general laws.'1
No one had explained the power of associa-
tion in regard to the emotions with so much ingenuity, and,
as association is doubtless a true cause, Hartley had the merit
of really improving our conception of the mode in which the
moral sentiments are generated in the individual. So few
men have really added to our limited stock of moral theories,
that the merit must be regarded as a very high one. On the
other hand, the value of Hartley's speculation is confined to
this branch of ethical speculation. It is a general weakness
of his system, resulting from its mode of ignoring ultimate
philosophical problems, that he never seems to allow for gene-
ral truths. Why does not each of those bundles of vibrati-
uncles which we call brains, differing in nature, and exposed to
infinitely various conditions, grind out a different set of truths?
How can there be a universal system of morality? Hartley
seems to prove that each individual must tend, as time goes
on, to become more exclusively animated by the love of
God-a result which is at least opposed to the ordinary views
of human experience. The formation of a moral standard
is not definitely explained; though some theory might be
accommodated to his system. But, without going into meta-
physical questions, it is plain that this weakness is signi-
ficant of the individualist method of Hartley, and that, on
his own showing, the doctrine requires to be supplemented
by a study of the reciprocal action upon each other of dif-
ferent members of the race. In other words, Hartley's doc-
trine is defective from the absence of any sociology, or even
of the perception that some sociological theory is necessary
to frame a moral doctrine based upon experience. He might
then have anticipated the teaching of some cognate schools in
later times.

73. Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments appeared in 1759,2 and won a rapid popularity, though producing little conviction. The qualities of thought and style which afterwards caused the success of the Enquiry into the Wealth of Nations' are equally visible in its predecessor. Smith's ingenious and discursive intellect pours itself out in

I Hartley's doctrine coincides curiously on some points with Comte's teaching as to the cultivation of the altruistic sentiments.

2 A tenth edition in 1804.

streams of diffuse eloquence, often brilliant with felicitous. illustrations, and quick flashes of historical insight, and yet wide rather than deep, rather dexterous in new combinations than penetrating the essence of the subject, and therefore apt to disappoint us by a certain superficiality. Smith's ingenuity in tracing the working of the mechanism of human nature is so marked and so delightful to himself that he almost forgets to enquire into the primary forces which set it in action. He describes the mutual action and reaction of the passions with more fidelity than the passions themselves. Smith, in fact, is a thorough representative of that optimistic Deism which we have seen illustrated by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. Hutcheson, Smith's predecessor in the chair of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow,' was in this respect nearer to Smith than was Smith's friend and teacher, Hume. The characteristic difference appears in this, that Smith follows Hutcheson and departs from Hume in making the doctrine of final causes an essential part of his system. Although we have no longer that extraordinary complex machinery of primitive instincts which, according to Butler and Hutcheson, had been mysteriously implanted in our bosom as divinely appointed monitors, yet Smith constantly regards human nature as a mechanism skilfully contrived to carry out the divine purposes. He simplifies the construction with a view to a rational explanation; but the action of the artificer is still discernible. Superfluous wheels and pulleys have been removed, but the general conception remains. 74. His theology rests essentially upon the 'whatever is, is right' dogma. He believes in a great, benevolent, and all-wise Being,' who is determined by his own perfections to maintain in the universe at all times the greatest possible quantity of happiness.' A belief in a future life is necessary to make us happy in this, and to 'illumine the dreary prospect of its continually approaching mortality.' The doctrine is so cheering that every virtuous man must earnestly wish to believe it; and disbelief has only been produced by

2

1 Hutcheson died in 1747. Craigie, his successor, was succeeded by Smith, in 1752.

2 Smith's 'Moral Sentiments,' ii. 98; part vi. sec. 2, ch. iii. Ib. i. 267; part iii. ch. ii.

its perversion to ascetic purposes.1 He quotes with indignation a passage in which Massillon, in preaching to a military audience, eloquently compares the hardships endured by a soldier to the penances endured by a monk; and proclaims that one day of a soldier's devotion might, if applied in a different direction, have won eternal happiness. When the rewards and penalties of futurity are perverted to secure the salvation of gloomy ascetics, and to ensure the damnation of heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, the doctrine is unnaturally opposed to all our moral sentiments. A cheerful discharge of daily duties proceeding from an equable and social temper is, in his opinion, the truest wisdom. 'Happiness,' he says, 'consists in tranquillity and enjoyment,' 3 and enjoyment follows almost of necessity from tranquillity. With this moderate estimate of human wants it is easy to believe, and to rejoice in the belief, that there are twenty people happy for one in misery. What,' he characteristically asks, 'can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?'5 and this, he adds, is the actual condition of the greatest part of mankind. The sight of the universe and of the human race excites in him neither lofty raptures nor melancholy misgivings, but a kind of placid complacency, which he describes as belief in God.

