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PART the death of another man, feels himself piacular,

II.

though not guilty. During his whole life he confiders this accident as one of the greatest misfortunes that could have befallen him. If the family of the flain is poor, and he himself in tolerable circumstances, he immediately takes them under his protection, and, without any other merit, thinks them entitled to every degree of favour and kindnefs. If they are in better circumftances, he endeavours by every fubmiffion, by every expreffion of forrow, by rendering them every good office which he can devife or they accept of, to atone for what has happened, and to propitiate, as much as poffible, their, perhaps natural, though no doubt moft unjuft refentment, for the great, though involuntary, offence which he has given them.

The distress which an innocent perfon feels, who, by fome accident, has been led to do fomething which, if it had been done with knowledge and defign, would have justly expofed him to the deepest reproach, has given occafion to fome of the finest and most interesting scenes both of the ancient and of the modern drama. It is this fallacious fenfe of guilt, if I may call it fo, which conftitutes the whole diftrefs of Oedipus and Jocafta upon the Greek, of Monimia and Ifabella upon the English, theatre. They are all of them in the highest degree piacular, though not one of them is in the smallest degree guilty.

Notwithstanding, however, all these seeming irregularities of fentiment, if man fhould unfortunately either give occafion to thofe evils which

he

III.

he did not intend, or fail in producing that S E C T. good which he intended, Nature has not left his innocence altogether without confolation, nor his virtue altogether without reward. He then calls to his affiftance that just and equitable maxim, That thofe events which did not depend upon our conduct, ought not to diminish the efteem that is due to us. He fummons up his whole magnanimity and firmness of foul, and ftrives to regard himself, not in the light in which he at prefent appears, but in that in which he ought to appear, in which he would have appeared had his generous defigns been crowned with fuccefs, and in which he would ftill appear, notwithstanding their miscarriage, if the fentiments of mankind were either altogether candid and equitable, or even perfectly confiftent with themfelves. The more candid and humane part of mankind entirely go along with the efforts which he thus makes to fupport himself in his own opinion. They exert their whole generofity and greatnefs of mind, to correct in themselves this irregularity of human nature, and endeavour to regard his unfortunate magnanimity in the fame light in which, had it been fuccessful, they would, without any fuch generous exertion, have naturally been difpofed to confider it.

THE

THE

THEORY

OF

MORAL SENTIMENTS.

PART III.

Of the FOUNDATION of our JUDGMENTS concerning our own SENTIMENTS and CONDUCT, and of the SENSE of DUTY.

PART

III.

CHAP. I.

Of the Principle of Self-approbation and of Selfdifapprobation.

IN

N the two foregoing parts of this discourse, I have chiefly confidered the origin and foundation of our judgments concerning the fentiments and conduct of others. I come now to confider more particularly the origin of those concerning our own.

The principle by which we naturally either approve or difapprove of our own conduct, feems to be altogether the fame with that by which we exercife the like judgments concerning the conduct of other people. We either

approve

I.

approve or difapprove of the conduct of another CHA P. man according as we feel that, when we bring his cafe home to ourselves, we either can or cannot entirely fympathize with the fentiments and motives which directed it. And, in the fame manner, we either approve or disapprove of our own conduct, according as we feel that, when we place ourfelves in the fituation of another man, and view it, as it were, with his eyes and from his station, we either can or cannot entirely enter into and fympathize with the fentiments and motives which influenced it. We can never furvey our own fentiments and motives, we can never form any judgment concerning them; unlefs we remove ourselves, as it were, from our own natural station, and endeavour to view them as at a certain distance from us. But we can do this in no other way than by endeavouring to view them with the eyes of other people, or as other people are likely to view them. Whatever judgment we can form concerning them, accordingly, muft always bear fome fecret reference, either to what are, or to what, upon a certain condition, would be, or to what, we imagine, ought to be the judgment of others. We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial fpectator would examine it. If, upon placing ourselves in his fituation, we thoroughly enter into all the paffions and motives which influenced it, we approve of it, by fympathy with the approbation of this fuppofed

equitable

PART equitable judge. If otherwife, we enter into his disapprobation, and condemn it.

III.

Were it poffible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in fome folitary place, without any communication with his own fpecies, he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own fentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. All these are objects which he cannot eafily fee, which naturally he does not look at, and with regard to which he is provided with no mirror which can present them to his view. Bring him into fociety, and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before. It is placed in the countenance and behaviour of those he lives with, which always mark when they enter into, and when they difapprove of his fentiments; and it is here that he first views the propriety and impropriety of his own paffions, the beauty and deformity of his own mind. To a man who from his birth was a stranger to fociety, the objects of his paffions, the external bodies which either pleafed or hurt him, would occupy his whole attention. The paffions themselves, the defires or averfions, the joys or forrows, which those objects excited, though of all things the most immediately prefent to him, could fcarce ever be the objects of his thoughts. The idea of them could never intereft him fo much as to call upon his attentive confideration. The confidera

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