Section III
Of the Different Systems which have been Formed Concerning the
Principle of Approbation
Introduction
After the inquiry concerning the nature of virtue, the next
question of importance in Moral Philosophy, is concerning the
principle of approbation, concerning the power or faculty of the
mind which renders certain characters agreeable or disagreeable
to us, makes us prefer one tenour of conduct to another,
denominate the one right and the other wrong, and consider the
one as the object of approbation, honour, and reward; the other
as that of blame, censure, and punishment.
Three different accounts have been given of this principle of
approbation. According to some, we approve and disapprove both of
our own actions and of those of others, from self-love only, or
from some view of their tendency to our own happiness or
disadvantage: according to others, reason, the same faculty by
which we distinguish between truth and falsehood, enables us to
distinguish between what is fit and unfit both in actions and
affections: accorDing to others this distinction is altogether
the effect of immediate sentiment and feeling, and arises from
the satisfaction or disgust with which the view of certain
actions or affections inspires us. Self-love, reason, and
sentiment, therefore, are the three different sources which have
been assigned for the principle of approbation.
Before I proceed to give an account of those different
systems, I must observe, that the determination of this second
question, though of the greatest importance in speculation, is of
none in practice. The question concerning the nature of virtue
necessarily has some influence upon our notions of right and
wrong in many particular cases. That concerning the principle of
approbation can possibly have no such effect. To examine from
what contrivance or mechanism within, those different notions or
sentiments arise, is a mere matter of philosophical curiosity.
7.3.1. Chap. I
Of those Systems which deduce the Principle of Approbation from
Self-love
Those who account for the principle of approbation from
self-love, do not all account for it in the same manner, and
there is a good deal of confusion and inaccuracy in all their
different systems. According to Mr Hobbes, and many of his
followers,[15] man is driven to take refuge in society, not by
any natural love which he bears to his own kind, but because
without the assistance of others he is incapable of subsisting
with ease or safety. Society, upon this account, becomes
necessary to him, and whatever tends to its support and welfare,
he considers as having a remote tendency to his own interest;
and, on the contrary, whatever is likely to disturb or destroy
it, he regards as in some measure hurtful or pernicious to
himself. Virtue is the great support, and vice the great
disturber of human society. The former, therefore, is agreeable,
and the latter offensive to every man; as from the one he
foresees the prosperity, and from the other the ruin and disorder
of what is so necessary for the comfort and security of his
existence.
That the tendency of virtue to promote, and of vice to
disturb the order of society, when we consider it coolly and
philosophically, reflects a very great beauty upon the one, and a
very great deformity upon the other, cannot, as I have observed
upon a former occasion, be called in question. Human society,
when we contemplate it in a certain abstract and philosophical
light, appears like a great, an immense machine, whose regular
and harmonious movements produce a thousand agreeable effects. As
in any other beautiful and noble machine that was the production
of human art, whatever tended to render its movements more smooth
and easy, would derive a beauty from this effect, and, on the
contrary, whatever tended to obstruct them would displease upon
that account: so virtue, which is, as it were, the fine polish to
the wheels of society, necessarily pleases; while vice, like the
vile rust, which makes them jar and grate upon one another, is as
necessarily offensive. This account, therefore, of the origin of
approbation and disapprobation, so far as it derives them from a
regard to the order of society, runs into that principle which
gives beauty to utility, and which I have explained upon a former
occasion; and it is from thence that this system derives all that
appearance of probability which it possesses. When those authors
describe the innumerable advantages of a cultivated and social,
above a savage and solitary life; when they expatiate upon the
necessity of virtue and good order for the maintenance of the
one, and demonstrate how infallibly the prevalence of vice and
disobedience to the laws tend to bring back the other, the reader
is charmed with the novelty and grandeur of those views which
they open to him: he sees plainly a new beauty in virtue, and a
new deformity in vice, which he had never taken notice of before,
and is commonly so delighted with the discovery, that he seldom
takes time to reflect, that this political view, having never
occurred to him in his life before, cannot possibly be the ground
of that approbation and disapprobation with which he has always
been accustomed to consider those different qualities.
