VII.

PART their contempt and hatred. By the one we naturally fecure, by the other we neceffarily endanger our own ease and tranquillity, the great and ultimate objects of all our defires. The whole virtue of juftice, therefore, the most important of all the virtues, is no more than difcreet and prudent conduct with regard to our neighbours.

Such is the doctrine of Epicurus concerning the nature of virtue. It may feem extraordinary that this philofopher, who is described as a perfon of the most amiable manners, fhould never have obferved, that, whatever may be the tendency of thofe virtues, or of the contrary vices, with regard to our bodily ease and fecurity, the fentiments which they naturally excite in others are the objects of a much more paffionate defire or averfion than all their other confequences; that to be amiable, to be refpectable, to be the proper object of esteem, is by every well-difpofed mind more valued than all the eafe and fecurity which love, refpect, and esteem can procure us; that, on the contrary, to be odious, to be contemptible, to be the proper object of indignation, is more dreadful than all that we can fuffer in our body from hatred, contempt, or indignation; and that confequently our defire of the one character, and our averfion to the other, cannot arife from any regard to the effects which either of them is likely to produce upon the body.

This fyftem is, no doubt, altogether inconfiftent with that which I have been endeavouring

to

II.

to establish. It is not difficult, however, to SE C T. discover from what phafis, if I may fay fo, from what particular view or aspect of nature, this account of things derives its probability. By the wife contrivance of the Author of nature, virtue is upon all ordinary occafions, even with regard to this life, real wifdom, and the fureft: and readiest means of obtaining both safety and advantage. Our fuccefs or difappointment in our undertakings muft very much depend upon the good or bad opinion which is commonly entertained of us, and upon the general difpo fition of those we live with, either to affift or to oppofe us. But the beft, the fureft, the eafieft, and the readieft way of obtaining the advan tageous and of avoiding the unfavourable judgments of others, is undoubtedly to render ourselves the proper objects of the former and not of the latter. "Do you defire," faid Socrates, "the reputation of a good musician ? "The only fure way of obtaining it, is to be"come a good mufician. Would you defire

in the fame manner to be thought capable "of ferving your country either as a general or "as a statesman? The best way in this case "too is really to acquire the art and experience "of war and government, and to become really "fit to be a general or a statesman. And in the "fame manner if you would be reckoned fober, "temperate, juft, and equitable, the best way "of acquiring this reputation is to become fober, temperate, juft, and equitable. If you can really render yourself amiable, refpectable,

46

PART

VII.

fpectable, and the proper object of esteem, "there is no fear of your not foon acquiring "the love, the refpec, and esteem of those 66 you live with." Since the practice of virtue, therefore, is in general fo advantageous, and that of vice fo contrary to our interest, the confideration of thofe oppofite tendencies doubtedly ftamps an additional beauty and propriety upon the one, and a new deformity and impropriety upon the other. Temperance, magnanimity, juftice, and beneficence, come thus to be approved of, not only under their proper characters, but under the additional character of the highest wisdom and moft real prudence. And in the fame manner, the contrary vices of intemperance, pufillanimity, injuftice, and either malevolence or fordid selfishnefs, come to be disapproved of, not only under their proper characters, but under the additional character of the moft fhort-fighted folly and weakness. Epicurus appears in every virtue to have attended to this fpecies of propriety only. It is that which is most apt to occur to those who are endeavouring to perfuade others to regularity of conduct. When men by their practice, and perhaps too by their maxims, manifeftly fhew that the natural beauty of virtue is not like to have much effect upon them, how is it poffible to move them but by representing the folly of their conduct, and how much they themselves are in the end likely to suffer by it? By running up all the different virtues too to this one fpecies of propriety, Epicurus indulged

II.

dulged a propenfity, which is natural to all s E C. T. men, but which philofophers in particular are apt to cultivate with a peculiar fondness, as the great means of displaying their ingenuity, the propenfity to account for all appearances from as few principles as poffible. And he, no doubt, indulged this propenfity ftill further, when he referred all the primary objects of natural defire and averfion to the pleafures and pains of the body. The great patron of the atomical philofophy, who took fo much pleasure in deducing all the powers and qualities of bodies from the moft obvious and familiar, the figure, motion, and arrangement of the fmall parts of matter, felt no doubt a fimilar fatisfaction, when he accounted, in the fame manner, for all the fentiments and paffions of the mind from thofe which are moft obvious and familiar.

*

The fyftem of Epicurus agreed with thofe of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, in making virtue confist in acting in the moft fuitable manner to obtain primary objects of natural defire. It differed from all of them in two other refpects; first, in the account which it gave of those primary objects of natural defire; and fecondly, in the account which it gave of the excellence of virtue, or of the reafon why that quality ought to be efteemed.

The primary objects of natural defire confifted, according to Epicurus, in bodily pleasure

VOL. I.

* Prima naturæ.

M M

and

PART änd pain, and in nothing elfe: whereas, acVII. cording to the other three philosophers, there

were many other objects, fuch as knowledge, fuch as the happinefs of our relations, of our friends, of our country, which were ultimately defirable for their own fakes.

Virtue too, according to Epicurus, did not deferve to be purfued for its own fake, nor was itself one of the ultimate objects of natural appetite, but was eligible only upon account of its tendency to prevent pain and to procure ease and pleasure. In the opinion of the other three, on the contrary, it was defirable, not merely as the means of procuring the other primary objects of natural defire, but as fomething which was in itfelf more valuable than them all. Man, they thought, being born for action, his happiness muft confift, not merely in the agreeableness of his paffive fenfations, but alfo in the propriety of his active exertions.

CHAP. III.

Of thofe Systems which make Virtue confift in Benevolence.

THE fyftem which makes virtue confist in benevolence, though I think not fo ancient as all of thofe which I have already given an account of, is, however, of very great antiquity. It seems to have been the doctrine of the greater part