prince, come in aid of his ignorance and incapacity; and these causes operating together, serve to destroy the very foundation on which his power is established. Any undisciplined rout of armed men passes for an army, whilst a weak, dispersed, and unarmed people are sacrificed to military disorder, or exposed to depredation on the frontier from an enemy, whom the desire of spoil, or the hopes of conquest, may have drawn to their neighbourhood.
The Romans extended their empire till they left no polished nation to be subdued, and found a frontier which was every where surrounded by fierce and barbarous tribes; they even pierced through uncultivated deserts, in order to remove to a greater distance the molestation of such troublesome neighbours, and in order to possess the avenues through which they feared their attacks. But this policy put the finishing hand to the internal corruption of the state. A few years of tranquillity were sufficient to make even the government forget its danger; and, in the cultivated province, prepared for the enemy a tempting prize and an easy victory.
When by the conquest and annexation of every rich and cultivated province, the measure of empire is full, two parties are sufficient to comprehend mankind; that of the pacific and the wealthy, who dwell within the pale of empire; and that of the poor, the rapacious, and the fierce, who are inured to depredation and war. The last bear to the first nearly the same relation which the wolf and the lion bear to the fold; and they are naturally engaged in a state of hostility.
Were despotic empire, meantime, to continue for ever unmolested from abroad, while it retains that corruption on which it was founded, it appears to have in itself no principle of new life, and presents no hope of restoration to freedom and political vigour. That which the despotical _master has sown, cannot quicken unless it die_; it must languish and expire by the effect of its own abuse, before the human spirit can spring up anew, or bear those fruits which constitute the honour and the felicity of human nature. In times of the greatest debasement, indeed, commotions are felt; but very unlike the agitations of a free people: they are either the agonies of nature, under the sufferings to which men are exposed; or mere tumults, confined to a few who stand in arms about the prince, and who, by, their conspiracies, assassinations, and murders, serve only to plunge the pacific inhabitants still deeper in the horrors of fear or despair. Scattered in the provinces, unarmed, unacquainted with the sentiments of union and confederacy, restricted by habit to a wretched economy, and dragging a precarious life on those possessions which the extortions of government have left; the people can nowhere, under these circumstances, assume the spirit of a community, nor form any liberal combination for their own defence. The injured may complain; and while he cannot obtain the mercy of government, he may implore the commiseration of his fellow subject. But that fellow subject is comforted, that the hand of oppression has not seized on himself: he studies his interest, or snatches his pleasure, under that degree of safety which obscurity and concealment bestow.
The commercial arts, which seem to require no foundation in the minds of men, but the regard to interest; no encouragement, but the hopes of gain, and the secure possession of property, must perish under the precarious tenure of slavery, and under the apprehension of danger arising from the reputation of wealth. National poverty, however, and the suppression of commerce, are the means by which despotism comes to accomplish its own destruction. Where there are no longer any profits to corrupt, or fears to deter, the charm of dominion is broken, and the naked slave, as awake from a dream, is astonished to find he is free. When the fence is destroyed, the wilds are open, and the herd breaks loose. The pasture of the cultivated field is no longer preferred to that of the desert. The sufferer willingly flies where the extortions of government cannot overtake him; where even the timid and the servile may recollect they are men; where the tyrant may threaten, but where he is known to be no more than a fellow creature; where he can take nothing but life, and even this at the hazard of his own.
Agreeably to this description, the vexations of tyranny have overcome, in many parts of the East, the desire of settlement. The inhabitants of a village quit their habitations, and infest the public ways; those of the valleys fly to the mountains, and, equipt for flight, or possessed of a strong hold, subsist by depredation, and by the war they make on their former masters.
These disorders conspire with the impositions of government to render the remaining settlements still less secure: but while devastation and ruin appear on every side, mankind are forced anew upon those confederacies, acquire again that personal confidence and vigour, that social attachment, that use of arms, which, in former times, rendered a small tribe the seed of a great nation; and which may again enable the emancipated slave to begin the career of civil and commercial arts. When human nature appears in the utmost state of corruption, it has actually begun to reform.