When those authors, on the other hand, deduce from self-love
the interest which we take in the welfare of society, and the
esteem which upon that account we bestow upon virtue, they do not
mean, that when we in this age applaud the virtue of Cato, and
detest the villany of Catiline, our sentiments are influenced by
the notion of any benefit we receive from the one, or of any
detriment we suffer from the other. It was not because the
prosperity or subversion of society, in those remote ages and
nations, was apprehended to have any influence upon our happiness
or misery in the present times; that according to those
philosophers, we esteemed the virtuous, and blamed the disorderly
characters. They never imagined that our sentiments were
influenced by any benefit or damage which we supposed actually to
redound to us, from either; but by that which might have
redounded to us, had we lived in those distant ages and
countries; or by that which might still redound to us, if in our
own times we should meet with characters of the same kind. The
idea, in short, which those authors were groping about, but which
they were never able to unfold distinctly, was that indirect
sympathy which we feel with the gratitude or resentment of those
who received the benefit or suffered the damage resulting from
such opposite characters: and it was this which they were
indistinctly pointing at, when they said, that it was not the
thought of what we had gained or suffered which prompted our
applause or indignation, but the conception or imagination of
what we might gain or suffer if we were to act in society with
such associates.
Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a
selfish principle. When I sympathize with your sorrow or your
indignation, it may be pretended, indeed, that my emotion is
founded in self-love, because it arises from bringing your case
home to myself, from putting myself in your situation, and thence
conceiving what I should feel in the like circumstances. But
though sympathy is very properly said to arise from an imaginary
change of situations with the person principally concerned, yet
this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in my own
person and character, but in that of the person with whom I
sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your only
son, in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I,
a person of such a character and profession, should suffer, if I
had a son, and if that son was unfortunately to die: but I
consider what I should suffer if I was really you, and I not only
change circumstances with you, but I change persons and
characters. My grief, therefore, is entirely upon your account,
and not in the least upon my own. It is not, therefore, in the
least selfish. How can that be regarded as a selfish passion,
which does not arise even from the imagination of any thing that
has befallen, or that relates to myself, in my own proper person
and character, but which is entirely occupied about what relates
to you? A man may sympathize with a woman in child-bed; though it
is impossible that he should conceive himself as suffering her
pains in his own proper person and character. That whole account
of human nature, however, which deduces all sentiments and
affections from self-love, which has made so much noise in the
world, but which, so far as I know, has never yet been fully and
distinctly explained, seems to me to have arisen from some
confused misapprehension of the system of sympathy.
[15.]
Puffendorff, Mandeville.
7.3.2. Chap. II
Of those Systems which make Reason the Principle of Approbation
It is well known to have been the doctrine of Mr Hobbes, that
a state of nature is a state of war; and that antecedent to the
institution of civil government there could be no safe or
peaceable society among men. To preserve society, therefore,
according to him, was to support civil government, and to destroy
civil government was the same thing as to put an end to society.
But the existence of civil government depends upon the obedience
that is paid to the supreme magistrate. The moment he loses his
authority, all government is at an end. As self-preservation,
therefore, teaches men to applaud whatever tends to promote the
welfare of society, and to blame whatever is likely to hurt it;
so the same principle, if they would think and speak
consistently, ought to teach them to applaud upon all occasions
obedience to the civil magistrate, and to blame all disobedience
and rebellion. The very ideas of laudable and blamable, ought to
be the same with those of obedience and disobedience. The laws of
the civil magistrate, therefore, ought to be regarded as the sole
ultimate standards of what was just and unjust, of what was right
and wrong.
