The Second Objection To This System

The second remarkable circumstance is that when a person is naturally beneficial, we:

• call him virtuous, and
• are delighted with his character, even though particular accidents:
  • prevent its operation, and
  • incapacitate him from being serviceable to his friends and country.

Virtue in rags is still virtue.

The love it procures attends a man into a dungeon or desert, where the virtue:

• can no longer be exerted, and
• is lost to all the world.

This is an objection to my system.

Sympathy interests us in the good of mankind.

If sympathy were the source of our esteem for virtue, that sentiment of approbation could only take place where the virtue:

• actually attained its end, and
• was beneficial to mankind.

It is only an imperfect means when it fails of its end.

It can never acquire any merit from that end.

The goodness of an end can bestow a merit on the means alone, as if it were complete and actually produced the end.

To this objection, I reply that when any object is fully fitted to attain an agreeable end, it naturally:

• gives us pleasure, and
• is esteemed beautiful, even if some external circumstances are lacking.

It is enough that everything is complete in the object itself.

• A house that is built for comfort pleases us, even if we know that no one will ever live in it.
• A fertile soil and happy climate delight us through the happiness it gives its inhabitants, even if it is currently uninhabited.
• A man whose body and limbs promise strength and activity is handsome, even if he were condemned to life imprisonment.

The imagination has a set of passions which our sentiments of beauty much depend on.

These passions are moved by liveliness and strength, which are:

• inferior to belief, and
• independent of the real existence of their objects.

When a character is beneficial to society, the imagination passes easily from cause to effect.

• It does not consider that there are some circumstances lacking to render the cause complete.

General rules create a kind of probability which influences:

• the judgment sometimes, and
• the imagination always.

When the cause is complete and a good disposition is attended with good fortune, which renders it really beneficial to society, it:

• gives a stronger pleasure to the spectator, and
• is attended with a more lively sympathy.

We are more affected by it.

Yet we do not say:

• that it is more virtuous, or
• that we esteem it more.

We know that a change of fortune may render the benevolent disposition entirely impotent.

We therefore separate the fortune from the disposition.

The same happens when we correct the different sentiments of virtue proceeding from its different distances from ourselves.

The passions do not always follow our corrections.

These corrections:

• regulate our abstract notions, and
• are alone regarded when we pronounce the degrees of vice and virtue.

Critics observe that words or sentences that are difficult to pronounce are disagreeable to the ear.

It does not matter whether such words are heard or read silently.

When I run over a book with my eye, I imagine I hear it all.

By the force of imagination, I become uneasy from speaking those words.

The uneasiness is not real.

But as such a composition of words has a natural tendency to produce it, this is sufficient to:

• affect the mind with a painful sentiment, and
• render the discourse harsh and disagreeable.

It is similar when any real quality is:

• rendered impotent by accidental circumstances, and
• is deprived of its natural influence on society.

On these principles, we may easily remove any contradiction between:

• the extensive sympathy which our sentiments of virtue depend on, and
• that limited generosity natural to men, which justice and property suppose.

My sympathy with another man may give me pain and disapprobation when any object, that gives him uneasiness, is presented.

Though for his satisfaction, I may be unwilling to:

• sacrifice my own interest, or
• cross any of my passions.

A house may displease me by being badly built for its owner’s convenience.

Yet I may refuse to give a shilling towards rebuilding it.

Sentiments must touch the heart to make them control our passions.

But they do not need to extend beyond the imagination to make them influence our taste.

When a building seems clumsy and tottering to the eye, it is ugly and disagreeable.

Though we are fully assured of the solidity of its workmanship.

It is a fear which causes this sentiment of disapprobation.

But this fear is not the same with the fear we feel when we stand under a wall that we really think is insecure.

The seeming tendencies of objects affect the mind.

The emotions they excite are similar with those proceeding from the real consequences of objects.

But their feeling is different.

These emotions are so different in their feeling.

They may often be contrary, without destroying each other.

For example, an enemy city’s fortifications are esteemed beautiful because of their strength.

Even if we wish that they were entirely destroyed.

The imagination:

• adheres to the general views of things
• distinguishes the feelings they produce from those which arise from our particular and momentary situation.

There are two kinds of qualities of great men:

• those that make them perform their part in society, and
• those that render them serviceable to themselves and enable them to promote their own interest.

Their prudence, temperance, frugality, industry, assiduity, enterprise, dexterity, are celebrated as well as their generosity and humanity.