4. What are called the decisions of common sense upon questions of morals, are like the decisions of common sense upon other matters. They are founded upon the first and most obvious appearances of things. They are often right, and often wrong. They require the same scientific revision as the decisions of common sense upon all other topics. Such a revision, as in other cases, will serve to confirm a part of these decisions; but it will show that another part of them, and no inconsiderable part, originate in that constitution of human nature, which, in so many cases, renders error the necessary predecessor of truth.

PART THIRD.

CONNEXION BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND VIRTUE, AND TRUE MEANS OF PROMOTING BOTH.

CHAPTER I.

CONNEXION BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND VIRTUE.

1. As respects the influence of virtue upon happiness, two questions may be asked;

First. Does the increase of virtue in general, tend to increase the happiness of the human race?

Second. Does the increase of virtue in any given individual tend to increase the happiness of that individual?

Or these two questions may be put in another form, thus ;

First. Does the increase of virtue in a community tend to increase the happiness of that community? Second. Are individuals happy in proportion as they are virtuous ?

2. In order to answer these two questions, it is to be considered, that the happiness or misery of individuals, and of course the happiness or misery of communities and of the human race, which are only collections of individuals, - is dependent upon

four different sets of circumstances; 1st. The general constitution of nature, including the general constitution of human nature; 2d. The peculiar constitution of each individual, that is to say, his peculiar degree of sensibility to different pleasures and pains; 3d. The acts of the individual himself and, 4th. The acts of others.

3. This analysis and enumeration of the causes of human happiness and misery, enable us easily to give an answer to the first of the questions above put, the question whether the increase of virtue tends to increase the sum total of human happiness.

One of the four elements, which together produce the happiness or misery of men, is, the acts of others. Now, just in proportion as virtue exercises an influence over the conduct of men, just in that same proportion does the happiness of others become an object to be aimed at ; and just in that proportion will men be likely to contribute to the happiness of each other. On the other hand, so far as virtue ceases to exercise an influence over the conduct of men, in that same degree is the disposition to consult the happiness of others diminished; and just in the same proportion are men likely to become causes of suffering to each other.

4. Indeed, the tendency of the increase of virtue to increase the sum total of human happiness, is so very obvious to the most cursory observation, that legislators and philosophers, in all ages, have exerted their utmost ingenuity to lure men into the paths of virtue; and to this end, and in order to enlist the selfish sentiments into the cause of humanity, they

have, almost with one voice, peremptorily answered the second of the above questions also in the affirmative; and have proclaimed, far and wide, that the increase of virtue, in each individual, tends directly to increase his individual happiness; in other words, that individuals are happy in proportion to their virtue.

5. This proposition, however, notwithstanding the numbers who have concurred in it, including many who hardly concur in any thing else, is as palpably false, as the proposition already disposed of, respecting the tendency of virtue to increase the happiness of communities, is obviously true; and the general perception of its falsity, although few are able, through the cloud of authority in its favor, clearly to detect that falsity, and plainly to point it out, together with the singular unanimity of priests, philosophers, and rulers, in preaching it to others, while they neglect to act upon it themselves, has led to a suspicion, very generally diffused, that moralists, and especially moralists by profession, are, after all, but a set of artful persons who seek to entrap men into a course of conduct, of which all the benefits result to others, and to the moralists themselves, as a part of those others, and of which all the burden falls upon the actors. Thus, while all men praise virtue, and are very anxious to induce others to practise it, there is widely diffused, even among professed moralists themselves, a secret doubt, whether morality, after all, be not a cunning contrivance to make the many contribute to the service of the few.

6. That morality is founded upon the nature of

man, and that, to a certain extent, virtuous conduct is, and always must be, a source of pleasure, and often of the most exquisite and most lasting pleasure, to those who act virtuously, has been sufficiently demonstrated in the first and second parts of this Treatise. (But that virtuous conduct will always secure happiness, and happiness in proportion to the degree of virtue, is not true. Of the four elements of human happiness and misery above pointed out, our own actions form but one. The most virtuous

conduct in the world cannot secure us against the miseries that originate in the three other elements. No degree of virtue can cure the toothache, or guard against it; no degree of virtue can cure that heartache which springs from the ingratitude or treachery of others. Indeed, the more virtuous a man is, the more sensitive he becomes to that sort of suffering.*

Whosoever performs a virtuous act, always feels a pleasure from it; if not a positive pleasure, at least the negative pleasure of relief from a pain of benevolence. But the very performance of that virtuous act, may expose him who performs it, to infinite pains of other kinds. To perform an act of high virtue, is often an act of the highest imprudence ; and though the consciousness of virtue be a great

"It is not the value of what they lose by the perfidy and ingratitude of those they live with, which the generous and humane are most apt to regret. Whatever they have lost, they can generally be very happy without it. What most disturbs them is, the idea of perfidy and ingratitude exercised towards themselves; and the discordant and disagreeable passions which this excites, constitute, in their own opinion, the chief part of the injury which they suffer.". Smith's Moral Sentiments, Part I. Sect. II.