It was the avowed intention of Mr Hobbes, by propagating
these notions, to subject the consciences of men immediately to
the civil, and not to the ecclesiastical powers, whose turbulence
and ambition, he had been taught, by the example of his own
times, to regard as the principal source of the disorders of
society. His doctrine, upon this account, was peculiarly
offensive to theologians, who accorDingly did not fail to vent
their indignation against him with great asperity and bitterness.
It was likewise offensive to all sound moralists, as it supposed
that there was no natural distinction between right and wrong,
that these were mutable and changeable, and depended upon the
mere arbitrary will of the civil magistrate. This account of
things, therefore, was attacked from all quarters, and by all
sorts of weapons, by sober reason as well as by furious
declamation.
In order to confute so odious a doctrine, it was necessary to
prove, that antecedent to all law or positive institution, the
mind was naturally endowed with a faculty, by which it
distinguished in certain actions and affections, the qualities of
right, laudable, and virtuous, and in others those of wrong,
blamable, and vicious.
Law, it was justly observed by Dr Cudworth,[16] could not be
the original source of those distinctions; since upon the
supposition of such a law, it must either be right to obey it,
and wrong to disobey it, or indifferent whether we obeyed it, or
disobeyed it. That law which it was indifferent whether we obeyed
or disobeyed, could not, it was evident, be the source of those
distinctions; neither could that which it was right to obey and
wrong to disobey, since even this still supposed the antecedent
notions or ideas of right and wrong, and that obedience to the
law was conformable to the idea of right, and disobedience to
that of wrong.
Since the mind, therefore, had a notion of those distinctions
antecedent to all law, it seemed necessarily to follow, that it
derived this notion from reason, which pointed out the difference
between right and wrong, in the same manner in which it did that
between truth and falsehood: and this conclusion, which, though
true in some respects, is rather hasty in others, was more easily
received at a time when the abstract science of human nature was
but in its infancy, and before the distinct offices and powers of
the different faculties of the human mind had been carefully
examined and distinguished from one another. When this
controversy with Mr Hobbes was carried on with the greatest
warmth and keenness, no other faculty had been thought of from
which any such ideas could possibly be supposed to arise. It
became at this time, therefore, the popular doctrine, that the
essence of virtue and vice did not consist in the conformity or
disagreement of human actions with the law of a superior, but in
their conformity or disagreement with reason, which was thus
considered as the original source and principle of approbation
and disapprobation.
That virtue consists in conformity to reason, is true in some
respects, and this faculty may very justly be considered as, in
some sense, the source and principle of approbation and
disapprobation, and of all solid judgments concerning right and
wrong. It is by reason that we discover those general rules of
justice by which we ought to regulate our actions: and it is by
the same faculty that we form those more vague and indeterminate
ideas of what is prudent, of what is decent, of what is generous
or noble, which we carry constantly about with us, and according
to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the tenor of
our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like all
other general maxims, from experience and induction. We observe
in a great variety of particular cases what pleases or displeases
our moral faculties, what these approve or disapprove of, and, by
induction from this experience, we establish those general rules.
But induction is always regarded as one of the operations of
reason. From reason, therefore, we are very properly said to
derive all those general maxims and ideas. It is by these,
however, that we regulate the greater part of our moral
judgments, which would be extremely uncertain and precarious if
they depended altogether upon what is liable to so many
variations as immediate sentiment and feeling, which the
different states of health and humour are capable of altering so
essentially. As our most solid judgments, therefore, with regard
to right and wrong, are regulated by maxims and ideas derived
from an induction of reason, virtue may very properly be said to
consist in a conformity to reason, and so far this faculty may be
considered as the source and principle of approbation and
disapprobation.
