proposed on the subject. "Upon whatever we suppose our moral faculties to be founded," (I quote his own words,) "whether upon a certain modification of reason, upon an original instinct called a moral sense, or upon some other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they are given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They carry along with them the most evident badges of their authority, which denote that they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions; to superintend all our senses, passions, and appetites; and to judge how far each of them was to be either indulged or restrained. Our moral faculties are by no means, as some have pretended, upon a level in this respect with the other faculties and appetites of our nature, endowed with no more right to restrain these last than these last are to restrain them. No other faculty or principle of action judges of any other. Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment of love. Those two passions may be opposite to one another, but cannot, with any propriety, be said to approve or disapprove of one another. But it is the peculiar office of those faculties now under consideration to judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all the other principles of our nature." "Since these, therefore," continues Mr. Smith," were plainly intended to be the governing principles of human nature, the rules which they prescribe are to be regarded as the commands and laws of the Deity promulgated by those vicegerents which he has thus set up within us. By acting according to their dictates we may be said, in some sense, to coöperate with the Deity, and to advance, as far as in our power, the plan of Providence. By acting otherwise, on the contrary, we seem to obstruct in some measure the scheme which the Author of Nature has established for the happiness and perfection of the world, and to declare ourselves in some measure the enemies of God. Hence we are naturally encouraged to hope for his extraordinary favor and reward in the one case, and to dread his vengeance and punishment in the other."* I have only to add further on this subject at present, * Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III. Chap. v. that the supreme authority of conscience is felt and tacitly acknowledged by the worst no less than by the best of men; for even they who have thrown off all hypocrisy with the world are at pains to conceal their real character from their own eyes. No man ever, in a soliloquy or private meditation, avowed to himself that he was a vilÎain; nor do I believe that such a character as Joseph, in The School for Scandal, (who is introduced as reflecting coollyon his own knavery and baseness, without any uneasiness but what arises from the dread of detection,) ever existed in the world. Such men probably impose on themselves fully as much as they do upon others. Hence the various artifices of self-deceit which Butler has so well described in his discourses on that subject. It is said by St. Augustine, that at the delivery of that famous line of Terence, - the We "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto," “I am a man, and feel an interest in all mankind,” whole Roman theatre resounded with applause.* may venture to say that a similar sentiment, well pronounced by an actor, would at this day, in the most corrupt capital in Europe, be followed by a similar burst of sympathetic emotion. "Voyez à nos spectacles Quand on peint quelque trait de candeur, de bonté, "On such occasions," (as a late writer remarks,) "though we may think meanly of the genius of the poet, it is impossible not to think, and to be happy in thinking, highly of the people; - the people whose opinions may often be folly, whose conduct may sometimes be madness, but whose sentiments are almost always honorable and just; the people whom an author may delight with bombast, may amuse with tinsel, may divert with indecency, but whom he cannot mislead in principle, nor harden into inhumanity. It is only the mob in the side boxes, * See a note on this line in Coleman's translation of Terence's SelfTormentor. + Gresset, Le Méchant. who, in the coldness of self-interest, or the languor of outworn dissipation, can hear unmoved the sentiments of compassion, of generosity, or of virtue.”* CHAPTER V. OF CERTAIN PRINCIPLES WHICH COÖPERATE WITH OUR MORAL POWERS IN THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE CONDUCT. In order to secure still more completely the good order of society, and to facilitate the acquisition of virtuous habits, nature has superadded to our moral constitution a variety of auxiliary principles, which sometimes give rise to a conduct agreeable to the rules of morality and highly useful to mankind, where the merit of the individual, considered as a moral agent, is inconsiderable.. Hence some of them have been confounded with our moral powers, or even supposed to be of themselves sufficient to account for the phenomena of moral perception, by authors whose views of human nature have not been sufficiently comprehensive. The most important principles of this description are, 1st. A Regard to Character. 2d. Sympathy. 3d. The Sense of the Ridiculous. And 4th. Taste. The principle of Self-love (which was treated of in a former section) coöperates very powerfully to the same purposes. SECTION I. OF DECENCY, OR A REGARD TO CHARACTER. UPON this subject I had formerly occasion to offer various remarks in treating of the desire of esteem. But the view of it which I then took was extremely general, as I did not think it necessary for me to attend to the distinction between intellectual and moral qualities. There can * Mackenzie's Account of the German Theatre. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. II. Part ii. p. 174. be no doubt that a regard to the good opinion of our fellow-creatures has great influence in promoting our exertions to cultivate both the one and the other; but what we are more particularly concerned to remark at present is the effect which this principle has in strengthening our virtuous habits, and in restraining those passions which a sense of duty alone would not be sufficient to regulate. I have before observed, that the desire of esteem operates in children before they have a capacity of distinguishing right from wrong; and that the former principle of action continues for a long time to be much more powerful than the latter. Hence it furnishes a most useful and effectual engine in the business of education, more particularly by training us early to exertions of self-command and self-denial. It teaches us, for example, to restrain our appetites within those bounds which delicacy prescribes, and thus forms us to habits of moderation and temperance. And although our conduct cannot be denominated virtuous so long as a regard to the opinion of others is our sole motive, yet the habits we thus acquire in infancy and childhood render it more easy for us to subject our passions to reason and conscience as we advance to maturity. The subject well deserves a more ample illustration; but at present it is sufficient to recall these remarks to the recollection of the reader. SECTION II. OF SYMPATHY. I. Nature and Functions of Sympathy.] That there is an exquisite pleasure annexed by the constitution of our nature to the sympathy or fellow-feeling of other men with our joys and sorrows, and even with our opinions, tastes, and humors, is a fact obvious to vulgar observation. It is no less evident that we feel a disposition to accommodate the state of our own minds to that of our companions, wherever we feel a benevolent affection towards them, and that this accommodating temper is in proportion to the strength of our affection. In such cases sympathy would appear to be grafted on benevolence; and perhaps it might be found, on an accurate examination, that the greater part of the pleasure which sympathy yields is resolvable into that which arises from the exercise of kindness, and from the consciousness of being beloved. II. Adam Smith's Theory.] The phenomena generally referred to sympathy have appeared to Mr. Smith so important, and so curiously connected, that he has been led to attempt an explanation from this single principle of all the phenomena of moral perception. In this attempt, however, (not to mention the vague use which he occasionally makes of the term,) he has plainly been misled, like many eminent philosophers before him, by an excessive love of simplicity; and has mistaken a very subordinate principle in our moral constitution (or rather a principle superadded to our moral constitution as an auxiliary to the sense of duty) for that faculty which distinguishes right from wrong, and which (by what name soever we may choose to call it) recurs on us constantly in all our ethical disquisitions, as an ultimate fact in the nature of man. I shall take this opportunity of offering a few remarks on this most ingenious and beautiful theory, in the course of which I shall have occasion to state all that I think necessary to observe concerning the place which sympathy seems to me really to occupy in our moral constitution. In stating these remarks, I would be understood to express myself with all the respect and veneration due to the talents and virtues of a writer, whose friendship I regard as one of the most fortunate incidents of my life, but, at the same time, with that entire freedom which the importance of the subject demands, and which I know that his candid and liberal mind would have approved. In addition to the incidental strictures which I have already hazarded on Mr. Smith's theory, I have yet to state two objections of a more general nature, to which it appears to me to be obviously liable. But before I proceed to these objections, it is necessary for me to premise (which I shall do in Mr. Smith's words) a remark which I have not hitherto had occasion to mention, and which |