SECTION IX. CONCLUSION of the WHOLE. IT PART I. T may justly appear furprizing, that any man, in fo late an age, fhould find it requifite to prove, by elaborate reafonings, that PERSONAL MERIT confifts altogether in the poffeffion of mental qualities, useful or agreeable to the perfon himself or to others. It might be expected that this principle would have occured even to the first rude, unpractifed enquirers concerning morals, and been received from its own evidence, without any argument or disputation. Whatever is valuable in any kind, so naturally claffes itself under the divifion of useful or agreeable, the utile or the dulce, that 'tis not easy to imagine, why we fhould ever feek farther, or confider the queftion as a matter of nice research or enquiry. And as every thing useful or agreeable must possess these qualities with regard either to the perfon himself or to others, the compleat delineation or defcription of merit feems to be performed as naturally as a fhadow is caft by the fun, or an image is reflected upon water. If the ground, on which the fhadow is caft, be not broken and uneven; nor the furface, from which the image is reflected, disturbed and confused; a juft figure is immediately prefented, without any art or attention. And it seems 73 feems a reasonable prefumption, that systems and hypothefes have perverted our natural understanding; when a * theory, fo fimple and obvious, could so long have escaped the most elaborate examination. He is a But however the cafe may have fared with philofophy; in common life, these principles are still implicitly maintained, nor is any other topic of praise or blame ever recurred to, when we employ any panegyric or fatyr, any applause or cenfure of human action and behaviour. If we obferve men, in every intercourse of business or pleasure, in each difcourfe and conversation; we shall find them no where, except in the schools, at any lofs upon this fubject. What fo natural, for inftance, as the following dialogue? You are very happy, we shall suppofe one to fay, addreffing himself to another, that you have given your daughter to CLEANTHES. man of honour and humanity. Every one, who has any intercourse with him, is fure of fair and kind treatment*, I congratulate you too, fays another, on the promifing expectations of this fon-in-law; whose affiduous application to the ftudy of the laws, whofe quick penetration and early knowlege both of men and bufinefs, prognosticate the greatest honours and advancement t. You furprize me much, replies a third, when you talk of CLEANTHES as a man of business and application. I met him lately in a circle of the gayeft company, and he was the very life and foul of our converfation: So much wit with good manners; so much gallantry without affectation; so much ingenious knowlege fo genteelly delivered, I have never before observed in any one. You would admire him still more, fays a fourth, if you knew him more familiarly, That chearfulness Qualities ufeful to others. + Qualities ufeful to the perfon himself. Qualities immediately agreeable to others, which you might remark in him, is not a fudden flash ftruck out by company : It runs through the whole tenor of his life, and preferves a perpetual ferenity on his countenance, and tranquillity in his foul. He has met with fevere trials, misfortunes, as well as dangers; and by his greatness of mind, was ftill fuperior to all of them t. The image, gentlemen, which you have here delineated of CLEANTHES, cry I, is that of accomplished merit. Each of you has given a stroke of the pencil to his figure; and you have unawares exceeded all the pictures drawn by GRATIAN or CASTIGLIONE. A philofopher might select this character as a model of perfect virtue. And as every quality, which is useful or agreeable to ourselves or others, is, in common life, allowed to be a part of perfonal merit; fo no other will ever be received, where men judge of things by their natural, unprejudiced reason, without the delufive gloffes of fuperftition and false religion. Celibacy, fafting, penances, mortification, felf-denial, humility, filence, folitude, and the whole train of monkifh virtues; for what reason are they every where rejected by men of sense, but becaufe they serve no manner of purpose; neither advance a man's fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor encrease his power of self-enjoyment? We obferve, on the contrary, that they cross all these defirable ends; ftupify the underftanding and harden the heart, obfcure the fancy and four the temper. We juftly, therefore, transfer them to the oppofite column, and place them in the catalogue of vices; nor has any fuperftition force fufficient, among men of the world, to pervert entirely these natural sen + Qualities immediately agreeable to the perfon himself. 74 timents. timents. A gloomy, hair-brained enthufiaft, after his death, may have a place in the calendar; but will fcarce ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and fociety, except by those who are as delirious and difmal as himself. It seems a happiness in the present theory, that it enters not into that vulgar difpute concerning the degrees of benevolence or felf-love, which prevail in human nature; a difpute which is never likely to have any iffue, both because men, who have taken party, are not easily convinced, and because the phænomena, which can be produced on either fide, are so dispersed, so uncertain, and fubject to fo many interpretations, that 'tis fcarce poffible accurately to compare them, or draw from them any determinate inference or conclufion. 'Tis fufficient for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what furely, without the greateft abfurdity cannot be difputed, that there is fome benevolence, however small, infused into our bofom; fome fpark of friendship for human kind; fome particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and ferpent. Let these generous fentiments be fuppofed ever so weak; let them be infufficient to move even a hand or finger of our body; they muft ftill direct the determinations of our mind, and where every thing elfe is equal, produce a cool preference of what is ufeful and ferviceable to mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous. A moral diftinction, therefore, immediately arifes; a general fentiment of blame and approbation; a tendency, however faint, to the objects of the one, and a proportionable averfion to those of the other. Nor will these reafoners, who fo earnestly maintain the predominant felfishness of human kind, be any wise scandalized at hearing of the weak fentiments of virtue, implanted in our nature. On the contrary, they are found as ready to maintain maintain the one tenet as the other, and their spirit of fatyre (for fuch it appears, rather than of corruption) naturally gives rife to both opinions; which have, indeed, a great and almoft an indiffoluble connection to gether.. Avarice, ambition, vanity, and all paffions vulgarly, though improperly, comprized under the denomination of felf-love, are here excluded from our theory concerning the origin of morals, not because they are too weak, but because they have not a proper direction, for that purpose. The notion of morals implies fome fentiment common to all mankind, which recommends the fame object to general approbation, and makes every man, or most men, agree in the fame opinion or decifion concerning it. It also implies fome fentiment, fo univerfal and comprehenfive as to extend to all mankind, and render the actions and conduct, even of the perfons the most remote, an object of applaufe or cenfure, according as they agree or disagree with that rule of right which is eftablished. These two requifite circumstances belong alone to the fentiment of humanity here infifted on. The other paffions produce, in every breast, many strong fentiments of defire and averfion, affection and hatred; but these neither are felt fo much in common, nor are fo comprehenfive, as to be the foundation of any general system and established theory of blame or approbation When a man denominates another his enemy, his rival, his antagonist, his adverfary, he is understood to speak the language of felf-love, and to express fentiments, peculiar to himself, and arifing from his particular circumftances and fituation. But when he bestows on any man the epithets of vicious or odious or depraved, he then speaks another language, and expreffes fentiments, in which he expects all his audience are to concur with him. He muft |