But though reason is undoubtedly the source of the general
rules of morality, and of all the moral judgments which we form
by means of them; it is altogether absurd and unintelligible to
suppose that the first perceptions of right and wrong can be
derived from reason, even in those particular cases upon the
experience of which the general rules are formed. These first
perceptions, as well as all other experiments upon which any
general rules are founded, cannot be the object of reason, but of
immediate sense and feeling. It is by finding in a vast variety
of instances that one tenor of conduct constantly pleases in a
certain manner, and that another as constantly displeases the
mind, that we form the general rules of morality. But reason
cannot render any particular object either agreeable or
disagreeable to the mind for its own sake. Reason may show that
this object is the means of obtaining some other which is
naturally either pleasing or displeasing, and in this manner may
render it either agreeable or disagreeable for the sake of
something else. But nothing can be agreeable or disagreeable for
its own sake, which is not rendered such by immediate sense and
feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every particular instance,
necessarily pleases for its own sake, and if vice as certainly
displeases the mind, it cannot be reason, but immediate sense and
feeling, which, in this manner, reconciles us to the one, and
alienates us from the other.
Pleasure and pain are the great objects of desire and
aversion: but these are distinguished not by reason, but by
immediate sense and feeling. If virtue, therefore, be desirable
for its own sake, and if vice be, in the same manner, the object
of aversion, it cannot be reason which originally distinguishes
those different qualities, but immediate sense and feeling.
As reason, however, in a certain sense, may justly be
considered as the principle of approbation and disapprobation,
these sentiments were, through inattention, long regarded as
originally flowing from the operations of this faculty. Dr
Hutcheson had the merit of being the first who distinguished with
any degree of precision in what respect all moral distinctions
may be said to arise from reason, and in what respect they are
founded upon immediate sense and feeling. In his illustrations
upon the moral sense he has explained this so fully, and, in my
opinion, so unanswerably, that, if any controversy is still kept
up about this subject, I can impute it to nothing, but either to
inattention to what that gentleman has written, or to a
superstitious attachment to certain forms of expression, a
weakness not very uncommon among the learned, especially in
subjects so deeply interesting as the present, in which a man of
virtue is often loath to abandon, even the propriety of a single
phrase which he has been accustomed to.
[16.]
Immutable Morality, l. 1.
7.3.3. Chap. III
Of those Systems which make Sentiment the Principle of
Approbation
Those systems which make sentiment the principle of
approbation may be divided into two different classes.
I. According to some the principle of approbation is founded
upon a sentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of
perception exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or
affections; some of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable
and others in a disagreeable manner, the former are stamped with
the characters of right, laudable, and virtuous; the latter with
those of wrong, blamable, and vicious. This sentiment being of a
peculiar nature distinct from every other, and the effect of a
particular power of perception, they give it a particular name,
and call it a moral sense.
II. According to others, in order to account for the
principle of approbation, there is no occasion for supposing any
new power of perception which had never been heard of before:
Nature, they imagine, acts here, as in all other cases, with the
strictest oeconomy, and produces a multitude of effects from one
and the same cause; and sympathy, a power which has always been
taken notice of, and with which the mind is manifestly endowed,
is, they think, sufficient to account for all the effects
ascribed to this peculiar faculty.
I. Dr Hutcheson[17] had been at great pains to prove that
the principle of approbation was not founded on self-love. He had
demonstrated too that it could not arise from any operation of
reason. Nothing remained, he thought, but to suppose it a faculty
of a peculiar kind, with which Nature had endowed the human mind,
in order to produce this one particular and important effect.
When self-love and reason were both excluded, it did not occur to
him that there was any other known faculty of the mind which
could in any respect answer this purpose.
This new power of perception he called a moral sense, and
supposed it to be somewhat analogous to the external senses. As
the bodies around us, by affecting these in a certain manner,
appear to possess the different qualities of sound, taste, odour,
colour; so the various affections of the human mind, by touching
this particular faculty in a certain manner, appear to possess
the different qualities of amiable and odious, of virtuous and
vicious, of right and wrong.
