[613] Of course, I say this merely in reference to their theological bearings. Some of the Bridgewater Treatises, such as Bell's, Buckland's, and Prout's, had great scientific merit at the time of their appearance, and may even now be studied with advantage; but the religious portion of them is pitiable, and shows either that their heart was not in their work, or else that the subject was too wide for them. At all events, it is to be hoped that we shall never again see men of equal eminence hiring themselves out as paid advocates, and receiving fees to support particular opinions. It is truly disgraceful that such great speculative questions, instead of being subjected to fair and disinterested argument, with a view of eliciting the truth, should be turned into a pecuniary transaction, in which any one of much money and little wit, can bribe as many persons as he likes, to prejudice the public ear in favour of his own theories.

[614] ‘It is humiliating to have to remark, that the notices of comets which we derive from Scotch writers down to this time (1682) contain nothing but accounts of the popular fancies regarding them. Practical astronomy seems to have then been unknown in our country; and hence, while in other lands, men were carefully observing, computing, and approaching to just conclusions regarding these illustrious strangers of the sky, our diarists could only tell us how many yards long they seemed to be, what effects were apprehended from them in the way of war and pestilence, and how certain pious divines “improved” them for spiritual edification. Early in this century Scotland had produced one great philosopher, who had supplied his craft with the mathematical instruments by which complex problems, such as the movement of comets, were alone to be solved. It might have been expected that the country of Napier, seventy years after his time, would have had many sons capable of applying his key to such mysteries of nature. But no one had arisen—nor did any rise for fifty years onward, when at length Colin Maclaurin unfolded in the Edinburgh University the sublime philosophy of Newton. There could not be a more expressive signification of the character of the seventeenth century in Scotland. Our unhappy contentions about external religious matters had absorbed the whole genius of the people, rendering to us the age of Cowley, of Waller, and of Milton, as barren of elegant literature, as that of Horrocks, of Halley, and of Newton, was of science.’ Chambers' Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 444, 445.

[615] ‘Thus, during the whole seventeenth century, the English were gradually refining their language and their taste; in Scotland, the former was much debased, and the latter almost entirely lost.’ History of Scotland, book viii., in Robertson's Works, p. 260.

‘But the taste and science, the genius and the learning of the age, were absorbed in the gulph of religious controversy. At a time when the learning of Selden, and the genius of Milton, conspired to adorn England, the Scots were reduced to such writers as Baillie, Rutherford, Guthrie, and the two Gillespies.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 510. ‘From the Restoration down to the Union, the only author of eminence whom Scotland produced was Burnet.’ Ibid., vol. iv. p. 406.

‘The seventeenth century, fatal to the good taste of Italy, threw a total night over Scotland.’ … ‘Not one writer who does the least credit to the nation flourished during the century from 1615 to 1715, excepting Burnet, whose name would, indeed, honour the brightest period. In particular, no poet whose works merit preservation arose. By a singular fatality, the century which stands highest in English history and genius, is one of the darkest in those of Scotland.’ Ancient Scotish Poems, edited by John Pinkerton, vol. i. pp. iii. iv., London, 1786.

[616] Ray, who visited Scotland in 1661, could not suppress a little professional envy, when he saw how much higher ecclesiastics were rated there than in England. He says, ‘the people here frequent their churches much better than in England, and have their ministers in more esteem and veneration.’ Ray's Memorials, edited by Dr. Lankester for the Ray Society, p. 161.

[617] ‘Believing ignorance is much better than rash and presumptuous knowledge. Ask not a reason of these things, but rather adore and tremble at the mystery and majesty of them.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 143. Even Biblical criticism was prohibited; and Dickson says of the different books of the Bible, ‘We are not to trouble ourselves about the name of the writer, or time of writing of any part thereof, especially because God of set purpose concealeth the name sundry times of the writer, and the time when it was written.’ Dickson's Explication of the Psalms, p. 291.

[618] ‘Christ from heaven proposeth a syllogism to Saul's fury.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 180. ‘The conclusion of a practical syllogism, whereby the believer concluded from the Gospel that he shall be saved.’ Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 97. ‘All assurance is by practical syllogism, the first whereof must needs be a Scripture truth.’ Gray's Precious Promises, p. 139.

