters
not a little the family pride of them all; and it is neither from
affection, nor from any thing which resembles affection, but from
the most frivolous and childish of all vanities, that this
remembrance is so carefully kept up. Should some more humble,
though, perhaps, much nearer kinsman, presume to put such great
men in mind of his relation to their family, they seldom fail to
tell him that they are bad genealogists, and miserably
ill-informed concerning their own family history. It is not in
that order, I am afraid, that we are to expect any extraordinary
extension of, what is called, natural affection.
I consider what is called natural affection as more the
effect of the moral than of the supposed physical connection
between the parent and the child. A jealous husband, indeed,
notwithstanding the moral connection, notwithstanding the child's
having been educated in his own house, often regards, with hatred
and aversion, that unhappy child which he supposes to be the
offspring of his wife's infidelity. It is the lasting monument of
a most disagreeable adventure; of his own dishonour, and of the
disgrace of his family.
Among well-disposed people, the necessity or conveniency of
mutual accommodation, very frequently produces a friendship not
unlike that which takes place among those who are born to live in
the same family. Colleagues in office, partners in trade, call
one another brothers; and frequently feel towards one another as
if they really were so. Their good agreement is an advantage to
all; and, if they are tolerably reasonable people, they are
naturally disposed to agree. We expect that they should do so;
and their disagreement is a sort of a small scandal. The Romans
expressed this sort of attachment by the word necessitudo, which,
from the etymology, seems to denote that it was imposed by the
necessity of the situation.
Even the trifling circumstance of living in the same
neighbourhood, has some effect of the same kind. We respect the
face of a man whom we see every day, provided he has never
offended us. Neighbours can be very convenient, and they can be
very troublesome, to one another. If they are good sort of
people, they are naturally disposed to agree. We expect their
good agreement; and to be a bad neighbour is a very bad
character. There are certain small good offices, accordingly,
which are universally allowed to be due to a neighbour in
preference to any other person who has no such connection.
This natural disposition to accommodate and to assimilate, as
much as we can, our own sentiments, principles, and feelings, to
those which we see fixed and rooted in the persons whom we are
obliged to live and converse a great deal with, is the cause of
the contagious effects of both good and bad company. The man who
associates chiefly with the wise and the virtuous, though he may
not himself become either wise or virtuous, cannot help
conceiving a certain respect at least for wisdom and virtue; and
the man who associates chiefly with the profligate and the
dissolute, though he may not himself become profligate and
dissolute, must soon lose, at least, all his original abhorrence
of profligacy and dissolution of manners. The similarity of
family characters, which we so frequently see transmitted through
several successive generations, may, perhaps, be partly owing to
this disposition, to assimilate ourselves to those whom we are
obliged to live and converse a great deal with. The family
character, however, like the family countenance, seems to be
owing, not altogether to the moral, but partly too to the
physical connection. The family countenance is certainly
altogether owing to the latter.
But of all attachments to an individual, that which is
founded altogether upon the esteem and approbation of his good
conduct and behaviour, confirmed by much experience and long
acquaintance, is, by far, the most respectable. Such friendships,
arising not from a constrained sympathy, not from a sympathy
which has been assumed and rendered habitual for the sake of
conveniency and accommodation; but from a natural sympathy, from
an involuntary feeling that the persons to whom we attach
ourselves are the natural and proper objects of esteem and
approbation; can exist only among men of virtue. Men of virtue
only can feel that entire confidence in the conduct and behaviour
of one another, which can, at all times, assure them that they
can never either offend or be offended by one another. Vice is
always capricious: virtue only is regular and orderly. The
attachment which is founded upon the love of virtue, as it is
certainly, of all attachments, the most virtuous; so it is
likewise the happiest, as well as the most permanent and secure.
Such friendships need not be confined to a single person, but may
safely embrace all the wise and virtuous, with whom we have been
long and intimately acquainted, and upon whose wisdom and virtue
we can, upon that account, entirely depend. They who would
confine friendship to two persons, seem to confound the wise
security of friendship with the jealousy and folly of love. The
hasty, fond, and foolish intimacies of young people, founded,
commonly, upon some slight similarity of character, altogether
unconnected with good conduct, upon a taste, perhaps, for the
same studies, the same amusements, the same diversions, or upon
their agreement in some singular principle or opinion, not
commonly adopted; those intimacies which a freak begins, and
which a freak puts an end to, how agreeable soever they may
appear while they last, can by no means deserve the sacred and
venerable name of friendship.
Of all the persons, however, whom nature points out for our
peculiar beneficence, there are none to whom it seems more
properly directed than to those whose beneficence we have
ourselves already experienced. Nature, which formed men for that
mutual kindness, so necessary for their happiness, renders every
man the peculiar object of kindness, to the persons to whom he
himself has been kind. Though their gratitude should not always
correspond to his beneficence, yet the sense of his merit, the
sympathetic gratitude of the impartial spectator, will always
correspond to it. The general indignation of other people,
against the baseness of their ingratitude, will even, sometimes,
increase the general sense of his merit. No benevolent man ever
lost altogether the fruits of his benevolence. If he does not
always gather them from the persons from whom he ought to have
gathered them, he seldom fails to gather them, and with a tenfold
increase, from other people. Kindness is the parent of kindness;
and if to be beloved by our brethren be the great object of our
ambition, the surest way of obtaining it is, by our conduct to
show that we really love them.
After the persons who are recommended to our beneficence,
either by their connection with ourselves, by their personal
qualities, or by their past services, come those who are pointed
out, not indeed to, what is called, our friendship, but to our
benevolent attention and good offices; those who are
distinguished by their extraordinary situation; the greatly
fortunate and the greatly unfortunate, the rich and the powerful,
the poor and the wretched. The distinction of ranks, the peace
and order of society, are, in a great measure, founded upon the
respect which we naturally conceive for the former. The relief
and consolation of human misery depend altogether upon our
compassion for the latter. The peace and order of society, is of
more importance than even the relief of the miserable. Our
respect for the great, accordingly, is most apt to offend by its
excess; our fellow_feeling for the miserable, by its defect.
Moralists exhort us to charity and compassion. They warn us
against the fascination of greatness. This fascination, indeed,
is so powerful, that the rich and the great are too often
preferred to the wise and the virtuous. Nature has wisely judged
that the distinction of ranks, the peace and order of society,
would rest more securely upon the plain and palpable difference
of birth and fortune, than upon the invisible and often uncertain
difference of wisdom and virtue. The undistinguishing eyes of the
great mob of mankind can well enough perceive the former: it is
with difficulty that the nice discernment of the wise and the
virtuous can sometimes distinguish the latter. In the order of
all those recommendations, the benevolent wisdom of nature is
equally evident.
It may, perhaps, be unnecessary to observe, that the
combination of two, or more, of those exciting causes of
kindness, increases the kindness. The favour and partiality
which, when there is no envy in the case, we naturally bear to
greatness, are much increased when it is joined with wisdom and
virtue. If, notwithstanding that wisdom and virtue, the great man
should fall into those misfortunes, those dangers and distresses,
to which the most exalted stations are often the most exposed, we
are much more deeply interested in his fortune than we should be
in that of a person equally virtuous, but in a more humble
situation. The most interesting subjects of tragedies and
romances are the misfortunes of virtuous and magnanimous kings
and princes. If, by the wisdom and manhood of their exertions,
they should extricate themselves from those misfortunes, and
recover completely their former superiority and security, we
cannot help viewing them with the most enthusiastic and even
extravagant admiration. The grief which we felt for their
distress, the joy which we feel for their prosperity, seem to
combine together in enhancing that partial admiration which we
naturally conceive both for the station and the character.
