of approbation, though no approbation should ever actually be bestowed upon us and we are mortified to reflect that we have justly incurred the blame of those we live with, tho' that fentiment fhould never actually be exerted against us. The man who is confcious to himself that he has exactly observed those measures of conduct which experience informs him are generally agreeable, reflects with fatisfaction on the propriety of his own behaviour; when he views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he thoroughly enters into all the motives which influenced it; he looks back upon every part of it with pleasure and approbation, and though mankind fhould never be acquainted with what he has done, he regards himself not fo much according to the light in which they actually regard him, as according to that, in which they would regard him if they were better informed. He anticipates the applaufe and admiration which in this cafe would be bestowed upon him, and he applauds and admires himself by fympathy with fentiments which do not indeed actually take place, but which the ignorance of the public alone hinders from taking place, which he knows are the natural and ordinary effects of such conduct, which his imagination ftrongly connects with it, and which he has acquired a habit of conceiving as fomething that naturally and in propriety ought to flow from it, Men have often voluntarily thrown away life to acquire after death a renown which they

could

could no longer enjoy. Their imagination, in the mean time, anticipated that fame which was thereafter to be bestowed upon them. Those applaufes which they were never to hear rung in their ears. The thoughts of that admiration, whofe effects they were never to feel, played about their hearts, banifhed from their breafts the strongest of all natural fears, and tranfported them to perform actions which feem almost beyond the reach of human nature. But in point of reality there is furely no great difference between that approbation which is not to be bestowed till we can no longer enjoy it, and that which indeed is never to be bestowed, but which would be beftowed if the world was ever made to understand properly the real circumstances of our behaviour. If the one often produces fuch violent effects, we cannot wonder that the other fhould always be highly regarded.

On the contrary, the man who has broke thro' all those measures of conduct, which can alone render him agreeable to mankind, tho' he should have the most perfect affurance that what he had done was for ever to be concealed

from every human eye, it is all to no purpose. When he looks back upon it, and views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he finds that he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. He is abashed and confounded at the thoughts of it, and neceffarily feels a very high degree of that shame which he would be exposed to, if his actions fhould ever come to be generally known.

known. His imagination, in this cafe too, anticipates the contempt and derifion from which nothing faves him but the ignorance of those he lives with. He ftill feels that he is the natural object of thefe fentiments, and ftill trembles at the thought of what he would fuffer if they were ever actually exerted against him. But if what he had been guilty of was not merely one of those improprieties which are the objects of fimple difapprobation, but one of thofe enormous crimes which excite deteftation and refentment, he could never think of it, as long as he had any fenfibility left, without feeling all the agony of horror and remotse; and though he could be affured that no man was ever to know it, and could even bring himself to believe that there was no God to revenge it, he would still feel enough of both these fentiments to embitter the whole of his life: He would still regard himself as the natural object of the hatred and indignation of all his fellow-creatures; and if. his heart was not grown callous by the habit of crimes, he could not think without terror and astonishment even of the manner, in which mankind would look upon him, of what would be the expreffion of their countenance and of their eyes, if the dreadful truth fhould ever come to be known. Thefe natural pangs of an affrighted confcience are the dæmons, the avenging furies which in this life haunt the guilty, which allow them neither quiet nor repofe, which often drive them to defpair and diftraction, from which no affu

rançe

rance of fecrecy can protect them, from which no principles of irreligion can entirely deliver them, and from which nothing can free them but the vilest and most abject of all states, a compleat infenfibility to honour and infamy, to vice and virtue. Men of the most deteftable characters, who, in the execution of the most dreadful crimes, had taken their meafures fo coolly as to avoid even the fufpicion of guilt, have fometimes been driven by the horror of their fituation, to discover of their own accord, what no human fagacity could ever have investigated. By acknowledging their guilt, by fubmitting themselves to the refentment of their offended citizens, and by thus fatiating that vengeance of which they were fenfible that they were become the proper objects, they hoped by their death to reconcile themselves, at leaft in their own imagination, to the natural fentiments of mankind, to be able to confider themselves as lefs worthy of hatred and refentment, to attone in fome meafure for their crimes, and, if poffible, to die in peace and with the forgiveness of all their fellow-creatures. Compared to what they felt before the discovery, even the thought of this, it seems, was happiness.

CHA P. II.

In what manner our own judgments refer to what ought to be the judgments of others; and of the origin of general rules.

A

Great part, perhaps the greatest part, of human happiness and mifery arises from the view of our paft conduct, and from the degree of approbation or disapprobation which we feel from the confideration of it. But in whatever manner it may affect us, our fentiments of this kind have always fome fecret reference either to what are, or to what upon a certain condition would be, or to what we imagine ought to be the fentiments of others. We examine it as we imagine an impartial fpectator would examine it. If upon placing ourfelves in his fituation we thoroughly enter into all the paffions and motives which influenced it, we approve of it by fympathy with the approbation of this fuppofed equitable judge. If otherwife, we enter into his difapprobation and condemn it,

Was it poffible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in fome folitary place without any communication with his own fpecies, he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own fentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. All these

are