SECTION

CONCLUSION.

IX.

I

T

PART I.

may justly appear furprizing, that any man, in fo late an age, should find it requifite to prove, by elaborate reafonings, that PERSONAL MERIT confifts altogether in the poffeffion of mental qualities, useful or agreeable to the person himself or to others. It might be expected that this principle would have occurred even to the first rude, unpractised enquirers concerning morals, and been received from its own evidence, without any argument or difputation. Whatever is valuable in any kind, fo naturally claffes itself under the divifion of useful or agreeable, the utile or the dulce, that 'tis not easy to imagine, why we should ever seek farther, or confider the question as a matter of nice research or enquiry. And as every thing useful or agreeable muft poffefs these qualities with regard either to the perfon himself or to others, the compleat delineation or defcription of merit seems 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 a rea--fonable prefumption, that fyftems and hypotheses have per-verted our natural understanding; when a theory, fo fimpleand obvious, could fo long have efcaped the most elaborate examination.

But however the cafe may have fared with philofophy; in › common life, these principles are ftill implicitly maintained, nor is any other topic of praise or blame ever recurred to, when we employ any panegyrit or fatyr, any applause or cen--fure of human action and behaviour. If we obferve men, in a every intercourfe of bufinefs or pleafure, in each difcourfe and converfation; we fhall find them no where, except in the fchools, at any lofs upon this fubject. What fo natural, for inftance, as the following dialogue? You are very happy, we fhall fuppofe one to say, addreffing himself to another, that: you have given your daughter to CLEANTHES. He is a man of honour and humanity. Every one, who has any intercourfe with him, is fure of fair and kind treatment *. I congratu- late you too, fays another, on the promifing expectations of this fon-in-law; whofe affiduous application to the study of the laws, whofe quick penetration and early knowlege both of men and business, prognofticate the greatest honours and advancement. You furprise 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; fo much gallantry without affectation ; fo much ingenious knowlege fo genteelly delivered, I have:

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never before obferved in any one *. You would admire him ftill more, fays a fourth, if you knew 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 greatnefs 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 ftroke of the pencil to his figure; and you have unawares exceeded all the pictures drawn by GRATIAN OF CASTIGLIONE. A philofopher might select this character as a model of perfect · virtue..

And as every quality, which is useful or agreeable to ourfelves 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 falfe religion. Celibacy, fasting, penances, mortification, felf-denial, humility, filence, folitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reafon are they every where rejected by men of sense, but because 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 observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these defirable ends; ftu-pify the understanding and harden the heart, obfcure the fancy

Qualities immediately agreeable to others.

+ Qualities immediately agreeable to the perfon himself..

and.

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 fentiments. A gloomy, hair-brained enthufiaft, after his death, may have a place in the calendar; but will scarce ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and fociety, except by thofe who are as delirious and difmal as himself.

It seems a happiness in the prefent theory, that it enters not into that vuigar difpute concerning the degrees of benevolence or felf-love, which prevail in human nature; a dispute 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 fo difperfed, fo uncertain, and subject 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 surely, without the greatest abfurdity cannot be difputed, that there is fome benevolence, however fmall, infufed into our bofom; some 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 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,

one, and a proportionable averfion to those of the other. Nor will those reasoners, who fő earnestly maintain the predominant selfishness of human kind, be any wife fcandalized at hearing of the weak fentiments of virtue, implanted in our nature. On the contrary, they are found as ready to maintain the one tenet as the other, and their spirit of fatire, (for fuch it appears, rather than of corruption) naturally gives rise to both opinions; which have, indeed, a great and almost an indiffoluble connection together.

Avarice, ambition, vanity, and all paffions vulgarly, thougfi 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 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 moft remote, an object of applause or cenfure, according as they agree or difagree with that rule of right which is established. These two requifite circumstances belong alone to the fentiment of humanity here infifted on. The other paffions produce, in every breast, many strong sentiments of defire and aversion, affection and hatred; but these neither are felt fo much in common, nor are so compréhensive, as to be the foundation of any general fyftem and established theory of blame or approbation.

When