When those different beneficent affections happen to draw
different ways, to determine by any precise rules in what cases
we ought to comply with the one, and in what with the other, is,
perhaps, altogether impossible. In what cases friendship ought to
yield to gratitude, or gratitude to friend, ship. in what cases
the strongest of all natural affections ought to yield to a
regard for the safety of those superiors upon whose safety often
depends that of the whole society; and in what cases natural
affection may, without impropriety, prevail over that regard;
must be left altogether to the decision of the man within the
breast, the supposed impartial spectator, the great judge and
arbiter of our conduct. If we place ourselves completely in his
situation, if we really view ourselves with his eyes, and as he
views us, and listen with diligent and reverential attention to
what he suggests to us, his voice will never deceive us. We shall
stand in need of no casuistic rules to direct our conduct. These
it is often impossible to accommodate to all the different shades
and gradations of circumstance, character, and situation, to
differences and distinctions which, though not imperceptible,
are, by their nicety and delicacy, often altogether undefinable.
In that beautiful tragedy of Voltaire, the Orphan of China, while
we admire the magnanimity of Zamti, who is willing to sacrifice
the life of his own child, in order to preserve that of the only
feeble remnant of his ancient sovereigns and masters; we not only
pardon, but love the maternal tenderness of Idame, who, at the
risque of discovering the important secret of her husband,
reclaims her infant from the cruel hands of the Tartars, into
which it had been delivered.
6.2.2. Chap. II
Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to our
Beneficence
The same principles that direct the order in which
individuals are recommended to our beneficence, direct that
likewise in which societies are recommended to it. Those to which
it is, or may be of most importance, are first and principally
recommended to it.
The state or sovereignty in which we have been born and
educated, and under the protection of which we continue to live,
is, in ordinary cases, the greatest society upon whose happiness
or misery, our good or bad conduct can have much influence. It is
accordingly, by nature, most strongly recommended to us. Not only
we ourselves, but all the objects of our kindest affections, our
children, our parents, our relations, our friends, our
benefactors, all those whom we naturally love and revere the
most, are commonly comprehended within it; and their prosperity
and safety depend in some measure upon its prosperity and safety.
It is by nature, therefore, endeared to us, not only by all our
selfish, but by all our private benevolent affections. Upon
account of our own connexion with it, its prosperity and glory
seem to reflect some sort of honour upon ourselves. When we
compare it with other societies of the same kind, we are proud of
its superiority, and mortified in some degree, if it appears in
any respect below them. All the illustrious characters which it
has produced in former times (for against those of our own times
envy may sometimes prejudice us a little), its warriors, its
statesmen, its poets, its philosophers, and men of letters of all
kinds; we are disposed to view with the most partial admiration,
and to rank them (sometimes most unjustly) above those of all
other nations. The patriot who lays down his life for the safety,
or even for the vain-glory of this society, appears to act with
the most exact propriety. He appears to view himself in the light
in which the impartial spectator naturally and necessarily views
him, as but one of the multitude, in the eye of that equitable
judge, of no more consequence than any other in it, but bound at
all times to sacrifice and devote himself to the safety, to the
service, and even to the glory of the greater number. But though
this sacrifice appears to be perfectly just and proper, we know
how difficult it is to make it, and how few people are capable of
making it. His conduct, therefore, excites not only our entire
approbation, but our highest wonder and admiration, and seems to
merit all the applause which can be due to the most heroic
virtue. The traitor, on the contrary, who, in some peculiar
situation, fancies he can promote his own little interest by
betraying to the public enemy that of his native country. who,
regardless of the judgment of the man within the breast, prefers
himself, in this respect so shamefully and so basely, to all
those with whom he has any connexion; appears to be of all
villains the most detestable.
The love of our own nation often disposes us to view, with
the most malignant jealousy and envy, the prosperity and
aggrandisement of any other neighbouring nation. Independent and
neighbouring nations, having no common superior to decide their
disputes, all live in continual dread and suspicion of one
another. Each sovereign, expecting little justice from his
neighbours, is disposed to treat them with as little as he
expects from them. The regard for the laws of nations, or for
those rules which independent states profess or pretend to think
themselves bound to observe in their dealings with one another,
is often very little more than mere pretence and profession. From
the smallest interest, upon the slightest provocation, we see
those rules every day, either evaded or directly violated without
shame or remorse. Each nation foresees, or imagines it foresees,
its own subjugation in the increasing power and aggrandisement of
any of its neighbours; and the mean principle of national
prejudice is often founded upon the noble one of the love of our
own country. The sentence with which the elder Cato is said to
have concluded every speech which he made in the senate, whatever
might be the subject, 'It is my opinion likewise that Carthage
ought to be destroyed,' was the natural expression of the savage
patriotism of a strong but coarse mind, enraged almost to madness
against a foreign nation from which his own had suffered so much.