3

75. The benevolence of the Creator shows itself in the skilful adaptation of human passions to produce this result. Nature (which is the polite term for God) has made us worshippers of rank and fortune, because she wisely judged' that order would be more secure when resting on visible distinctions than on the obscure qualities of virtue and wisdom. Hume explains the snobbishness of mankind by the obvious consideration that we naturally admire what is useful to us. In Adam Smith's view it becomes a mysterious arrangement of Providence, designed for the good of society."

Adam Smith, i. 268, part iii. ch. ii. 2 Ib. i. 271, ib.

Ib. i. 302; part iii. ch. ii. 4 Ib. i. 282, ib.

phrase perhaps comes from Pope happiness consists in health, peace,

·

5 Ib. i. 87; part i. sec. 3, ch. i. The ('Essay on Man,' iv. 80), who says that all and competence;' and Pope here follows Bolingbroke almost verbally (Bolingbroke's Works, v. 298).

Adam Smith, ii. 78; part vii. sec. 2, ch. i.

The theory of the method is given with great clearness by Smith himself. After adducing the ordinary illustration of the watch, he remarks that we frequently mistake the end promoted by the existence of a given sentiment for the efficient cause of the sentiment; and thus 'imagine that to be the wisdom of man which in reality is the Wisdom of God.' ' Thus, as he goes on to say in tacit reference to Hume, the utility of just laws being obvious, it has been supposed that the utility was the cause of our approval of the enforcement of such laws. In opposition to this Smith argues that, although the utility has a certain influence, the sentiment of justice is excited in all men, and especially in the unthinking, by a spontaneous movement which does not take utility into account. Sympathy with the injured man excites our anger against a thief, and not any concern for the general interests of society. Smith's argument would be conclusive against a reasoner who should assert that the utility of an action was not merely the criterion of its morality, but also the immediate ground of our approval or disapproval. That would, of course, be a very crude statement of the utilitarian view. Smith's criticism, however, is significant of his position, and gives the starting-point of his special theory.

76. He holds that the moral sentiments contribute blindly to promote the happiness of mankind. Our anger against evildoers falls in by an undesigned coincidence-undesigned, that is, so far as we are concerned-with the general disposition of Providence to promote the greatest possible amount of happiness. But if not designed by us, it must have been designed by the Creator. The theory is, therefore, directed against a palpable weakness of the doctrine as generally expounded. It is easy to perceive that a dim perception of the utility of certain actions may have gradually generated moral sentiments which have no longer a conscious reference to the necessity which produced them. But until this distinction had been plainly drawn, it was a natural objection to the utilitarian theory that moral approval frequently did not involve any distinct recognition of the utility of actions. The instincts which had grown up by a complex process seemed, to observers still unable to place themselves at the historical point Adam Smith, i. 178; part ii. sec. 2, ch. iii.

of view, to have something mysterious about them. Philosophers talked not of concrete men, but of abstract human nature, assumed, or rather loudly asserted, to be the same in all times and places. They did not think of our instincts as slowly developed under the influence of a thousand modifying causes through long generations, but as suddenly springing into existence ready made. And to such observers it was natural that the conformity between our wants and our sentiment should appear to be the result of special contrivance, rather than of slow evolution. Smith, however, regards the moral sense described by Hutcheson as a superfluity, and as not properly explaining the phenomena. Our judgments of different vices and virtues vary too widely to be explained as the dictates of one sense; and it would be strange if an instinct so important and so peculiar should have been discovered for the first time within a few years, and not even have received a name. For this and other reasons, he rejects the theory of a specific moral faculty, and substitutes a theory of his own, which, however, seems to have gained few adherents.

77. In the place of Butler's conscience and Hutcheson's moral sense, Smith erects an internal monitor, who is the object of much eloquence, and who is generally described as the 'man,' or 'the demigod within the breast-the great judge and arbiter of conduct.' What, then, is this demigod? Whence his authority, and what his origin? Smith's general reply is that he is formed by sympathy. God has given us the gift, though not in such perfection as might be desired, to see ourselves as others see us. We invent, as it were, an impartial spectator, and approve or disapprove of our conduct as we feel that another man would or would not sympathise with our actions. Or, to use an appropriate metaphor, we form a mirror from the opinions of other men, by supposing ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour. This is the only lookingglass by which we can in some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinise the propriety of our own conduct.' The theory becomes complex as it is worked out. We have to

Adam Smith, ii. 299 et seq.; part vii. sec. 4, ch. ii. 2 Ib. ii. 127; part vi. sec. 3.

• Ib. i. 230, ib.

Ib. i. 226; part iii. ch. i.