hence, too, the existence of different ranks and of social distinctions, all of which emanate from the same source.42 Hence, also, the feeling of loyalty, which is a product, not of reason, nor of fear, nor of a sense of public convenience, but rather of sympathy with those above us, begetting an extraordinary compassion for even their ordinary sufferings.3 Custom and fashion play a great part in the world, but they owe their origin entirely to sympathy; and so do the various systems of philosophy which have flourished at different times, the disagreement between which depends on the fact, that each philosopher has sympathized with different ideas, some sympathizing with the notion of fitness or congruity, some with that of prudence, some with that of benevolence, and every one developing the conception paramount in his own mind.45 To sympathy, again, we must ascribe the establishment of rewards and punishments, and the whole of our criminal laws, none of which would have existed but for our disposition to sympathize with those who either do good or suffer harm; for the circumstance of society being protected by penal laws, is a subsequent and subordinate discovery, which confirms our sense of their propriety, but did not suggest it.46 The same principle causes the difference of character exhibited by different classes, such as the irritability of poets, compared with the coolness of mathematicians;47 it

66

42 Upon this disposition of mankind to go along with all the passions of the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction of ranks, and the order of society. Our obsequiousness to our superiors more frequently arises from our admiration for the advantages of their situation, than from any private expectations of benefit from their good will." Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 69. See also vol. ii. p. 72.

43 See the striking remarks in Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 70-72. Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 23, seqq. 45 Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 131-244. This sketch of the different systems of philosophy is perhaps the ablest part of the book, notwithstanding two or three errors which it contains.

46 Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 89, 92, 115, 116. The utmost which he will concede to the notion of social convenience, is that "we frequently have occasion to confirm our natural sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment, by reflecting how necessary it is for preserving the order of society." p. 122.

Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 172-174.

likewise causes that social difference between the sexes, which makes men more remarkable for generosity, and women for humanity.48 All these results illustrate the workings of sympathy, and are the remote, but still the direct, operations of that principle. Indeed, we can trace to it some of the minutest divisions of character; pride and vanity, for instance, being dependent on it, although those two passions are often confused together, and are sometimes strangely blended in the same mind.*

49

Sympathy, then, is the main-spring of human conduct. It arises, not so much from witnessing the passions of other persons, as from witnessing the situation which excites those passions.50 To this single process we are indebted, not only for the highest principles, but also for the deepest emotions. For, the greatest affection of which we are capable, is merely sympathy fixed into habit; and the love which exists between the nearest relations, is not inherent, but is derived from this mighty and controlling principle, which governs the whole course of affairs.51

By this bold hypothesis, Adam Smith, at one stroke, so narrowed the field of inquiry, as to exclude from it all considerations of selfishness as a primary principle, and only to admit its great antagonist, sympathy. The

48 C

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man. The fair sex, who have commonly much more tenderness than ours, have seldom so much generosity. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 19. Sufficient facts have not yet been collected to enable us to test the truth of this remark, and the loose experience of individual observers is worth very little on so wide a subject. Still, I venture to doubt the truth of Adam Smith's distinction. I suspect that women are, on the whole, more generous than men, as well as more tender. But to establish a proposition of this sort, would require the most extensive research, made by a careful and analytic mind; and, at present, there is not even any tolerably good work on the mental characteristics which distinguish the sexes, and there never will be one until physiology is united with biography.

49 Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. PP. 115-122.

50 "Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it." Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 6.

51

"What is called affection, is, in reality, nothing but habitual sympathy." Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 63. "In some tragedies and romances, we meet with many beautiful and interesting scenes, founded upon what is called the force of blood, or upon the wonderful affec

existence of the antagonism, he distinctly recognizes. For, he will not allow that sympathy is in any way to be deemed a selfish principle.52 Although he knew that it is pleasurable, and that all pleasure contains an element of selfishness, it did not suit the method of his philosophy to subject the principle of sympathy to such an inductive analysis as would reveal its elements. His business was, to reason from it, and not to it. Concentrating his energy upon the deductive process, and displaying that dialectic skill which is natural to his countrymen, and of which he himself was one of the most consummate masters the world has ever seen, he constructed a system of philosophy, imperfect indeed, because the premisses were imperfect, but approaching truth as closely as it was possible for any one to do who abstained from giving due consideration to the selfish part of human nature. Into the workings of its sympathetic part, he looked with a minuteness, and he reasoned from it with a subtlety, which make his work the most important that has ever been written on this interesting subject. But, inasmuch as his plan involved a deliberate suppression of preliminary and essential facts, the results which he obtained do not strictly correspond to those which are actually observed in the world.53 This, however, as I have shown, is not a valid objection; since such discrepancy between the ideal and the actual, or between the abstract and the concrete, is the necessary consequence of that still early condition of our knowledge, which forces us to

tion which near relations are supposed to conceive for one another, even before they know that they have any such connection. This force of blood, however, I am afraid, exists nowhere but in tragedies and romances."