The various senses or powers of perception,[18] from which
the human mind derives all its simple ideas, were, according to
this system, of two different kinds, of which the one were called
the direct or antecedent, the other, the reflex or consequent
senses. The direct senses were those faculties from which the
mind derived the perception of such species of things as did not
presuppose the antecedent perception of any other. Thus sounds
and colours were objects of the direct senses. To hear a sound or
to see a colour does not presuppose the antecedent perception of
any other quality or object. The reflex or consequent senses, on
the other hand, were those faculties from which the mind derived
the perception of such species of things as presupposed the
antecedent perception of some other. Thus harmony and beauty were
objects of the reflex senses. In order to perceive the harmony of
a sound, or the beauty of a colour, we must first perceive the
sound or the colour. The moral sense was considered as a faculty
of this kind. That faculty, which Mr Locke calls reflection, and
from which he derived the simple ideas of the different passions
and emotions of the human mind, was, according to Dr Hutcheson, a
direct internal sense. That faculty again by which we perceived
the beauty or deformity, the virtue or vice of those different
passions and emotions, was a reflex, internal sense.
Dr Hutcheson endeavoured still further to support this
doctrine, by shewing that it was agreeable to the analogy of
nature, and that the mind was endowed with a variety of other
reflex senses exactly similar to the moral sense; such as a sense
of beauty and deformity in external objects; a public sense, by
which we sympathize with the happiness or misery of our
fellow-creatures; a sense of shame and honour, and a sense of
ridicule.
But notwithstanding all the pains which this ingenious
philosopher has taken to prove that the principle of approbation
is founded in a peculiar power of perception, somewhat analogous
to the external senses, there are some consequences, which he
acknowledges to follow from this doctrine, that will, perhaps, be
regarded by many as a sufficient confutation of it. The qualities
he allows,[19] which belong to the objects of any sense, cannot,
without the greatest absurdity, be ascribed to the sense itself.
Who ever thought of calling the sense of seeing black or white,
the sense of hearing loud or low, or the sense of tasting sweet
or bitter? And, according to him, it is equally absurd to call
our moral faculties virtuous or vicious, morally good or evil.
These qualities belong to the objects of those faculties, not to
the faculties themselves. If any man, therefore, was so absurdly
constituted as to approve of cruelty and injustice as the highest
virtues, and to disapprove of equity and humanity as the most
pitiful vices, such a constitution of mind might indeed be
regarded as inconvenient both to the individual and to the
society, and likewise as strange, surprising, and unnatural in
itself; but it could not, without the greatest absurdity, be
denominated vicious or morally evil.
Yet surely if we saw any man shouting with admiration and
applause at a barbarous and unmerited execution, which some
insolent tyrant had ordered, we should not think we were guilty
of any great absurdity in denominating this behaviour vicious and
morally evil in the highest degree, though it expressed nothing
but depraved moral faculties, or an absurd approbation of this
horrid action, as of what was noble, magnanimous, and great. Our
heart, I imagine, at the sight of such a spectator, would forget
for a while its sympathy with the sufferer, and feel nothing but
horror and detestation, at the thought of so execrable a wretch.
We should abominate him even more than the tyrant who might be
goaded on by the strong passions of jealousy, fear, and
resentment, and upon that account be more excusable. But the
sentiments of the spectator would appear altogether without cause
or motive, and therefore most perfectly and completely
detestable. There is no perversion of sentiment or affection
which our heart would be more averse to enter into, or which it
would reject with greater hatred and indignation than one of this
kind; and so far from regarding such a constitution of mind as
being merely something strange or inconvenient, and not in any
respect vicious or morally evil, we should rather consider it as
the very last and most dreadful stage of moral depravity.
