ness, and on final causes in ethics, correspond with no similar divisions in the original, but are severally collected from different passages in the book, which, scattered through the work, impress upon it a distinctive character, and constitute the chief part of its colouring. The last chapter of all serves to illustrate the historical importance of Adam Smith's work by showing the large part which it fills in the criticisms of subsequent writers.

An accidental coincidence between Adam Smith's theory and a passage in Polybius has unnecessarily been considered the original source of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. The very same passage is referred to by Hume, as showing that Polybius, like many other ancient moralists, traced our ideas of morality to a selfish origin, Yet there is nothing Adam Smith resented more strongly than any identification of his theory with the selfish system of morality. The coincidence is therefore probably accidental; but the passage is worth. quoting, as containing in a few lines the central idea of the doctrine about to be considered. Polybius is speaking of the displeasure felt by people for those who, instead of making suitable returns of gratitude and assistance for their parents, injure them by words or actions; and he proceeds to say that "man, who among all the various kinds of animals is alone endowed with the faculty of reason, cannot, like the rest, pass over such actions, but will make reflection on what he sees; and comparing likewise the future with the present, will not fail to express his indignation at this injurious treatment, to which, as he foresees, he may also at some time be exposed. Thus again, when any one who has been succoured by another in time of danger, instead of showing the like kindness to this benefactor, endeavours at any time to destroy or hurt him; it is certain that all men must be shocked by such ingratitude, through sympathy with the resentment of their neigh

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bour; and from an apprehension also that the case may be their own. And from hence arises, in the mind of every man, a certain notion of the nature and force of duty, in which consists both the beginning and end of justice. In like manner, the man who, in defence of others is seen to throw himself the foremost into every danger, never fails to obtain the loudest acclamations of applause and veneration from the multitude; while he who shows a different conduct is pursued with censure and reproach. And thus it is that the people begin to discern the nature of things honourable and base, and in what consists the difference between them; and to perceive that the former, on account of the advantage that attends them, are to be admired and imitated, and the latter to be detested and avoided."

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

To explain the origin of our ideas of right and wrong, and to find for them, if possible, a solid basis of authority, apart from their coincidence with the dogmas of theology, was the problem of moral philosophy which chiefly occupied the speculation of the last century, and to which Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments was one of the most important contributions. His theory, like all others, must be understood as an answer to the question: How do we come to regard certain actions or states of mind with approval and to condemn their contraries, and on what grounds can we justify our judgments in such matters and hold them to accord universally with the moral judgments of mankind?

But in order to understand Adam Smith's answer to this question, and his position in the history of thought, it is necessary to refer briefly to the theories of his predecessors down to the time when he took up the thread of the speculation and offered his solution of the problems they had dealt with.

From the time when such problems first became popular in England, two main currents of thought may be detected running side by side in mutual antagonism to one another; and whilst according to the teaching of the one school the ultimate standard of morality was the interest of the individual himself or the community he belonged to, the aim of the opposite school was to find some basis for morality which should

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make it less dependent on changes of circumstance and give to its maxims the authority of propositions that should hold true of all times and places.

The names of Locke, Hobbes, Mandeville, and Hume, are associated with the former school; those of Clarke, Price, Lord Shaftesbury, Bishop Butler, and Hutcheson, with the latter; and the difference between them is generally expressed by classing the former together as the Utilitarian, Selfish, or Sceptical School, and the latter as the school of Intuitionalists.

The doctrine of Hobbes, that morality was identical with the positive commands and prohibitions of the lawgiver, and that the law was thus the real ultimate source and standard of all right and wrong, gave rise to several systems which sought in different ways to find for our moral sentiments a less variable and unstable foundation than was implied by such an hypothesis. It was in opposition to such a theory that Clarke and Price, and other advocates of the so-called Rational or Intellectual system, attributed our perception of moral distinctions to intuitions of our intellect, so that the truths of morality might appear, like those of mathematics, eternal and immutable, independent of peculiarities of time and place, and with an existence apart from any particular man or country, just as the definitions of geometry are independent of any particular straight lines or triangles. To deny, for example, that a man should do for others what he would wish done for himself was, according to Clarke, equivalent to a contention that, though two and three are equal to five, yet five is not equal to two and three.

But the same foundation for an immutable morality that Clarke sought for in the human intellect, others sought for in a peculiar instinct of our nature. Thus Lord Shaftesbury postulated the existence of a moral sense, sufficient of itself to

make us eschew vice and follow after virtue; and this moral sense, or primitive instinct for good, was implanted in us by nature, and carried its own authority with it. It judged of actions by reference to a certain harmony between our affections, and this harmony had a real existence, independent of all fashion and caprice, like harmony in music. As symmetry and proportion were founded in nature, howsoever barbarous might be men's tastes in the arts, so, in morals, an equally real harmony always presented a fixed standard for our guidance.

This idea of a Moral Sense as the source and standard of our moral sentiments was so far developed by Hutcheson, that the Moral Sense theory of ethics had been more generally connected with his name than with that of its real originator. Hutcheson argued that as we have external senses which perceive sounds and colours, so we have internal senses which perceive moral excellence and the contrary. This moral sense had its analogues in our sense of beauty and harmony, our sympathetic sense, our sense of honour, of decency, and so forth. It was a primitive faculty of our nature, a factor incapable of resolution into simpler elements. It could not, for instance, be resolved into a perception of utility, for bad actions were often as useful as good ones and yet failed to meet with approbation, nor could it be explained as a mode of sympathy, for we might morally approve even of the virtues which our enemies manifested.

Bishop Butler, like his contemporary, Hutcheson, also followed Lord Shaftesbury in seeking in our natural instincts the origin of our moral ideas, Conscience with him taking the place of the Moral Sense, from its being possessed, as he thought, of a more authoritative character. Conscience, according to Butler, was a faculty natural to man, in virtue of which he was a moral agent; a faculty or principle of