[619] Bower (History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 217) says, ‘The history of the universities and of the church is, in modern Europe, and perhaps in every other civilized portion of the globe, very nearly connected. They are more nearly connected in Scotland than in any other civilized country called Protestant; because the General Assembly have the legal power of inquiring into the economy of the institutions, both as it respects the mode of teaching, and the doctrines, whether religious, moral, or physical, which are taught.’ Spalding, under the year 1639, gives an instance of the power of the General Assembly in ‘the College of Old Aberdeen.’ Spalding's History of the Troubles, vol. i. p. 178. See also, on the authority exercised by the General Assembly over the universities, a curious little book, called The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1690, p. 25.

[620] In 1632, the ‘ministers’ of Perth were greatly displeased because John Row was made master of the grammar-school without their consent. The Chronicle of Perth, p. 33, where it is stated that, consequently, ‘thair wes much outcrying in the pulpett.’

[621] See, for instance, Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, pp. 66, 83, 84, 118. One of the entries is, that in January 1648, ‘The Presbyterie ordained that all young students, who waittes on noblemen or gentlemen within thir bounds, aither to teach ther children, or catechise and pray in ther families, to frequent the Presbyterie, that the brether may cognosce what they ar reading, and what proficiencie they make in ther studies, and to know also ther behaviour in the said families, and of their affectione to the Covenant and present religione.’ p. 118. Compare Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, pp. 56, 65.

[622] This I have already touched upon in the first volume, pp. 808, 809. Hereafter, and in my special history of the English mind, I shall examine it carefully and in detail. The revival of the old logic is a great symptom of it. Works like those of Whately, De Morgan, and Mansel, could not have been produced in tho eighteenth century, or, at all events, if by some extraordinary combination of events they had been produced, they would have found no readers. As it is, they have exercised a very extensive and very salutary influence; and, although Archbishop Whately was not well acquainted with the history of formal logic, his exposition of its ordinary processes is so admirably clear, that he has probably contributed more than any other man towards impressing his contemporaries with a sense of the value of deductive reasoning. He has, however, not done sufficient justice to the opposite school, and has, indeed, fallen into the old academical error of supposing that all reasoning is by syllogism. We might just as well say that all movement is by descent.

[623] See a letter from Sir James Mackintosh to Parr, in Mackintosh's Memoirs, London, 1835, vol. i. p. 334. ‘To Hutcheson the taste for speculation in Scotland, and all the philosophical opinions (except the Berkleian Humism) may be traced.’ M. Cousin (Histoire de la Philosophie, première série, vol. iv. p. 35, Paris, 1846) observes, that before Hutcheson ‘il n'avait paru en Ecosse ni un écrivain ni un professeur de philosophie un peu remarquable.’

[624] Tytler's Memoirs of Kames, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. i. p. 223. Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. iii. London, 1755, 4to.

[625] ‘The intention of Moral Philosophy is to direct men to that course of action which tends most effectually to promote their greatest happiness and perfection; as far as it can be done by observations and conclusions discoverable from the constitution of nature, without any aids of supernatural revelation: these maxims or rules of conduct are therefore reputed as laws of nature, and the system or collection of them is called the Law of Nature.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 1.

[626] ‘The natural understanding is the most whorish thing in the world.’ … ‘The understanding, even in the search of truth amongst the creatures, is a rash, precipitate, and unquiet thing.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 181. ‘Innocent Adam,’ indeed, says Boston, ‘Innocent Adam had a stock of gracious abilities, whereby he might have, by the force of moral considerations, brought himself to perform duty aright. But where is that with us?’ Boston's Sermons, p. 65.

[627] ‘A like natural right every intelligent being has about his own opinions, speculative or practical, to judge according to the evidence that appears to him. This right appears from the very constitution of the rational mind, which can assent or dissent solely according to the evidence presented, and naturally desires knowledge. The same considerations show this right to be unalienable: it cannot be subjected to the will of another: though where there is a previous judgment formed concerning the superior wisdom of another, or his infallibility, the opinion of this other, to a weak mind, may become sufficient evidence. As to opinions about the Deity, religion, and virtue, this right is further confirmed by all the noblest desires of the soul; as there can be no virtue, but rather impiety in not adhering to the opinions we think just, and in professing the contrary.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 295, 296. See also vol. ii. p. 311. ‘Every rational creature has a right to judge for itself in these matters: and as men must assent according to the evidence that appears to them, and cannot command their own assent in opposition to it, this right is plainly unalienable.’

