thoroughly sympathize with the gratitude of one man towards another, merely because this other has been the cause of his good fortune, unless he has been the cause of it from motives which we entirely oppose. Our sense, therefore, of the good desert of an action, is a compounded sentiment, made up of an indirect sympathy with the person to whom the action is beneficial, and of a direct sympathy with the affections and motives of the agent. The same remark applies, mutatis mutandis, to our sense of demerit, or of ill-desert.

From these principles, it is inferred, that the only actions which appear to us deserving of reward, are actions of a beneficial tendency, proceeding from proper motives; the only actions which seem to deserve punishment, are actions of a hurtful tendency, proceeding from improper motives. A mere want of beneficence exposes to no punishment; because the mere want of beneficence tends to do no real positive evil. A man, on the other hand, who is barely innocent, and contents himself with observing strictly the laws of justice with respect to others, can merit only, that his neighbours, in their turn, should observe religiously the same laws with respect to him.

These observations lead Mr. Smith to anticipate a little the subject of the second great division of his work, by a short inquiry into the origin of our sense of justice, as applicable to our own conduct; and also of our sentiments of remorse, and of good desert.

The origin of our sense of justice, as well as of all our other moral sentiments, he accounts for by means of the principle of sympathy. When I attend only to the feelings of my own breast, my own happiness appears to me of far greater consequence than that of all the world besides. But I am conscious, that, in this excessive preference, other men cannot possibly sympathize with me, and that to them I appear only one of the crowd, in whom they are no more interested than in any other individual. If I wish, therefore, to secure their sympathy and approbation (which, according to Mr. Smith, are the objects of the strongest desire of my nature), it is necessary for me to regard my happiness, not in that light in which it appears to myself, but in that light in which it appears to mankind in general. If an unprovoked injury is offered to me, I know that society will sympathize with my resentment; but if I injure the interests of another, who never injured me, merely because they stand in the way of my own, I perceive evidently, that society will sympathize with his resentment, and that I shall become the object of general indignation.

When, upon any occasion, I am led by the violence of passion to overlook these considerations, and in the case of a competition of interests, to act according to my own feelings, and not according to those of impartial spectators, I never fail to incur

the punishment of remorse. When my passion is gratified, and I begin to reflect coolly on my conduct, I can no longer enter into the motives from which it proceeded; it appears as improper to me as to the rest of the world; I lament the effects it has produced; I pity the unhappy sufferer whom I have injured; and I feel myself a just object of indignation to mankind. "Such, says Mr. Smith, "is the nature of that sentiment which is properly called remorse. It is made up of shame from the sense of the impropriety of past conduct; of grief for the effects of it; of pity for those who suffer by it; and of the dread and terror of punishment from the consciousness of the justly provoked resentment of all rational creatures."

The opposite behaviour of him who, from proper motives, has performed a generous action, inspires, in a similar manner, the opposite sentiment of conscious merit, or of deserved reward.

The foregoing observations contain a general summary of Mr. Smith's principles with respect to the origin of our moral sentiments, in so far at least as they relate to the conduct of others. He acknowledges, at the same time, that the sentiments of which we are conscious, on particular occasions, do not always coincide with these principles; and that they are frequently modified by other considerations, very different from the propriety or impropriety of the affections of the agent, and also from the beneficial or hurtful tendency of these affections. The good or bad consequences which accidentally follow from an action, and which, as they do not depend on the agent, ought undoubtedly, in point of justice, to have no influence on our opinion, either of the propriety or the merit of his conduct, scarcely ever fail to influence considerably our judgment with respect to both; by leading us to form a good or a bad opinion of the prudence with which the action was performed, and by animating our sense of the merit or demerit of his design. These facts, however, do not furnish any objections which are peculiarly applicable to Mr. Smith's theory; for whatever hypothesis we may adopt with respect to the origin of our moral perceptions, all men must acknowledge, that, in so far as the prosperous or the unprosperous event of an action depends on fortune or on accident, it ought neither to increase nor to diminish our moral approbation or disapprobation of the agent. And accordingly it has, in all ages of the world, been the complaint of moralists, that the actual sentiments of mankind should so often be in opposition to this equitable and indisputable maxim. In examining, therefore, this irregularity of our moral sentiments, Mr. Smith is to be considered, not as obviating an objection peculiar to his own system, but as removing a difficulty which is equally connected with every theory on the subject which has ever been proposed. So far

as I know, he is the first philosopher who has been fully the importance of the difficulty, and he has indeed treated great ability and success. The explanation which he gi is not warped in the least by any peculiarity in his own and, I must own, it appears to me to be the most s valuable improvement he has made in this branch of scie is impossible to give any abstract of it in a sketch of th and therefore I must content myself with remarking, tha sists of three parts. The first explains the causes of this larity of sentiment; the second, the extent of its influen the third, the important purposes to which it is subservier remarks on the last of these heads are more particularly in and pleasing; as their object is to show, in opposition to should be disposed at first to apprehend, that when nat planted the seeds of this irregularity in the human bre leading intention was, to promote the happiness and pe of the species.

