[202] _Oeuvres de Reid_, vol. iv., p. 297: "Men are neither as good nor as bad as their principles; and, as there is no skeptic in the street, so I am sure there is no disinterested spectator of human actions who is not compelled to discern them as just and unjust. Skepticism has no light that does not pale before the splendor of that vivid internal light that lightens the objects of moral perception, as the light of day lightens the objects of sensible perception." LECTURE XIII. OTHER DEFECTIVE PRINCIPLES. The ethics of sentiment.--The ethics founded on the principle of the interest of the greatest number.--The ethics founded on the will of God alone.--The ethics founded on the punishments and rewards of another life. Against the ethics of interest, all generous souls take refuge in the ethics of sentiment. The following are some of the facts on which these ethics are supported, and by which they seem to be authorized. When we have done a good action, is it not certain that we experience a pleasure of a certain nature, which is to us the reward of this action? This pleasure does not come from the senses--it has neither its principle nor its measure in an impression made upon our organs. Neither is it confounded with the joy of satisfied personal interest,--we are not moved in the same manner, in thinking that we have succeeded, and in thinking that we have been honest. The pleasure attached to the testimony of a good conscience is pure; other pleasures are much alloyed. It is durable, whilst the others quickly pass away. Finally, it is always within our reach. Even in the midst of misfortune, man bears in himself a permanent source of exquisite joys, for he always has the power of doing right, whilst success, dependent upon a thousand circumstances of which we are not the masters, can give only an occasional and precarious pleasure. As virtue has its joys, so crime has its pains. The suffering that follows a fault is the just recompense for the pleasure that we have found in it, and is often born with it. It poisons culpable joys and the successes that are not legitimate. It wounds, rends, bites, thus to speak, and thereby receives its name.[203] To be man, is sufficient to understand this suffering,--it is remorse. Here are other facts equally incontestable: I perceive a man whose face bears the marks of distress and misery. There is nothing in this that reaches and injures me; nevertheless, without reflection or calculation, the sight alone of this suffering man makes me suffer. This sentiment is pity, compassion, whose general principle is sympathy. The sadness of one of my fellow-men inspires me with sadness, and a glad face disposes me to joy: Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent Humani vultus.