Correct moral sentiments, on the contrary, naturally appear
in some degree laudable and morally good. The man, whose censure
and applause are upon all occasions suited with the greatest
accuracy to the value or unworthiness of the object, seems to
deserve a degree even of moral approbation. We admire the
delicate precision of his moral sentiments: they lead our own
judgments, and, upon account of their uncommon and surprising
justness, they even excite our wonder and applause. We cannot
indeed be always sure that the conduct of such a person would be
in any respect correspondent to the precision and accuracy of his
judgments concerning the conduct of others. Virtue requires habit
and resolution of mind, as well as delicacy of sentiment; and
unfortunately the former qualities are sometimes wanting, where
the latter is in the greatest perfection. This disposition of
mind, however, though it may sometimes be attended with
imperfections, is incompatible with any thing that is grossly
criminal, and is the happiest foundation upon which the
superstructure of perfect virtue can be built. There are many men
who mean very well, and seriously purpose to do what they think
their duty, who notwithstanding are disagreeable on account of
the coarseness of their moral sentiments.
It may be said, perhaps, that though the principle of
approbation is not founded upon any power of perception that is
in any respect analogous to the external senses, it may still be
founded upon a peculiar sentiment which answers this one
particular purpose and no other. Approbation and disapprobation,
it may be pretended, are certain feelings or emotions which arise
in the mind upon the view of different characters and actions;
and as resentment might be called a sense of injuries, or
gratitude a sense of benefits, so these may very properly receive
the name of a sense of right and wrong, or of a moral sense.
But this account of things, though it may not be liable to
the same objections with the foregoing, is exposed to others
which are equally unanswerable.
First of all, whatever variations any particular emotion may
undergo, it still preserves the general features which
distinguish it to be an emotion of such a kind, and these general
features are always more striking and remarkable than any
variation which it may undergo in particular cases. Thus anger is
an emotion of a particular kind: and accordingly its general
features are always more distinguishable than all the variations
it undergoes in particular cases. Anger against a man is, no
doubt, somewhat different from anger against a woman, and that
again from anger against a child. In each of those three cases,
the general passion of anger receives a different modification
from the particular character of its object, as may easily be
observed by the attentive. But still the general features of the
passion predominate in all these cases. To distinguish these,
requires no nice observation: a very delicate attention, on the
contrary, is necessary to discover their variations: every body
takes notice of the former; scarce any body observes the latter.
If approbation and disapprobation, therefore, were, like
gratitude and resentment, emotions of a particular kind, distinct
from every other, we should expect that in all the variations
which either of them might undergo, it would still retain the
general features which mark it to be an emotion of such a
particular kind, clear, plain, and easily distinguishable. But in
fact it happens quite otherwise. If we attend to what we really
feel when upon different occasions we either approve or
disapprove, we shall find that our emotion in one case is often
totally different from that in another, and that no common
features can possibly be discovered between them. Thus the
approbation with which we view a tender, delicate, and humane
sentiment, is quite different from that with which we are struck
by one that appears great, daring, and magnanimous. Our
approbation of both may, upon different occasions, be perfect and
entire; but we are softened by the one, and we are elevated by
the other, and there is no sort of resemblance between the
emotions which they excite in us. But according to that system
which I have been endeavouring to establish, this must
necessarily be the case. As the emotions of the person whom we
approve of, are, in those two cases, quite opposite to one
another, and as our approbation arises from sympathy with those
opposite emotions, what we feel upon the one occasion, can have
no sort of resemblance to what we feel upon the other. But this
could not happen if approbation consisted in a peculiar emotion
which had nothing in common with the sentiments we approved of,
but which arose at the view of those sentiments, like any other
passion at the view of its proper object. The same thing holds
true with regard to disapprobation. Our horror for cruelty has no
sort of resemblance to our contempt for mean-spiritedness. It is
quite a different species of discord which we feel at the view of
those two different vices, between our own minds and those of the
person whose sentiments and behaviour we consider.