[628] ‘Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affections, at the pleasure of another, nor can it tend to any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 261, 262.

[629] ‘Arians and Socinians are idolaters and denyers of God, say the orthodox. They retort upon the orthodox, that they are Tritheists; and so do other sects; and thus they spirit up magistrates to persecute. While yet it is plain that in all these sects there are all the same motives to all social virtues from a belief of a moral providence, the same acknowledgments that the goodness of God is the source of all the good we enjoy or hope for, and the same gratitude and resignation to him recommended. Nor do any of their schemes excite men to vices, except that horrid tenet, too common to most of them, the right of persecuting.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 316. See also vol. i. p. 160; and Hutcheson's Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, London, 1738, p. 283.

[630] ‘We all know the notions entertained by the vulgar concerning all hereticks; we know the pride of schoolmen and many ecclesiasticks; how it galls their insolent vanity that any man should assume to himself to be wiser than they in tenets of religion by differing from them.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 167.

[631] ‘As he had occasion every year in the course of his lectures to explain the origin of government, and compare the different forms of it, he took peculiar care, while on that subject, to inculcate the importance of civil and religious liberty to the happiness of mankind.’ Leechman's Life of Hutcheson, p. xxxv., prefixed to Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy.

[632] ‘The ideas of beauty and harmony, like other sensible ideas, are necessarily pleasant to us, as well as immediately so.’ Hutcheson's Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, p. 11. ‘Our sense of beauty seems designed to give us positive pleasure.’ p. 71. ‘Beauty gives a favourable presumption of good moral dispositions.’ p. 257. ‘But it is plain we have not in our power the modelling of our senses or desires, to form them for a private interest; they are fixed for us by the Author of our nature, subservient to the interest of the system; so that each individual is made, previously to his own choice, a member of a great body, and affected with the fortunes of the whole; or at least of many parts of it; nor can he break himself off at pleasure.’ Hutcheson's Essay on the Passions, pp. 105, 106.

[633] ‘Fille de la scholastique, la philosophie moderne est demeurée longtemps étrangère aux grâces, et les Recherches d'Hutcheson présentent, je crois, le premier traité spécial sur le beau, écrit par un moderne. Elles ont paru en 1725. Cette date est presque celle de l'avénement de l'esthétique dans la philosophie européenne. L'ouvrage du père André, en France, est de 1741, celui de Baumgarten, en Allemagne, est de 1750. Ce n'est pas un petit honneur à Hutcheson d'avoir le premier soumis l'idée du beau à une analyse méthodique et régulière.’ Cousin, Histoire de la Philosophie, première série, vol. iv. p. 84.

[634] In his Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue, p. 107, he so completely opposed the prevailing notions, as to assert that ‘our perception of pleasure is necessary, and nothing is advantageous or naturally good to us, but what is apt to raise pleasure, mediately, or immediately.’ Compare what he says at p. 91 respecting ‘superstitious prejudices against actions apprehended as offensive to the Deity.’

[635] ‘Hence a taste for the ingenious arts of musick, sculpture, painting, and even for the manly diversions, is reputable.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 83. At p. 129 he says, that in them ‘our time is agreeably and honourably employed.’ See also vol. ii. p. 115.

[636] ‘Wealth and power are truly useful, not only for the natural conveniences or pleasures of life, but as a fund for good offices.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 104. Compare Hutcheson on Beauty and Virtue, pp. 93–95; and his Essay on the Passions and Affections, pp. 8, 9, 99. ‘How weak also are the reasonings of some recluse moralists, who condemn in general all pursuits of wealth or power, as below a perfectly virtuous character; since wealth and power are the most effectual means, and the most powerful instruments, even of the greatest virtues, and most generous actions.’

[637] ‘The chief happiness of any being must consist in the full enjoyment of all the gratifications its nature desires and is capable of.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 100. ‘The highest sensual enjoyments may be experienced by those who employ both mind and body vigorously in social virtuous offices, and allow all the natural appetites to recur in their due seasons.’ p. 121. ‘Nay, as in fact it is for the good of the system that every desire and sense natural to us, even those of the lowest kinds, should be gratified as far as their gratification is consistent with the nobler enjoyments, and in a just subordination to them; there seems a natural notion of right to attend them all.’ pp. 254, 255.

[638] ‘’Tis pleasant to observe how those authors who paint out our nature as a compound of sensuality, selfishness, and cunning, forget themselves on this subject in their descriptions of youth, when the natural temper is less disguised than in the subsequent parts of life. ’Tis made up of many keen, inconstant passions, many of them generous; ’tis fond of present pleasure, but ’tis also profusely kind and liberal to favourites; careless about distant interests of its own; full of confidence in others; studious of praise for kindness and generosity; prone to friendships, and void of suspicion.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 11. ‘Men are often subject to anger, and upon sudden provocations do injuries to each other, and that only from self love without malice; but the greatest part of their lives is employed in offices of natural affection, friendship, innocent self love, or love of a country.’ Hutcheson's Essay on the Passions, pp. 97, 98. And at p. 165: ‘There are no doubt many furious starts of passion, in which malice may seem to have place in our constitution; but how seldom and how short, in comparison of years spent in fixed kind pursuits of the good of a family, a party, a country?’ … ‘Here men are apt to let their imaginations run out upon all the robberies, piracies, murders, perjuries, frauds, massacres, assassinations, they have ever either heard of, or read in history; thence concluding all mankind to be very wicked; as if a court of justice were the proper place for making an estimate of the morals of mankind, or an hospital of the healthfulness of a climate. Ought they not to consider that the number of honest citizens and farmers far surpasses that of all sorts of criminals in any state; and that the innocent or kind actions of even criminals themselves, surpass their crimes in numbers? That it is the rarity of crimes, in comparison of innocent or good actions, which engages our attention to them, and makes them be recorded in history; while incomparably more honest, generous, domestic actions are overlooked, only because they are so common; as one great danger, or one month's sickness, shall become a frequently repeated story, during a long life of health and safety.’

[639] In 1731, Wodrow, who was the last really great specimen of the old Presbyterian divines, and who was not a little shocked at the changes he saw going on around him, writes: ‘When Dr. Calamy heard of Mr. Hutcheson's being called to Glasgow, he smiled, and said, I think to Thomas Randy, that he was not for Scotland, as he thought from his book; and that he would be reckoned there as unorthodox as Mr. Simson. The Doctor has a strange way of fishing out privat storyes and things that pass in Scotland.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iv. p. 227. It is interesting to compare with this, the remarks which that worldly-minded clergyman, the Rev. Alexander Carlyle, has made upon Hutcheson. See Carlyle's Autobiography, Edinburgh, 1860, 2d edit. pp. 82–85.

[640] In his Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 52, he calls it ‘an original determination or sense in our nature, not capable of being referred to other powers of perception.’

[641] ‘This moral sense from its very nature appears to be designed for regulating and controlling all our powers.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 61.

[642] See, in his Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 79, his complaint against those who ‘would reduce all our perceptive powers to a very small number, by one artful reference or another.’

[643] ‘’Tis in vain here to alledge instruction, education, custom, or association of ideas, as the original of moral approbation.’ Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 57. Compare his work on Beauty and Virtue, p. 84.

[644] ‘To him may also be ascribed that proneness to multiply ultimate and original principles in human nature, which characterised the Scottish School till the second extinction of a passion for metaphysical speculation in Scotland.’ Mackintosh's Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, edit. Whewell, Edinburgh, 1837, p. 208.

[645] See his ingenious chapter, entitled ‘A deduction of the more special laws of nature and duties of life, previous to civil government, and other adventitious states.’ Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 227; and compare vol. ii. pp. 294–309, ‘How civil power is acquired.’

[646] See, for example, his remarks on ‘the right of possession.’ Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 344; on ‘rights by mortgage,’ p. 350; and on inheritance, p. 356.

[647] In his Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 346, 347, he sums up a long argument on ‘the nature of civil laws,’ by saying: ‘Thus the general duties of magistrates and subjects are discoverable from the nature of the trust committed to them, and the end of all civil power.’

[648] That is, so far as the facts are concerned. Geometry, considered in the most elevated manner, rests on ideas, and from that point of view is impregnable, unless the axioms can be overthrown. But if geometricians will insist on having definitions as well as axioms, they gain, no doubt, increased clearness, but they lose something in accuracy. I apprehend that, without definitions, geometry could not be a science of space, but would be a science of magnitudes, ideally conceived and consequently as pure as ratiocination could make it. This does not touch the question as to the empirical origin of the axioms.