The remaining part of Mr. Smith's theory is employed i ing, in what manner our sense of duty comes to be for consequence of an application to ourselves of the judgm have previously passed on the conduct of others.

In entering upon this inquiry, which is undoubtedly th important in the work, and for which the foregoing spec are, according to Mr. Smith's theory, a necessary prepara begins with stating the fact concerning our consciousness of praise or blame; and it must be owned, that the first as the fact, as he himself states it, appears not very favourabl principles. That the great object of a wise and virtuous not to act in such a manner as to obtain the actual appr of those around him, but to act so as to render himself t and proper object of their approbation, and that his satis with his own conduct depends much more on the consci of deserving this approbation than from that of really enjoy he candidly acknowledges; but still he insists, that althou may seem, at first view, to intimate the existence of some faculty, which is not borrowed from without, our moral ments have always some secret reference, either to what to what upon a certain condition would be, or to what w gine ought to be, the sentiments of others; and that if i possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood out any communication with his own species, he could no think of his own character, or of the propriety or demerit own sentiments and conduct, than of the beauty or deform his own face. There is indeed a tribunal within the breast, is the supreme arbiter of all our actions, and which often tifies us amidst the applause, and supports us under the c

of the world; yet still, he contends, that if we inquire into the origin of its institution, we shall find, that its jurisdiction is, in a great measure, derived from the authority of that very tribunal whose decisions it so often and so justly reverses.

When we first come into the world, we, for some time, fondly pursue the impossible project of gaining the good-will and approbation of everybody. We soon however find, that this universal approbation is unattainable; that the most equitable conduct must frequently thwart the interests or the inclinations of particular persons, who will seldom have candour enough to enter into the propriety of our motives, or to see that this conduct, how disagreeable soever to them, is perfectly suitable to our situation. In order to defend ourselves from such partial judgments, we soon learn to set up in our own minds, a judge between ourselves and those we live with. We conceive ourselves as acting in the presence of a person, who has no particular relation, either to ourselves, or to those whose interests are affected by our conduct; and we study to act in such a manner as to obtain the approbation of this supposed impartial spectator. It is only by consulting him that we can see whatever relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions.

There are two different occasions, on which we examine our own conduct, and endeavour to view it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it. First, when we are about to act; and, secondly, after we have acted. In both cases, our views are very apt to be partial.

When we are about to act, the eagerness of passion seldom allows us to consider what we are doing with the candour of an indifferent person. When the action is over, and the passions which prompted it have subsided, although we can undoubtedly enter into the sentiments of the indifferent spectator much more coolly than before, yet it is so disagreeable to us to think ill of ourselves, that we often purposely turn away our view from those circumstances which might render our judgment unfavourable. Hence that self-deceit which is the source of half the disorders of human life.

In order to guard ourselves agsinst its delusions, nature leads us to form insensibly, by our continual observations upon the conduct of others, certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or avoided. Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments; and when we observe other people affected in the same manner with ourselves, we are confirmed in the belief, that our disapprobation was just. We naturally, therefore, lay it down as a general rule, that all such actions are to be avoided, as tending to render us odious, contemptible. or punishable; and we endeavour, by habitual reflection, to fix this

general rule in our minds, in order to correct the misr tions of self-love, if we should ever be called on to act circumstances. The man of furious resentment, if he listen to the dictates of that passion, would, perhaps, r death of his enemy as but a small compensation for wrong. But his observations on the conduct of ot taught him how horrible such sanguinary revenges are; a impressed it on his mind as an invariable rule, to abs them upon all occasions. This rule preserves its autho him, checks the impetuosity of his passion, and cor partial views which self-love suggests; although, if this the first time in which he considered such an action, undoubtedly have determined it to be just and proper, every impartial spectator would approve of. A regard general rules of morality constitutes, according to M what is properly called the sense of duty.

I before hinted, that Mr. Smith does not reject enti his system that principle of utility, of which the perc any action or character constitutes, according to Mr. H sentiment of moral approbation. That no qualities of are approved of as virtues, but such as are useful or a either to the person himself or to others, he admits to b position that holds universally; and he also admits, sentiment of approbation with which we regard virtue livened by the perception of this utility, or, as he expl fact, it is enlivened by our sympathy with the happiness to whom the utility extends: But still he insists, that the view of this utility which is either the first or I source of moral approbation.

To sum up the whole of his doctrine in a few words. we approve of any character or action, the sentiments w feel are derived from four different sources. First, we thize with the motives of the agent; secondly, we enteri gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions; we observe that his conduct has been agreeable to the rules by which those two sympathies generally act; and when we consider such actions as making a part of a sys behaviour which tends to promote the happiness either of dividual or of society, they appear to derive a beauty fr utility, not unlike that which we ascribe to any well-co machine." These different sentiments, he thinks, exhaus pletely, in every instance that can be supposed, the comp sentiment of moral approbation. "After deducting," s "in any one particular case, all that must be acknowled proceed from some one or other of these four principles, I be glad to know what remains; and I shall freely allo