Secondly, I have already observed, that not only the
different passions or affections of the human mind which are
approved or disapproved of, appear morally good or evil, but that
proper and improper approbation appear, to our natural
sentiments, to be stamped with the same characters. I would ask,
therefore, how it is, that, according to this system, we approve
or disapprove of proper or improper approbation? To this question
there is, I imagine, but one reasonable answer, which can
possibly be given. It must be said, that when the approbation
with which our neighbour regards the conduct of a third person
coincides with our own, we approve of his approbation, and
consider it as, in some measure, morally good; and that, on the
contrary, when it does not coincide with our own sentiments, we
disapprove of it, and consider it as, in some measure, morally
evil. It must be allowed, therefore, that, at least in this one
case, the coincidence or opposition of sentiments, between the
observer and the person observed, constitutes moral approbation
or disapprobation. And if it does so in this one case, I would
ask, why not in every other? Or to what purpose imagine a new
power of perception in order to account for those sentiments?
Against every account of the principle of approbation, which
makes it depend upon a peculiar sentiment, distinct from every
other, I would object; that it is strange that this sentiment,
which Providence undoubtedly intended to be the governing
principle of human nature, should hitherto have been so little
taken notice of, as not to have got a name in any language. The
word moral sense is of very late formation, and cannot yet be
considered as making part of the English tongue. The word
approbation has but within these few years been appropriated to
denote peculiarly any thing of this kind. In propriety of
language we approve of whatever is entirely to our satisfaction,
of the form of a building, of the contrivance of a machine, of
the flavour of a dish of meat. The word conscience does not
immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or
disapprove. Conscience supposes, indeed, the existence of some
such faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness of having
acted agreeably or contrary to its directions. When love, hatred,
joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, with so many other passions
which are all supposed to be the subjects of this principle, have
made themselves considerable enough to get titles to know them
by, is it not surprising that the sovereign of them all should
hitherto have been so little heeded, that, a few philosophers
excepted, nobody has yet thought it worth while to bestow a name
upon it?
When we approve of any character or action, the sentiments
which we feel, are, according to the foregoing system, derived
from four sources, which are in some respects different from one
another. First, we sympathize with the motives of the agent;
secondly, we enter into the gratitude of those who receive the
benefit of his actions; thirdly, we observe that his conduct has
been agreeable to the general rules by which those two sympathies
generally act; and, last of all, when we consider such actions as
making a part of a system of behaviour which tends to promote the
happiness either of the individual or of the society, they appear
to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike that which we
ascribe to any well-contrived machine. After deducting, in any
one particular case, all that must be acknowledged to proceed
from some one or other of these four principles, I should be glad
to know what remains, and I shall freely allow this overplus to
be ascribed to a moral sense, or to any other peculiar faculty,
provided any body will ascertain precisely what this overplus is.
It might be expected, perhaps, that if there was any such
peculiar principle, such as this moral sense is supposed to be,
we should feel it, in some particular cases, separated and
detached from every other, as we often feel joy, sorrow, hope,
and fear, pure and unmixed with any other emotion. This however,
I imagine, cannot even be pretended. I have never heard any
instance alleged in which this principle could be said to exert
itself alone and unmixed with sympathy or antipathy, with
gratitude or resentment, with the perception of the agreement or
disagreement of any action to an established rule, or last of all
with that general taste for beauty and or der which is excited by
inanimated as well as by animated objects.
II. There is another system which attempts to account for the
origin of our moral sentiments from sympathy, distinct from that
which I have been endeavouring to establish. It is that which
places virtue in utility, and accounts for the pleasure with
which the spectator surveys the utility of any quality from
sympathy with the happiness of those who are affected by it. This
sympathy is different both from that by which we enter into the
motives of the agent, and from that by which we go along with the
gratitude of the persons who are benefited by his actions. It is
the same principle with that by which we approve of a
well-contrived machine. But no machine can be the object of
either of those two last mentioned sympathies. I have already, in
the fourth part of this discourse, given some account of this
system.
[17.]
Inquiry concerning Virtue.
[18.]
Treatise of the Passions.
[19.]
Illustrations upon the Moral Sense, sect. 1, p. 237, et seq.; third
edition.