PART II.

Of MERIT and DEMERIT; or, of the Objects of REWARD and PUNISHMENT.

Confifting of three SECTIONS.

SECTION I.

Of the sense of merit and demerit.

INTRODUCTION.

TH

HERE is another, fet of qualities afcribed to the actions and conduct of mankind, diftinct from their propriety or impropriety, their decency or ungracefulness, and which are the objects of a distinct species of approbation and disapprobation. These are merit and demerit, the qualities of deferving reward, and of deferving punishment.

It has already been obferved, that the sentiment or affection of the heart, from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice depends, may be confidered under two different aspects, or in two different relations first, in relation to the cause or object which excites it; and, fecondly, in

relation

relation to the end which it proposes, or to the effect which it tends to produce: that upon the suitableness or unfuitableness, upon the proportion or difproportion, which the affection feems to bear to the cause or object which excites it, depends the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the consequent action; and that upon the beneficial or hurtful effects which the affection propofes or tends to produce, depends the merit or demerit, the good or ill defert of the action to which it gives occafion. Wherein confifts our fenfe of the propriety or impropriety of actions, has been explained in the former part of this discourse. We come now to confider, wherein confifts that of their good or ill desert.

CHAP. I.

That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deferve reward; and that, in the fame manner, whatever appears to be the proper object of refentment, appears to deferve punishment.

T

O us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which appears to be the proper and approved object of that fentiment, which moft immediately and directly prompts us to reward, or to do good to another. And in the fame manner, that action must appear to deserve punishment,

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which

which appears to be the proper and approved object of that fentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to punish, oř to inflict evil upon another.

The fentiment which moft immediately and directly prompts us to reward, is gratitude; that which moft immediately and directly prompts us to punish, is refentment.

To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which appears to be the proper and approved object of gratitude; as, on the other hand, that action must appear to deserve punishment, which appears to be the proper and approved object of refentment.

To reward, is to recompenfe, to remunerate, to return good for good received. To punish, too, is to recompenfe, to remunerate, though in a different manner; it is to return evil for evil that has been done.

There are some other paffions, befides gratitude and refentment, which interest us in the happiness or mifery of others; but there are none which fo directly excite us to be the inftruments of either. The love and efteem which grow upon acquaintance and habitual approbation, neceffarily lead us to be pleased with the good fortune of the man who is the object of fuch agreeable emotions, and confequently, to be willing to lend a hand to promote it. Our love, however, is fully fatisfied, though his good fortune should be brought about without our affiftance. All that this paffion defires is to fee him happy, without regarding who was the author of his profperity.

profperity. But gratitude is not to be satis fied in this manner. If the person to whom we owe many obligations, is made happy without our affiftance, though it pleases our love, it does not content our gratitude. Till we have recompenfed him, till we ourselves have been instrumental in promoting his happiness, we feel ourselves ftill loaded with that debt which his paft fervices have laid upon

us.

The hatred and diflike, in the fame manner, which grow upon habitual disapprobation, would often lead us to take a malicious pleasure in the misfortune of the man whose conduct and character excite fo painful a paffion. But though diflike and hatred harden us against all fympathy, and sometimes difpofe us even to rejoice at the diftrefs of another, yet, if there is no refentment in the cafe, if neither we nor our friends have received any great perfonal provocation, these paffions would not naturally lead us to wish to be inftrumental in bringing it about. Tho' we could fear no punishment in confequence of our having had fome hand in it, we would rather that it should happen by other means. To one under the dominion of violent hatred it would be agreeable, perhaps, to hear, that the person whom he abhorred and detefted was killed by fome accident. But if he had the leaft fpark of justice, which, though this paffion is not very favourable to virtue, he might ftill have, it would hurt him exceffively to have been himself, even without

defign,

defign, the occafion of this misfortune. Much more would the very thought of voluntarily contributing to it shock him beyond all meafure. He would reject with horror even the imagination of fo execrable a defign; and if he could imagine himself capable of fuch an enormity, he would begin to regard himself in the fame odious light in which he had confidered the perfon who was the object of his diflike. But it is quite otherwise with resentment: if the perfon who had done us fome great injury, who had murdered our father or our brother, for example, should foon afterwards die of a fever, or even be brought to the scaffold upon account of fome other crime, though it might footh our hatred, it would not fully gratify our resentRefentment would prompt us to defire, not only that he should be punished, but that he should be punished by our means, and upon account of that particular injury which he had done to us. Refentment cannot be fully gratified, unless the offender is not only made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong which we have fuffered from him. He must be made to repent and be forry for this very action, that others, through fear of the like punishment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. The natural gratification of this paffion tends, of its own accord, to produce all the political ends of punishment; the correction of the criminal, and the example to the public. Gratitude

ment.

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