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.