In this manner, the scenes of human life have been frequently shifted. Security and presumption forfeit the advantages of prosperity; resolution and conduct retrieve the ills of adversity; and mankind while they have nothing on which to rely but their virtue, are prepared to gain every advantage; and while they confide most in their good fortune, are most exposed to feel its reverse. We are apt to draw these observations into rule; and when we are no longer willing to act for our country, we plead, in excuse of our own weakness or folly, a supposed fatality in human affairs.
The institutions of men, if not calculated for the preservation of virtue, are, indeed, likely to have an end as well as a beginning: but so long as they are effectual to this purpose, they have at all times an equal principle of life, which nothing but an external force can suppress; no nation ever suffered internal decay but from the vice of its members. We are sometimes willing to acknowledge this vice in our countrymen; but who was ever willing to acknowledge it in himself? It may be suspected, however, that we do more than acknowledge it, when we cease to oppose its effects, and when we plead a fatality, which, at least, in the breast of every individual, is dependent on himself. Men of real fortitude, integrity, and ability, are well placed in every scene; they reap, in every condition, the principal enjoyments of their nature; they are the happy instruments of Providence employed for the good of mankind; or, if we must change this language, they show, that while they are destined to live, the states they compose are likewise doomed by the fates to survive, and to prosper.
THE END
VALUABLE WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED, BY ANTHONY FINLEY, _Corner of Chesnut and Fourth Streets, Philadelphia._
THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS; OR, AN ESSAY
Towards an analysis of the principles by which men naturally judge concerning the conduct and character, first of their neighbours, and afterwards of themselves,
To which is added,
_A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages._ BY ADAM SMITH, LL.D. F.R.B. FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE TWELFTH EDINBURGH EDITION.
* * * * *
_Extract from “An Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. Adam Smith, by Dugald Stewart, F.R.S. Edinburgh.”_
(Speaking of Dr. S.’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, he says) “No work, undoubtedly, can be mentioned, ancient or modern, which exhibits so complete a view of those facts, with respect to our moral perception, which it is one great object of this branch of science to refer to their general laws; and upon this account, it well deserves the careful study of all whose taste leads them to prosecute similar inquiries. These facts are indeed frequently expressed in a language which involves the author’s peculiar theories; but they are always presented in the most happy and beautiful light; and it is easy for an attentive reader, by stripping them of hypothetical terms, to state them to himself with that logical precision, which, in such very difficult disquisitions, can alone conduct us with certainty to the truth.
“It is proper to observe, farther, that, with the theoretical doctrines of the book, there are every where interwoven, with singular taste and address, the purest and most elevated maxims concerning the practical conduct of life; and that it abounds throughout with interesting and instructive delineations of characters and manners. A considerable part of it too is employed in collateral inquiries, which, upon every hypothesis that can be formed concerning the foundation of morals, are of equal importance. Of this kind is the speculation with respect to the influence of fortune on our moral sentiments; and another speculation no less valuable, with respect to the influence of custom and fashion on the same part of our constitution.
“When the subject of this work leads the author to address the imagination and the heart: the variety and felicity of his illustrations–the richness and fluency of his eloquence–and the skill with which he wins the attention and commands the passions of his readers, leave him, among our English moralists, without a rival.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I.
_Of the Propriety of Action_.
Section I. _Of the Sense of Propriety_.
Chap. I. Of Sympathy.
Chap. II. Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy.
Chap. III. Of the manner in which we judge of the Propriety or Impropriety of the Affections of other Men, by their concord or dissonance with our own.
Chap. IV. The same subject continued.
Chap. V. Of the Amiable and Respectable Virtues.
Section II. _Of the Degrees of the different Passions which are consistent with Propriety_.
Introduction.
Chap. I. Of the Passions which take their origin from the body.
Chap. II. Of those Passions which take their origin from a particular turn or habit of the Imagination.
Chap. III. Of the unsocial Passions.
Chap. IV. Of the social Passions.
Chap. V. Of the selfish Passions.
Section III. _Of the Effects of Prosperity and Adversity upon the Judgment of Mankind with regard to the Propriety of Action; and why it is more easy to obtain their approbation in the one state than in the other_.