The more humane sentence with which Scipio Nasica is said to have
concluded all his speeches, 'It is my opinion likewise that
Carthage ought not to be destroyed,' was the liberal expression
of a more enlarged and enlightened mind, who felt no aversion to
the prosperity even of an old enemy, when reduced to a state
which could no longer be formidable to Rome. France and England
may each of them have some reason to dread the increase of the
naval and military power of the other; but for either of them to
envy the internal happiness and prosperity of the other, the
cultivation of its lands, the advancement of its manufactures,
the increase of its commerce, the security and number of its
ports and harbours, its proficiency in all the liberal arts and
sciences, is surely beneath the dignity of two such great
nations. These are all real improvements of the world we live in.
Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In such
improvements each nation ought, not only to endeavour itself to
excel, but from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of
obstructing the excellence of its neighbours. These are all
proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice
or envy.
The love of our own country seems not to be derived from the
love of mankind. The former sentiment is altogether independent
of the latter, and seems sometimes even to dispose us to act
inconsistently with it. France may contain, perhaps, near three
times the number of inhabitants which Great Britain contains. In
the great society of mankind, therefore, the prosperity of France
should appear to be an object of much greater importance than
that of Great Britain. The British subject, however, who, upon
that account, should prefer upon all occasions the prosperity of
the former to that of the latter country, would not be thought a
good citizen of Great Britain. We do not love our country merely
as a part of the great society of mankind: we love it for its own
sake, and independently of any such consideration. That wisdom
which contrived the system of human affections, as well as that
of every other part of nature, seems to have judged that the
interest of the great society of mankind would be best promoted
by directing the principal attention of each individual to that
particular portion of it, which was most within the sphere both
of his abilities and of his understanding.
National prejudices and hatreds seldom extend beyond
neighbouring nations. We very weakly and foolishly, perhaps, call
the French our natural enemies; and they perhaps, as weakly and
foolishly, consider us in the same manner. Neither they nor we
bear any sort of envy to the prosperity of China or Japan. It
very rarely happens, however, that our good-will towards such
distant countries can be exerted with much effect.
The most extensive public benevolence which can commonly be
exerted with any considerable effect, is that of the statesmen,
who project and form alliances among neighbouring or not very
distant nations, for the preservation either of, what is called,
the balance of power, or of the general peace and tranquillity of
the states within the circle of their negotiations. The
statesmen, however, who plan and execute such treaties, have
seldom any thing in view, but the interest of their respective
countries. Sometimes, indeed, their views are more extensive. The
Count d'Avaux, the plenipotentiary of France, at the treaty of
Munster, would have been willing to sacrifice his life (according
to the Cardinal de Retz, a man not over-credulous in the virtue
of other people) in order to have restored, by that treaty, the
general tranquillity of Europe. King William seems to have had a
real zeal for the liberty and independency of the greater part of
the sovereign states of Europe; which, perhaps, might be a good
deal stimulated by his particular aversion to France, the state
from which, during his time, that liberty and independency were
principally in danger. Some share of the same spirit seems to
have descended to the first ministry of Queen Anne.
Every independent state is divided into many different orders
and societies, each of which has its own particular powers,
privileges, and immunities. Every individual is naturally more
attached to his own particular order or society, than to any
other. His own interest, his own vanity the interest and vanity
of many of his friends and companions, are commonly a good deal
connected with it. He is ambitious to extend its privileges and
immunities. He is zealous to defend them against the
encroachments of every other order or society.
Upon the manner in which any state is divided into the
different orders and societies which compose it, and upon the
particular distribution which has been made of their respective
powers, privileges, and immunities, depends, what is called, the
constitution of that particular state.
