him more familiarly. That chearfulness, 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 still fuperior to all of them *. The image, gentlemen, which you have here delineated of Cleanthes, cry'd I, is that of accomplished merit. Each of you has given a ftroke of the pencil to his figure: and you have unawares exceeded all the pictures drawn by Gratian or Caftiglione. A philofopher might felect 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 reafon, without the delufive gloffes of fuperftition and falfe religion. Celibacy, fafting, penance, mortification, felf-denial, humility, filence, folitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they every where rejected by men of fenfe, but because they ferve to no manner of purpose; neither advance a man's fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of fociety; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor increase his power of felf-enjoyment? We obferve, on the contrary, that they crofs all these desirable ends; ftupify the underftanding and harden the heart, obfcure the fancy and four the temper. We justly, 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 VOL. II. world,

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Qualities immediately agreeable to the perfon himself.

world, to pervert entirely their natural fentiments. A gloomy hair-brained enthusiast, after his death, may have a place in the calendar;, but will fcarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and fociety, except by those who are as delirious and difmal as himself.

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It seems a happiness in the prefent 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 becaufe men, who have taken part, are not eafily convinced, and because the phænomena, which can be produced on either fide, are fo difperfed, fo uncertain, and subject to fo many interpretations, that it is fcarcely poffible accurately to compare them, or draw from them determinate inference or conclufion. It is fufficient for our prefent purpose, if it be allowed, what furely, without the greateft abfurdity, cannot be difputed, that there is fome benevolence, however small, infufed into our bofom; fome spark of friendship for human kind; fome particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and ferpent. Let thefe generous fentiments be fuppofed ever fo 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 else is equal, produce a cool preference of what is useful and serviceable 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 thofe reafoners, who fo earnestly maintain the predominant felfishness of human kind, be any wife fcandalized at hearing of the weak fentiments of virtue, implanted in our nature. the contrary, they are found as ready to maintain

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the one tenet as the other; and their spirit of fa tire (for fuch it appears, rather than of corruption) naturally gives rife to both opinions; which have, indeed, a great and almost an indiffoluble connexion together.

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 moft men, agree in the fame opinion or decifion concerning it. It alfo 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 applause or cenfure, according as they agree or disagree with that rule of right which is established. These two requifite circumftances belong alone to the sentiment of humanity here infifted on. The other paffions produce, in every breast, many ftrong 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 fyftem 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 exprefs 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 must here, therefore, depart from his private and parti

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cular

cular fituation, and must chufe a point of view, - common to him with others: He muft move fome univerfal principle of the, human frame, and touch a ftring, to which all mankind have an accord and fymphony. If he means, therefore, to exprefs, that this man poffeffes qualities, whofe tendency is pernicious to fociety, he has chofen this common point of view, and has touched the principle of humanity, in which every man, in fome degree, concurs. While the human heart is compounded of the fame elements as at prefent, it will never be wholly indifferent to public good, nor entirely unaffected with the tendency of characters and manners. And though this affection of humanity may not generally be esteemed so strong as vanity or ambition, yet, being common to all men, it can alone be the foundation of morals, or of any general fyftem of blame or praise. One man's ambition is not another's ambition; nor will the fame event or object fatisfy both: But the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one; and the fame object touches this paffion in all human creatures.

But the fentiments, which arife from humanity, are not only the fame in all human creatures, and produce the fame approbation or cenfure; but they also comprehend all human creatures; nor is there any one whofe conduct or character is not, by their means, an object, to every one, of cenfure or approbation. On the contrary, those other paffions, commonly denominated selfish, both produce different fentiments in each individual, according to his particular fituation; and alfo contemplate the greater part of mankind with the utmoft indifference and unconcern. Whoever has a high regard and esteem for me flatters my vanity; whoever expreffes contempt mortifies and difpleases me: But as my name is known but to a small part of mankind, there are few, who come within the sphere of this

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paffion,

paffion, or excite, on its account, either my affection or difguft. But if you represent a tyrannical, infolent, or barbarous behaviour, in any country or in any age of the world; I foon carry my eye to the pernicious tendency of fuch a conduct, and feel the fentiment of repugnance and displeasure towards it. No character can be fo remote as to be, in this light, wholly indifferent to me. What is beneficial to fociety or to the perfon himself muft ftill be preferred. And every quality or action, of every human being, muft, by this means, be ranked under fome clafs or denomination, expreffive of general cenfure or applause.

What more, therefore, can we ask to distinguish. the fentiments, dependant on humanity, from thofe connected with any other paffion, or to fatisfy us, why the former are the origin of morals, not the latter? Whatever conduct gains any approbation; by touching my humanity, procures alfo the applaufe of all mankind, by affecting the fame principle in them: But what ferves my avarice or ambition pleases thefe paffions in me alone, and affects not the avarice and ambition of the rest of mankind. There is no circum

stance of conduct in any man, provided it have a beneficial tendency, that is not agreeable to my humanity, however remote the perfon: But every man, fo far removed as neither to crofs nor ferve my avarice nor ambition, is regarded as wholly indifferent by thofe paffions. The diftinction, therefore, between thefe fpecies of fentiment being fo great and evident, language muft foon be moulded upon it, and muft invent a peculiar fet of terms, in order to express thofe univerfal fentiments of cenfure or approbation, which arife from humanity, or from views of general usefulness and its contrary. Virtue and Vice become then known: Morals are recognized: