the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would feem fo much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, poffeffes that fecurity which kings are fighting for.

The fame principle, the fame love of fyftem, the fame regard to the beauty of order, of art and contrivance, frequently ferves to recommend thofe inftitutions, which tend to promote the public welfare. When a patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any part of the public police, his conduct does not always arife from pure fympathy with the happiness of those who are to reap the benefit of it. It is not commonly from a fellow-feeling with carriers and waggoners that a public-spirited man encourages the mending of high roads. When the legislature establishes premiums and other encouragements to advance the linen or woollen manufactures, its conduct seldom proceeds from pure fympathy with the wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much lefs from that with the manufacturer, or merchant. The perfection of police, the extenfion of trade and manufactures, are noble and magnificent objects. The contemplation of them pleases us, and we are interested in whatever can tend to advance them. They make part of the great fyftem of government, and the wheels of the political machine feem to move with more harmony and ease by means of them. We take pleasure in beholding the perfection of fo beautiful and grand a system, and we are uneafy till we remove any obstruction that can in the least difturb or encumber the regularity of its motions. All conftitutions

R 4

conftitutions of government, however, are valued only in proportion, as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them. This is their fole use and end. From a certain fpirit of system, however, from a certain love of art and contrivance, we fometimes feem to value the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fellow creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly fyftem, than from any immediate fenfe or feeling of what they either fuffer or enjoy. There have been men of the greatest public fpirit, who have fhewn themfel ves in other refpects not very fenfible to the feelings of humanity. And on the contrary, there have been men of the greatest humanity, who feem to have been entirely devoid of public fpirit. Every man may find in the circle of his acquaintance inftances both of the one kind and the other. Who had ever less humanity, or more public fpirit, than the celebrated legiflator of Mufcovy? The focial and well natured James the First of Great-Britain feems, ón the contrary, to have had scarce any paffion, either for the glory, or the intereft of his country. Would you awaken the industry of the man, who feems almoft dead to ambition, it will often be to no purpose to describe to him the happiness of the rich and the great; to tell him that they are generally fheltered from the fun and the rain, that they are feldom hungry, that they are feldom cold, and that they are rarely expofed to weariness, or to want of any kind. The most eloquent exhortation of this kind will have little effect upon him. If you would hope to fucceed, you must defcribe to him the conveniency and arrangement of the different apartments in their palaces; you must explain to him the propriety of

their

their equipages, and point out to him the number, the order, and the different offices of all their attendants. If any thing is capable of making impreffion upon him, this will. Yet all these things tend only to keep off the fun and the rain, to fave them from hunger and cold, from want and weariness. In the same manner, if you would implant public virtue in the breaft of him, who feems heedlefs of the interest of his country, it will often be to no purpose to tell him, what fuperior advantages the fubjects of a wellgoverned ftate enjoy; that they are better lodged, that they are better clothed, that they are better fed. These confiderations will commonly make no great impreflion. You will be more likely to perfuade, if you defcribe the great fyftem of public police which procures thefe advantages, if you explain the connexions and dependencies of its feveral parts, their mutual fubordination to one another, and their general fubferviency to the happiness of the fociety; you fhow how this fyftem might be introduced into his own country, what it is that hinders it from taking place there at prefent, how thofe obftructions might be removed, and all the feveral wheels of the machine of government be made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without grating upon one another, or mutually retarding one another's moti

if

ons.

It is scarce poffible that a man fhould listen to a difcourfe of this kind, and not feel himself animated to fome degree of public fpirit. He will, at least for the moment, feel fome defire to remove those obstructions, and to put into motion fo beautiful and fo orderly a machine. Nothing tends fo much to promote public spirit as the ftudy of politics, of the feveral fyftems of civil government, their advantages and difadvantages, of the conftitution, of our own

country,

country, its fituation, and intereft with regard to foreign nations, its commerce, its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the dangers to which it may be expofed, how to remove the one, and how to guard against the other. Upon this account political difquifitions, if juft and reasonable, and practicable, are of all the works of fpeculation the most ufeful. Even the weakest and the worft of them are not altogether without their utility. They ferve at least to animate the public paffions of men, and roufe them to feek out the means of promoting the happiness of the fociety.

CHA P. II.

Of the beauty which the appearance of utility beftows upon the characters and actions of men; and how far the perception of this beauty may be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation.

THE characters of men, as well as the contrivances of art, or the inftitutions of civil government, may be fitted either to promote or to difturb the happiness both of the individual and of the fociety. The prudent, the equitable, the active, refolute, and fober character promises profperity and fatisfaction, both to the perfon himself and to every one connected with him. The rafh, the infolent, the flothful, effeminate, and voluptuous, on the contrary, forebodes ruin to the individual, and miffortune to all who have any thing to do with him. The first turn of mind has at leaft all the beauty which

which can belong to the most perfect machine that was ever invented for promoting the most agreeable purpose: and the fecond all the deformity of the most awkward and clumsy contrivance. What inftitution of government could tend fo much to promote the happinefs of mankind as the general prevalence of wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these. Whatever beauty, therefore, can belong to civil government upon account of its utility, muft in a far fuperior degree belong to thefe. On the contrary, what civil policy can be fo ruinous and destructive as the vices of men? The fatal effects of bad government arise from nothing, but that it does not fufficiently guard against the mischiefs which human wickednefs gives occafion to.

This beauty and deformity which characters appear to derive from their usefulness or inconveniency, are apt to strike, in a peculiar manner, thofe who consider, in an abstract and philofophical light, the actions and conduct of mankind. When a philofopher goes to examine why humanity is approved of, or cruelty condemned, he does not always form to himself, in a very clear and diftinct manner, the conception of any one particular action either of cruelty or of humanity, but is commonly contented with the vague and indeterminate idea which the general names of those qualities fuggeft to him. But it is in particular inftances only that the propriety or impropriety, the merit or demerit of actions is very obvious and difcernible. It is only when particular examples are given that we perceive diftinctly either the concord or disagreement between our own affections and those of the agent, or feel a focial gratitude arife

towards