Upon the ability of each particular order or society to
maintain its own powers, privileges, and immunities, against the
encroachments of every other, depends the stability of that
particular constitution. That particular constitution is
necessarily more or less altered, whenever any of its subordinate
parts is either raised above or depressed below whatever had been
its former rank and condition.
All those different orders and societies are dependent upon
the state to which they owe their security and protection. That
they are all subordinate to that state, and established only in
subserviency to its prosperity and preservation, is a truth
acknowledged by the most partial member of every one of them. It
may often, however, be hard to convince him that the prosperity
and preservation of the state require any diminution of the
powers, privileges, and immunities of his own particular order or
society. This partiality, though it may sometimes be unjust, may
not, upon that account, be useless. It checks the spirit of
innovation. It tends to preserve whatever is the established
balance among the different orders and societies into which the
state is divided; and while it sometimes appears to obstruct some
alterations of government which may be fashionable and popular at
the time, it contributes in reality to the stability and
permanency of the whole system.
The love of our country seems, in ordinary cases, to involve
in it two different principles; first, a certain respect and
reverence for that constitution or form of government which is
actually established; and secondly, an earnest desire to render
the condition of our fellow-citizens as safe, respectable, and
happy as we can. He is not a citizen who is not disposed to
respect the laws and to obey the civil magistrate; and he is
certainly not a good citizen who does not wish to promote, by
every means in his power, the welfare of the whole society of his
fellow-citizens.
In peaceable and quiet times, those two principles generally
coincide and lead to the same conduct. The support of the
established government seems evidently the best expedient for
maintaining the safe, respectable, and happy situation of our
fellow-citizens; when we see that this government actually
maintains them in that situation. But in times of public
discontent, faction, and disorder, those two different principles
may draw different ways, and even a wise man may be disposed to
think some alteration necessary in that constitution or form of
government, which, in its actual condition, appears plainly
unable to maintain the public tranquillity. In such cases,
however, it often requires, perhaps, the highest effort of
political wisdom to determine when a real patriot ought to
support and endeavour to re-establish the authority of the old
system, and when he ought to give way to the more daring, but
often dangerous spirit of innovation.
Foreign war and civil faction are the two situations which
afford the most splendid opportunities for the display of public
spirit. The hero who serves his country successfully in foreign
war gratifies the wishes of the whole nation, and is, upon that
account, the object of universal gratitude and admiration. In
times of civil discord, the leaders of the contending parties,
though they may be admired by one half of their fellow-citizens,
are commonly execrated by the other. Their characters and the
merit of their respective services appear commonly more doubtful.
The glory which is acquired by foreign war is, upon this account,
almost always more pure and more splendid than that which can be
acquired in civil faction.
The leader of the successful party, however, if he has
authority enough to prevail upon his own friends to act with
proper temper and moderation (which he frequently has not), may
sometimes render to his country a service much more essential and
important than the greatest victories and the most extensive
conquests. He may re-establish and improve the constitution, and
from the very doubtful and ambiguous character of the leader of a
party, he may assume the greatest and noblest of all characters,
that of the reformer and legislator of a great state; and, by the
wisdom of his institutions, secure the internal tranquillity and
happiness of his fellow-citizens for many succeeding generations.
Amidst the turbulence and disorder of faction, a certain
spirit of system is apt to mix itself with that public spirit
which is founded upon the love of humanity, upon a real
fellow-feeling with the inconveniencies and distresses to which
some of our fellow-citizens may be exposed. This spirit of system
commonly takes the direction of that more gentle public spirit;
always animates it, and often inflames it even to the madness of
fanaticism. The leaders of the discontented party seldom fail to
hold out some plausible plan of reformation which, they pretend,
will not only remove the inconveniencies and relieve the
distresses immediately complained of, but will prevent, in all
time coming, any return of the like inconveniencies and
distresses. They often propose, upon this account, to new-model
the constitution, and to alter, in some of its most essential
parts, that system of government under which the subjects of a
great empire have enjoyed, perhaps, peace, security, and even
glory, during the course of several centuries together. The great
body of the party are commonly intoxicated with the imaginary
beauty of this ideal system, of which they have no experience,
but which has been represented to them in all the most dazzling
colours in which the eloquence of their leaders could paint it.
