In the present state of Education, the Praise and Blame of most men are very erroneously bestowed, with great precipitation, commonly in excess upon small occasions, with little regard to its justice; blame being very often inflicted where applause is due, and applause lavished where blame ought to be bestowed. When Education is good, no point of morality will be reckoned of more importance than the distribution of Praise and Blame; no act will be considered more immoral than the misapplication of them. They are the great instruments we possess for ensuring moral acts on the part of our Fellow-creatures; and when we squander away, or prostitute those great causes of virtue, and thereby deprive them of a great part of their useful tendency, we do what in us lies to lessen the quantity of Virtue, and thence of Felicity, in the world.
The MOTIVES, which are generated by the 301 association of our own acts of Justice and Beneficence as cause with other men’s acts of Justice and Beneficence as effects, are subject, unhappily, to strong counteraction; because it rarely happens that we can perform acts of Justice and Beneficence without more or less sacrifice to ourselves. The association, at the same time, is strong, in all men. All men have the daily experience, that their own acts of Justice, and Beneficence, dispose other men to be Beneficent to them; their own acts of injustice and malevolence, dispose other men to bring evil (which in this case they call punishment) upon them; and to abstain from doing them good. This experience is of course followed by the usual association between cause and effect. The man who does acts of Justice and Beneficence, anticipates the favourable disposition of mankind, as their natural effect; and this association is his belief, or conviction, or sense (he calls it by all those names), of deserving the favourable sentiments of mankind. The man, on the other hand, who performs acts which are unjust and hurtful to others, anticipates the unfavourable and hostile sentiments of mankind, as the natural consequents of his acts; in other words, has the belief, or conviction, or sense (for the association in this case also has these various names), of deserving, not well, but ill, at the hands of other men.
There are no men, however vicious, in whom those associations do not produce constant and numerous effects. When they have not been happily cultivated, and when the counteracting associations, of which we just now made mention, have been allowed to acquire a mischievous strength; acts in opposition to them 302 are, occasionally, but, even in the worst men, no more than occasionally, produced.
This anticipation of the hostile, or benevolent sentiments of mankind, as the natural effects of actions of a certain description on our part, is the foundation of that remarkable association of which we had very recently occasion to make mention, the association which Dr. Smith has called the love of Praiseworthiness, and which is sometimes found to be much more powerful than the love of actual Praise.
The DISPOSITION which corresponds to those MOTIVES, or the facility of forming the associations which constitute them, is the result of habit in this as in all other cases.
The AFFECTION, in this case, has the name of Moral approbation and Disapprobation. The same is the only name we have for the MOTIVE. It is also the only name we have for the DISPOSITION. The terms Moral Sense; Sense of Right and Wrong; Love of Virtue, and Hatred of Vice, are sometimes used as synonymous terms; but they are not equally appropriate. Virtue, as we have seen, is a name which is given to each of the three, the Affection, the Motive, the Disposition; Morality is a name which is applied with similar latitude.[57] [58]
[57] The foregoing analysis of the Moral Sentiment proceeds upon a number of unquestionable psychological data. That we have a strong personal interest in the virtues of Prudence, Fortitude, Justice and Beneficence, in the manner stated, is most certain; and that this personal interest will incline us to practise those virtues ourselves, and to encourage them in 303 others, is also certain. The only doubt is, as to whether the motives to rectitude of action are exhausted in this analysis.
The sufficiency of an analysis is less easily tested in mental phenomena, than in physical phenomena. The chief reason is that, in the mind, we cannot make exact numerical estimates; and, therefore, cannot show, by castings up a sum, that the assigned constituents of a compound exactly amount to the total. The several constituents put down may be actually present, without our being sure whether they are the whole. Hence the Deductive verification, so valuable in physical science, does not carry with it the same precision, in mental science.
To evade this source of uncertainty we are thrown back upon the Experimental Canons, or the Four Methods. We know by these, that if an analysis is good, there must be present in each instance of the phenomenon the causes assigned, one or more; and should one exist in a low degree, or be entirely wanting, the others must have a compensating intensity. If, on the other hand, the whole of the causes have not been assigned, there will, almost inevitably, occur instances, either without the causes stated, or with these in an obviously insufficient amount.
The following facts and considerations render doubtful the completeness of the author’s explanation of the Moral Sentiment.