CHAPTER VII.

THEORY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES.

CLOSELY connected in Adam Smith's theory with his account of the growth of conscience is his account of the growth of those general moral principles we find current in the world. He regards these as a provision of Nature on our behalf, intended to counteract the perverting influences of self-love and the fatal weakness of self-deceit. They arise in the following way.

Continual observations on the conduct of others lead us gradually to form to ourselves certain general rules as to what it is fit and proper to do or to avoid. If some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments, and we hear other people express like detestation of them, we are then satisfied that we view them aright. We resolve therefore never to be guilty of the like offences, nor to make ourselves the objects of the general disapprobation they incur. Thus we arrive at a general rule, that all such actions are to be avoided, as tending to make us odious, contemptible, or punishable. Other actions, on the contrary, call forth our approbation, and the expressions of the same approval by others confirm us in the justice of our opinion. The eagerness of everybody to honour and reward them excite in us all those sentiments for which we have by nature the strongest desire-the love, the gratitude, the admiration of mankind. We thus become ambitious of per

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forming the like, and thereby arrive at another general rule, that all such actions are good for us to do.

These general rules of morality, therefore, are ultimately founded on experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties approve of or condemn. They are not moral intuitions, or major premisses of conduct supplied to us by nature. We do not start with a general rule, and approve or disapprove of particular actions according as they conform or not to this general rule, but we form the general rule from experience of the approval or disapproval bestowed on particular actions. At the first sight of an inhuman murder, detestation of the crime would arise, irrespective of a reflection, that one of the most sacred rules of conduct prohibited the taking away another man's life, that this particular murder was a violation of that rule, and consequently that it was blameworthy. The detestation would arise instantaneously, and antecedent to our formation of any such general rule. The general rule would be formed afterwards upon the detestation we felt at such an action, at the thought of this and every other particular action of the same kind.

So when we read in history or elsewhere of either generous or base actions, our admiration for the one and our contempt for the other does not arise from the consideration that there are certain general rules which declare all actions of the one kind admirable and all of the other contemptible. Those rules are all formed from our experience of the effects naturally produced on us by all actions of one kind or the other.

Again, an amiable, a respectable, or a horrible action naturally excites for the person who performs them the love, the respect, or the horror of the spectator. The general rules, which determine what actions are or are not the objects of those different sentiments, can only be formed by observing what actions severally excite them.

When once these moral principles, or general rules, have been formed, and established by the concurrent voice of all mankind, they are often appealed to as the standards of judg ment, when we seek to apportion their due degree of praise or blame to particular actions. From their being cited on all such occasions as the ultimate foundations of what is just and unjust, many eminent authors have been misled, and have drawn up their systems as if they supposed " that the original judgments of mankind, with regard to right and wrong, were formed, like the decisions of a court of judicatory, by considering first the general rule, and then, secondly, whether the particular action under consideration fell properly within its comprehension."

To pass now from the formation of such general rules to their function in practical ethics. They are most useful in correcting the misrepresentations of things which self-love is ever ready to suggest to us. Though founded on experience, they are none the less girt round with a sacred and unimpeachable authority. Take a man inclined to furious resentment, and ready to think that the death of his enemy is a small compensation for his provocation. From his observations on the conduct of others he has learned how horrible such revenges always appear, and has formed to himself a general rule, to abstain from them on all occasions. This rule preserves its authority with him under his temptation, when he might otherwise believe that his fury was just, and such as every impartial spectator would approve. The reverence for the rule, impressed upon him by past experience, checks the impetuosity of his passion, and helps him to correct the too partial views which self-love might suggest as proper in his situation. Even should he after all give way to his passion, he is terrified, at the moment of so doing, by the thought that he is violating a rule which he has never seen infringed with

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out the strongest expressions of disapprobation, or the evil consequences of punishment.

That sense of duty, that feeling of the obligatoriness of the rules of morality, which is so important a principle in human life, and the only principle capable of governing the bulk of mankind, is none other than an acquired reverence for these general principles of conduct, arrived at in the manner described. This acquired reverence often serves as a substitute for the sense of the propriety or impropriety of a particular course of conduct. For many men live through their lives without ever incurring much blame, who yet may never feel the sentiment upon which our approbation of their conduct is founded, but act merely from a regard for what they see are the established rules of behaviour. For instance, a man who has received great benefits from another may feel very little gratitude in his heart, and yet act in every way as if he did so, without any selfish or blameable motive, but simply from reverence for the established rule of duty. Or a wife, who may not feel any tender regard for her husband, may also act as if she did, from mere regard to a sense of the duty of such conduct. And though such a friend or such a wife are doubtless not the best of their kind, they are perhaps the second best, and will be restrained from any decided dereliction from their duty. Though "the coarse clay of which the bulk of mankind are formed, cannot be wrought to such perfection" as to act on all occasions with the most delicate propriety, there is scarcely anybody who may not by education, discipline, and example, be so impressed with a regard to general rules of conduct, as to act nearly always with tolerable decency, and to avoid through the whole of his life any considerable degree of blame.

Were it not indeed for this sense of duty, this sacred regard for general rules, there is no one on whose conduct much reli

ance could be placed. The difference between a man of principle and a worthless fellow is chiefly the difference between a man who adheres resolutely to his maxims of conduct and the man who acts "variously and accidentally as humour, inclination, or interest chance to be uppermost." Even the duties of ordinary politeness, which are not difficult to observe, depend very often for their observance more on regard for the general rule than on the actual feeling of the moment; and if these slight duties would, without such regard, be so readily violated, how slight, without a similar regard, would be the observance of the duties of justice, truth, fidelity, and chastity, for the violation of which so many strong motives might exist, and on the tolerable keeping of which the very existence of human society depends!

The obligatoriness of the rules of morality being thus first impressed upon us by nature, and afterwards confirmed by reasoning and philosophy, comes to be still further enhanced by the consideration that the said rules are the laws of God, who will reward or punish their observance or violation.

For whatever theory we may prefer of the origin of our moral faculties, there can be no doubt, Adam Smith argues, but "that they were given us for the direction of our conduct in this life." Our moral faculties "carry along with them the most evident badges of this 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 either to be indulged or restrained." Our moral faculties are not on a level in this respect with the other faculties and appetites of our nature, for no other faculty or principle of action judges of any other. Love, for instance, does not judge of love, nor resentment of resentment. These two passions may be opposite to one another, but they do not approve or disapprove of