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
These passions, however, are regarded as necessary parts of the
character of human nature. A person becomes contemptible who tamely sits
still, and submits to insults, without attempting either to repel or to
revenge them. We cannot enter into his indifference and insensibility:
we call his behaviour mean-spiritedness, and are as really provoked by
it as by the insolence of his adversary. Even the mob are enraged to see
any man submit patiently to affronts and ill usage. They desire to see
this insolence resented, and resented by the person who suffers from it.
They cry to him with fury, to defend, or to revenge himself. If his
indignation rouses at last, they heartily applaud, and sympathize with
it. It enlivens their own indignation against his enemy, whom they
rejoice to see him attack in turn, and are as really gratified by his
revenge, provided it is not immoderate, as if the injury had been done
to themselves.
But though the utility of those passions to the individual, by rendering
it dangerous to insult or injure him, be acknowledged; and though their
utility to the public, as the guardians of justice, and of the equality
of its administration, be not less considerable, as shall be shewn
hereafter; yet there is still something disagreeable in the passions
themselves, which makes the appearance of them in other men the natural
object of our aversion. The expression of anger towards any body
present, if it exceeds a bare intimation that we are sensible of his ill
usage, is regarded not only as an insult to that particular person, but
as a rudeness to the whole company. Respect for them ought to have
restrained us from giving way to so boisterous and offensive an emotion.
It is the remote effects of these passions which are agreeable; the
immediate effects are mischief to the person against whom they are
directed. But it is the immediate, and not the remote effects of objects
which render them agreeable or disagreeable to the imagination. A prison
is certainly more useful to the public than a palace; and the person who
founds the one is generally directed by a much juster spirit of
patriotism, than he who builds the other. But the immediate effects of a
prison, the confinement of the wretches shut up in it, are disagreeable;
and the imagination either does not take time to trace out the remote
ones, or sees them at too great a distance to be much affected by them.
A prison, therefore, will always be a disagreeable object; and the
fitter it is for the purpose for which it was intended, it will be the
more so. A palace, on the contrary, will always be agreeable; yet its
remote effects may often be inconvenient to the public. It may serve to
promote luxury, and set the example of the dissolution of manners. Its
immediate effects, however, the conveniency, the pleasure, and the
gaiety of the people who live in it, being all agreeable, and suggesting
to the imagination a thousand agreeable ideas, that faculty generally
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