Chap. I. That though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a more lively sensation than our sympathy with toy, it commonly falls much more short of the violence of what is naturally felt by the person principally concerned.
Chap. II. Of the origin of Ambition, and of the distinction of Ranks.
Chap. III. Of the corruption of our Moral Sentiments, which is occasioned by this disposition to admire the rich and the great, and to despise or neglect persons of poor and mean condition.
PART II.
_Of Merit and Demerit; or of the objects of reward and punishment_.
Section I. _Of the Sense of Merit and Demerit_.
Introduction.
Chap. I. That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appears to be the proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment.
Chap. II. Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment.
Chap. III. That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person who confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of him who receives it: and that on the contrary, where there is no disapprobation of the motives of the person who does the mischief, there is no sort of sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it.
Chap. IV. Recapitulation of the foregoing chapters.
Chap. V. The Analysis of the sense of Merit and Demerit.
SECTION II. _Of Justice and Beneficence._
Chap. I. Comparison of those two virtues.
Chap. II. Of the sense of Justice, of Remorse, and of the consciousness of Merit.
Chap. III. Of the utility of this constitution of Nature.
SECTION III. _Of the Influence of Fortune upon the Sentiments of Mankind, with regard to the Merit or Demerit of Actions._
Introduction.
Chap. I. Of the causes of this influence of Fortune.
Chap. II. Of the extent of this influence of Fortune.
Chap. III. Of the final cause of this irregularity of Sentiments.
PART III. _Of the Foundation our Judgments concerning our own sentiments and conduct, and of the sense of Duty._
Chap. I. Of the principle of Self-approbation and of Self-disapprobation.
Chap. II. Of the love of Praise, and of that of Praise-worthiness; and of the dread of Blame, and that of Blame-worthiness.
Chap. III. Of the Influence and Authority of Conscience.
Chap. IV. Of the nature of Self-deceit, and of the Origin and Use of general Rules.
Chap. V. Of the Influence and Authority of the general Rules of Morality, and that they are justly regarded as the laws of the Deity.
Chap. VI. In what cases the Sense of Duty ought to be the sole principle of our conduct; and in what cases it ought to concur with other motives.
PART IV. _Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation._
Chap. I. Of the Beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon all the productions of Art, and of the extensive influence of this species of Beauty.
Chap. II. Of the Beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon the characters and actions of men; and how far the perception of this beauty may be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation.
PART V. _Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments of Moral Approbation and Disapprobation._
Chap. I. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our notions of Beauty and Deformity.
Chap. II. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral Sentiments.
PART VI. _Of the Character of Virtue._
Introduction. Section I. _Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it affects his own Happiness; or of Prudence_.
Section II. _Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it can affect the happiness of other People_.
Introduction.
Chap. I. Of the order in which Individuals are recommended by nature to our care and attention.
Chap. II. Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to our beneficence.
Chap. III. Of Universal Benevolence.
Section III. _Of Self-Command_.
Conclusion of the Sixth Part.
PART VII.
_Of Systems of Moral Philosophy_.
Section I. _Of the questions which ought to be examined in a Theory of Moral Sentiments_.
Section II. _Of the different Accounts which have been given of the nature of Virtue_.
Introduction.
Chap. I. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in propriety.
Chap. II. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in prudence.
Chap. III. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in benevolence.
Chap. IV. Of licentious Systems.
Section III. _Of the different Systems which have been formed concerning the Principle of Approbation_.
Introduction.
Chap. I. Of those systems which deduce the principle of Approbation from Self-love.
Chap. II. Of those systems which make Reason the principle of Approbation.
Chap. III. Of those systems which make Sentiment the principle of Approbation.
Section IV. _Of the manner in which different Authors have treated of the Practical Rules of Morality_.
_Considerations concerning the first Formation of Languages, &c._
_An Epitome of Ancient Geography_, Sacred and Profane, being an abridgment of D’Anville’s Geography, with improvements, from various other authors; by which the omissions of D’Anville are supplied, and his errors corrected. Accompanied with an account of the origin and migration of ancient nations.–By Robert Mayo, M. D. author of “A New System of Mythology,” &c. 150 cents.
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