The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.Smith, Adam
Philosophy
The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.
Smith, Adam
Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Language and languages -- Early works to 1800
The various senses or powers of perception,[25] from which the human
mind derives all its simple ideas, were, according to this system, of
two different kinds, of which the one were called the direct or
antecedent, the other, the reflex or consequent senses. The direct
senses were those faculties from which the mind derived the perception
of such species of things as did not presuppose the antecedent
perception of any other. Thus sounds and colours were objects of the
direct senses. To hear a sound or to see a colour does not presuppose
the antecedent perception of any other quality or object. The reflex or
consequent senses, on the other hand, were those faculties from which
the mind derived the perception of such species of things as presupposed
the antecedent perception of some other. Thus harmony and beauty were
objects of the reflex senses. In order to perceive the harmony of a
sound, or the beauty of a colour, we must first perceive the sound or
the colour. The moral sense was considered as a faculty of this kind.
That faculty, which Mr. Locke calls reflection, and from which he
derived the simple ideas of the different passions and emotions of the
human mind, was, according to Dr. Hutcheson, a direct internal sense.
That faculty again by which we perceived the beauty or deformity, the
virtue or vice of those different passions and emotions, was a reflex,
internal sense.
Footnote 25:
Treatise of the passions.
Dr. Hutcheson endeavoured still further to support this doctrine, by
shewing that it was agreeable to the analogy of nature, and that the
mind was endowed with a variety of other reflex senses exactly similar
to the moral sense; such as a sense of beauty and deformity in external
objects; a public sense, by which we sympathize with the happiness or
misery of our fellow-creatures; a sense of shame and honour, and a sense
of ridicule.
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