p. 66. 52" Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish principle." Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 206. In vol. i. p. 9, he complains of "those who are fond of deducing all our sentiments from

certain refinements of self-love."

53 This is noticed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose sketch of Adam Smith is hasty, and somewhat superficial, but who, nevertheless, truly observes, that Smith "has exposed himself to objections founded on experience, to which it is impossible to attempt any answer." Mackintosh's Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, pp. 239, 240. See also a letter from Hume to Adam Smith, in Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume, vol. ii.

p. 60.

study complicated questions piecemeal, and to raise them to sciences by separate and fragmentary investigations.

That Adam Smith saw this necessity, and that his seeing it was the cause of the method he pursued, is evident from the fact, that in his next great work he followed the same plan, and, though he argued from new premisses, he carefully avoided arguing from any of the old ones. Convinced that, in his theory of morals, he had reasoned as accurately as possible from the principles supplied by sympathy, his capacious and insatiable mind, deeming that nothing had been done while aught remained to do, urged him to pass on to the opposite passion of selfishness, and treat it in the same manner, so that the whole domain of thought might be covered. This he did in his Wealth of Nations, which, though even a greater work than his Moral Sentiments, is equally one-sided, in reference to the principles which it assumes. It assumes that selfishness is the main regulator of human affairs, just as his previous work had assumed sympathy to be so. Between the two works there elapsed an interval of seventeen years; the Wealth of Nations not being published till 1776. But what shows that to their author both were part of a single scheme, is the notable circumstance, that, so early as 1753, he had laid down the principles which his later work contains.54 This was while

his former work was still in meditation, and before it had seen the light. It is, therefore, clear, that the study which he made, first of one passion, and then of its opposite, was not a capricious or accidental arrangement, but was the consequence of that vast idea which presided over all his labours, and which, when they are rightly understood, gives to them a magnificent unity. And a glorious object of ambition it was. His aspiring and comprehensive genius, sweeping the distant horizon, and taking in the intermediate space at a glance, sought to

54" Mr. Smith's political lectures, comprehending the fundamental principles of his Inquiry,' were delivered at Glasgow as early as the year 1752 or 1753." Dugald Stewart's Life of Adam Smith, p. lxxviii., prefixed to Smith's Posthumous Essays, London, 4to, 1795.

traverse the whole ground in two separate and independent directions, indulging the hope, that, by supplying in one line of argument the premisses which were wanting in the other, their opposite conclusions would be compensatory rather than hostile, and would serve as a broad and permanent basis on which one great science of human nature might be safely built.

The Wealth of Nations is, as I have elsewhere observed, 55 probably the most important book which has ever been written, whether we consider the amount of original thought which it contains, or its practical influence. Its practical recommendations were extremely favourable to those doctrines of freedom which the eighteenth century ushered in; and this secured to them an attention which otherwise they would not have received. While, therefore, the Wealth of Nations was the proximate cause of a great change in legislation,56 a deeper analysis will show, that the success of the book, and, consequently, the alteration of the laws, depended upon the operation of more remote and general causes. It must also be confessed, that those same causes predisposed the mind of Adam Smith to the doctrines of liberty, and gave him a sort of prejudice in favour of conclusions which limited the interference of the legislator. Thus much he borrowed from his age; but one thing he did not borrow. His wide and organizing mind was all his own. This would have made him great under any circumstances; to make him powerful, required a peculiar conjunction of events. That conjunction he enjoyed, and he turned it to good account. The influence of his contemporaries was enough to make him liberal; his own capacity was enough to make him comprehensive. He had, in a most remarkable degree, that exuberance of thought, which is one of the highest forms of genius, but

55 History of Civilization, vol. i. p. 194.

56"Perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilized states." Mackintosh's Ethical Philosophy, p. 232. But this is too strongly expressed, as the economical history of France and Germany decisively proves.