Those leaders themselves, though they originally may have meant
nothing but their own aggrandisement, become many of them in time
the dupes of their own sophistry, and are as eager for this great
reformation as the weakest and foolishest of their followers.
Even though the leaders should have preserved their own heads, as
indeed they commonly do, free from this fanaticism, yet they dare
not always disappoint the expectation of their followers; but are
often obliged, though contrary to their principle and their
conscience, to act as if they were under the common delusion. The
violence of the party, refusing all palliatives, all
temperaments, all reasonable accommodations, by requiring too
much frequently obtains nothing; and those inconveniencies and
distresses which, with a little moderation, might in a great
measure have been removed and relieved, are left altogether
without the hope of a remedy.
The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by
humanity and benevolence, will respect the established powers and
privileges eVen of individuals, and still more those of the great
orders and societies, into which the state is divided. Though he
should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will
content himself with moderating, what he often cannot annihilate
without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted
prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not
attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe
what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim of Plato,
never to use violence to his country no more than to his parents.
He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements
to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will
remedy as well as he can, the inconveniencies which may flow from
the want of those regulations which the people are averse to
submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not
disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot
establish the best system of laws, he will endeavour to establish
the best that the people can bear.
The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in
his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed
beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer
the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to
establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard
either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which
may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the
different members of a great society with as much ease as the
hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does
not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other
principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon
them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every
single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether
different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress
upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same
direction, the game of human society will go on easily and
harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If
they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably,
and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of
disorder.
Some general, and even systematical, idea of the perfection
of policy and law, may no doubt be necessary for directing the
views of the statesman. But to insist upon establishing, and upon
establishing all at once, and in spite of all opposition, every
thing which that idea may seem to require, must often be the
highest degree of arrogance. It is to erect his own judgment into
the supreme standard of right and wrong. It is to fancy himself
the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth, and that his
fellow-citizens should accommodate themselves to him and not he
to them. It is upon this account, that of all political
speculators, sovereign princes are by far the most dangerous.
This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them. They entertain no
doubt of the immense superiority of their own judgment. When such
imperial and royal reformers, therefore, condescend to
contemplate the constitution of the country which is committed to
their government, they seldom see any thing so wrong in it as the
obstructions which it may sometimes oppose to the execution of
their own will. They hold in contempt the divine maxim of Plato,
and consider the state as made for themselves, not themselves for
the state. The great object of their reformation, therefore, is
to remove those obstructions; to reduce the authority of the
nobility; to take away the privileges of cities and provinces,
and to render both the greatest individuals and the greatest
orders of the state, as incapable of opposing their commands, as
the weakest and most insignificant.
6.2.3. Chap. III
Of universal Benevolence
Though our effectual good offices can very seldom be extended
to any wider society than that of our own country; our good-will
is circumscribed by no boundary, but may embrace the immensity of
the universe. We cannot form the idea of any innocent and
sensible being, whose happiness we should not desire, or to whose
misery, when distinctly brought home to the imagination, we
should not have some degree of aversion. The idea of a
mischievous, though sensible, being, indeed, naturally provokes
our hatred: but the ill-will which, in this case, we bear to it,
is really the effect of our universal benevolence. It is the
effect of the sympathy which we feel with the misery and
resentment of those other innocent and sensible beings, whose
happiness is disturbed by its malice.
This universal benevolence, how noble and generous soever,
can be the source of no solid happiness to any man who is not
thoroughly convinced that all the inhabitants of the universe,
the meanest as well as the greatest, are under the immediate care
and protection of that great, benevolent, and all-wise Being, who
directs all the movements of nature; and who is determined, by
his own unalterable perfections, to maintain in it, at all times,
the greatest possible quantity of happiness. To this universal
benevolence, on the contrary, the very suspicion of a fatherless
world, must be the most melancholy of all reflections; from the
thought that all the unknown regions of infinite and
incomprehensible space may be filled with nothing but endless
misery and wretchedness. All the splendour of the highest
prosperity can never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful
an idea must necessarily over-shadow the imagination; nor, in a
wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the most afflicting
adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the
habitual and thorough conviction of the truth of the contrary
system.
The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his
own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest
of his own particular order or society. He is at all times
willing, too, that the interest of this order or society should
be sacrificed to the greater interest of the state or
sovereignty, of which it is only a subordinate part. He should,
therefore, be equally willing that all those inferior interests
should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the universe, to
the interest of that great society of all sensible and
intelligent beings, of which God himself is the immediate
administrator and director. If he is deeply impressed with the
habitual and thorough conviction that this benevolent and
all-wise Being can admit into the system of his government, no
partial evil which is not necessary for the universal good, he
must consider all the misfortunes which may befal himself, his
friends, his society, or his country, as necessary for the
prosperity of the universe, and therefore as what he ought, not
only to submit to with resignation, but as what he himself, if he
had known all the connexions and dependencies of things, ought
sincerely and devoutly to have wished for.
Nor does this magnanimous resignation to the will of the
great Director of the universe, seem in any respect beyond the
reach of human nature. Good soldiers, who both love and trust
their general, frequently march with more gaiety and alacrity to
the forlorn station, from which they never expect to return, than
they would to one where there was neither difficulty nor danger.
In marching to the latter, they could feel no other sentiment
than that of the dulness of ordinary duty: in marching to the
former, they feel that they are making the noblest exertion which
it is possible for man to make. They know that their general
would not have ordered them upon this station, had it not been
necessary for the safety of the army, for the success of the war.
They cheerfully sacrifice their own little systems to the
prosperity of a greater system. They take an affectionate leave
of their comrades, to whom they wish all happiness and success;
and march out, not only with submissive obedience, but often with
shouts of the most joyful exultation, to that fatal, but splendid
and honourable station to which they are appointed. No conductor
of an army can deserve more unlimited trust, more ardent and
zealous affection, than the great Conductor of the universe. In
the greatest public as well as private disasters, a wise man
ought to consider that he himself, his friends and countrymen,
have only been ordered upon the forlorn station of the universe;
that had it not been necessary for the good of the whole, they
would not have been so ordered; and that it is their duty, not
only with humble resignation to submit to this allotment, but to
endeavour to embrace it with alacrity and joy. A wise man should
surely be capable of doing what a good soldier holds himself at
all times in readiness to do.
The idea of that divine Being, whose benevolence and wisdom
have, from all eternity, contrived and conducted the immense
machine of the universe, so as at all times to produce the
greatest possible quantity of happiness, is certainly of all the
objects of human contemplation by far the most sublime. Every
other thought necessarily appears mean in the comparison. The man
whom we believe to be principally occupied in this sublime
contemplation, seldom fails to be the object of our highest
veneration; and though his life should be altogether
contemplative, we often regard him with a sort of religious
respect much superior to that with which we look upon the most
active and useful servant of the commonwealth. The Meditations of
Marcus Antoninus, which turn principally upon this subject, have
contributed more, perhaps, to the general admiration of his
character, than all the different transactions of his just,
merciful, and beneficent reign.
The administration of the great system of the universe,
however, the care of the universal happiness of all rational and
sensible beings, is the business of God and not of man. To man is
allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to
the weakness of his powers, and to the narrowness of his
comprehension; the care of his own happiness, of that of his
family, his friends, his country: that he is occupied in
contemplating the more sublime, can never be an excuse for his
neglecting the more humble department; and he must not expose
himself to the charge which Avidius Cassius is said to have
brought, perhaps unjustly, against Marcus Antoninus; that while
he employed himself in philosophical speculations, and
contemplated the prosperity of the universe, he neglected that of
the Roman empire. The most sublime speculation of the
contemplative philosopher can scarce compensate the neglect of
the smallest active duty.