[649] ‘Our continual observations upon the conduct of others, insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided.’ … ‘It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve or disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed by finding from experience that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved of or disapproved of.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 219, 220. At p. 153: ‘We either approve or disapprove of our own conduct according as we feel that, when we place ourselves in the situation of another man, and view it, as it were, with his eyes and from his station, we either can or cannot entirely enter into and sympathize with the sentiments and motives which influenced it.’

[650] ‘Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in some solitary place, without any communication with his own species, he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty and deformity of his own face.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 154. ‘Our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the characters and conduct of other people.’ p. 156.

[651] ‘As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 2.

[652] ‘That imaginary change of situation, upon which their sympathy is founded, is but momentary.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 21. Compare vol. ii. p. 206.

[653] ‘I will venture to affirm that, when there is no envy in the case, our propensity to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our propensity to sympathize with sorrow.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 58. ‘It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.’ p. 65.

[654] ‘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.

[655] See the striking remarks in Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 70–72.

[656] Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 23 seq.

[657] 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.

[658] 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.

[659] Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 172–174.

[660] ‘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.

[661] Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 115–122.

[662] ‘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.

[663] ‘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 affection 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.

[664] ‘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.’

[665] 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.

[666] ‘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.

[667] History of Civilization, vol. i. p. 214.

[668] ‘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.

[669] ‘Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which parsimony accumulates; but whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be the greater.’ … ‘But the principle which prompts to save, is the desire of bettering our condition; a desire which, though generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave.’ Smith's Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. iii. pp. 138, 140, edit. Edinb. 1839.

[670] ‘The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private, opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the disease, but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor.’ Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. iii. p. 141. ‘The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.’ Book iv. chap. v. p. 221.

[671] See an admirable passage, p. 156, too long to quote, beginning, ‘If human institutions had never thwarted those natural inclinations,’ &c.

[672] ‘That insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.’ Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. ii. p. 190.

[673] ‘That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man, that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish, notwithstanding these and twenty other absurd regulations of commerce.’ Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. v. p. 221.

[674] ‘In all countries where there is a tolerable security, every man of common understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he can command, in procuring either present enjoyment or future profit.’ Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. i. p. 115.

[675] ‘The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive which determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in agriculture, in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the wholesale or retail trade.’ Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. v. p. 154.

[676] ‘By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.’ Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. ii. p. 184.

[677] In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 21, he says that mankind are ‘naturally sympathetic.’

[678] ‘Nay, it is chiefly for this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty.’ Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 66. ‘To become the natural object of the joyous congratulations and sympathetic attentions of mankind, is, in this manner, the circumstance which gives to prosperity all its dazzling splendour.’ p. 78.

[679] ‘The late resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, to set at liberty all their negro slaves, may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to.’ Wealth of Nations, book iii. chap. ii. p. 159.

[680] ‘In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of ranks has once been completely established, there have been always two different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time; of which the one may be called the strict or austere; the other the liberal, or, if you will, the loose system. The former is generally revered and admired by the common people; the latter is commonly more esteemed and adopted by what are called the people of fashion. The degree of disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the liberal, or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, provided they are not accompanied with gross indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally treated with a good deal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, these excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detestation. The vices of levity are always ruinous to the common people, and a single week's thoughtlessness and dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor workman for ever, and to drive him, through despair, upon committing the most enormous crimes. The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition. The disorder and extravagance of several years, on the contrary, will not always ruin a man of fashion; and people of that rank are very apt to consider the power of indulging in some degree of excess, as one of the advantages of their fortune; and the liberty of doing so without censure or reproach, as one of the privileges which belong to their station. In people of their own station, therefore, they regard such excesses with but a small degree of disapprobation, and censure them either very slightly or not at all.

‘Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom they have generally drawn their earliest as well as their most numerous proselytes. The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been adopted by those sects almost constantly, or with very few exceptions; for there have been some. It was the system by which they could best recommend themselves to that order of people, to whom they first proposed their plan of reformation upon what had been before established. Many of them, perhaps the greater part of them, have even endeavoured to gain credit by refining upon this austere system, and by carrying it to some degree of folly and extravagance; and this excessive rigour has frequently recommended them, more than any thing else, to the respect and veneration of the common people.’ … ‘In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly; generally much more so than in the established church. The morals of those little sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous and unsocial.’ Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i. pp. 332, 333.