Classic Poem

Sect. 1. General View of the Nature and Objects of Virtue.--2. The
Origin and Basis of Virtue, as founded on the Elementary Principles
of Mind.--3. The Laws which flow from the nature of Mind regulating
the application of those principles to human actions;--4. Virtue,
a possible attribute of man.

We exist in the midst of a multitude of beings like ourselves, upon
whose happiness most of our actions exert some obvious and decisive
influence.

The regulation of this influence is the object of moral science.
We know that we are susceptible of receiving painful or pleasurable
impressions of greater or less intensity and duration. That is called
good which produces pleasure; that is called evil which produces
pain. These are general names, applicable to every class of causes,
from which an overbalance of pain or pleasure may result. But when
a human being is the active instrument of generating or diffusing
happiness, the principle through which it is most effectually
instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence,
or the desire to be the author of good, united with justice, or
an apprehension of the manner in which that good is to be done,
constitutes virtue.

But wherefore should a man be benevolent and just? The immediate
emotions of his nature, especially in its most inartificial state,
prompt him to inflict pain, and to arrogate dominion. He desires
to heap superfluities to his own store, although others perish with
famine. He is propelled to guard against the smallest invasion of
his own liberty, though he reduces others to a condition of the most
pitiless servitude. He is revengeful, proud and selfish. Wherefore
should he curb these propensities?

It is inquired, for what reason a human being should engage
in procuring the happiness, or refrain from producing the pain of
another? When a reason is required to prove the necessity of adopting
any system of conduct, what is it that the objector demands? He
requires proof of that system of conduct being such as will most
effectually promote the happiness of mankind. To demonstrate this,
is to render a moral reason. Such is the object of virtue.

A common sophism, which, like many others, depends on the abuse of
a metaphorical expression to a literal purpose, has produced much
of the confusion which has involved the theory of morals. It is said
that no person is bound to be just or kind, if, on his neglect, he
should fail to incur some penalty. Duty is obligation. There can
be no obligation without an obliger. Virtue is a law, to which it
is the will of the lawgiver that we should conform; which will we
should in no manner be bound to obey, unless some dreadful punishment
were attached to disobedience. This is the philosophy of slavery
and superstition.

In fact, no person can be BOUND or OBLIGED, without some power
preceding to bind and oblige. If I observe a man bound hand and
foot, I know that some one bound him. But if I observe him returning
self-satisfied from the performance of some action, by which he has
been the willing author of extensive benefit, I do not infer that
the anticipation of hellish agonies, or the hope of heavenly reward,
has constrained him to such an act.

. . . . . . .

It remains to be stated in what manner the sensations which
constitute the basis of virtue originate in the human mind; what
are the laws which it receives there; how far the principles of
mind allow it to be an attribute of a human being; and, lastly,
what is the probability of persuading mankind to adopt it as a
universal and systematic motive of conduct.

BENEVOLENCE

There is a class of emotions which we instinctively avoid. A human
being, such as is man considered in his origin, a child a month
old, has a very imperfect consciousness of the existence of other
natures resembling itself. All the energies of its being are
directed to the extinction of the pains with which it is perpetually
assailed. At length it discovers that it is surrounded by natures
susceptible of sensations similar to its own. It is very late before
children attain to this knowledge. If a child observes, without
emotion, its nurse or its mother suffering acute pain, it is
attributable rather to ignorance than insensibility. So soon as
the accents and gestures, significant of pain, are referred to the
feelings which they express, they awaken in the mind of the beholder
a desire that they should cease. Pain is thus apprehended to be evil
for its own sake, without any other necessary reference to the mind
by which its existence is perceived, than such as is indispensable
to its perception. The tendencies of our original sensations, indeed,
all have for their object the preservation of our individual being.
But these are passive and unconscious. In proportion as the mind
acquires an active power, the empire of these tendencies becomes
limited. Thus an infant, a savage, and a solitary beast, is selfish,
because its mind is incapable of receiving an accurate intimation
of the nature of pain as existing in beings resembling itself.
The inhabitant of a highly civilized community will more acutely
sympathize with the sufferings and enjoyments of others, than
the inhabitant of a society of a less degree of civilization. He
who shall have cultivated his intellectual powers by familiarity
with the highest specimens of poetry and philosophy, will usually
sympathize more than one engaged in the less refined functions
of manual labour. Every one has experience of the fact, that to
sympathize with the sufferings of another, is to enjoy a transitory
oblivion of his own.

The mind thus acquires, by exercise, a habit, as it were, of
perceiving and abhorring evil, however remote from the immediate
sphere of sensations with which that individual mind is conversant.
Imagination or mind employed in prophetically imaging forth its
objects, is that faculty of human nature on which every gradation
of its progress, nay, every, the minutest, change, depends. Pain
or pleasure, if subtly analysed, will be found to consist entirely
in prospect. The only distinction between the selfish man and the
virtuous man is, that the imagination of the former is confined within
a narrow limit, whilst that of the latter embraces a comprehensive
circumference. In this sense, wisdom and virtue may be said to be
inseparable, and criteria of each other. Selfishness is the offspring
of ignorance and mistake; it is the portion of unreflecting infancy,
and savage solitude, or of those whom toil or evil occupations
have blunted or rendered torpid; disinterested benevolence is the
product of a cultivated imagination, and has an intimate connexion
with all the arts which add ornament, or dignity, or power,
or stability to the social state of man. Virtue is thus entirely
a refinement of civilized life; a creation of the human mind; or,
rather, a combination which it has made, according to elementary
rules contained within itself, of the feelings suggested by the
relations established between man and man.

All the theories which have refined and exalted humanity, or those
which have been devised as alleviations of its mistakes and evils,
have been based upon the elementary emotions of disinterestedness,
which we feel to constitute the majesty of our nature. Patriotism,
as it existed in the ancient republics, was never, as has been
supposed, a calculation of personal advantages. When Mutius Scaevola
thrust his hand into the burning coals, and Regulus returned
to Carthage, and Epicharis sustained the rack silently, in the
torments of which she knew that she would speedily perish, rather
than betray the conspirators to the tyrant {Footnote: Tacitus.};
these illustrious persons certainly made a small estimate of their
private interest. If it be said that they sought posthumous fame;
instances are not wanting in history which prove that men have even
defied infamy for the sake of good. But there is a great error in
the world with respect to the selfishness of fame. It is certainly
possible that a person should seek distinction as a medium of
personal gratification. But the love of fame is frequently no more
than a desire that the feelings of others should confirm, illustrate,
and sympathize with, our own. In this respect it is allied with all
that draws us out of ourselves. It is the 'last infirmity of noble
minds'. Chivalry was likewise founded on the theory of self-sacrifice.
Love possesses so extraordinary a power over the human heart, only
because disinterestedness is united with the natural propensities.
These propensities themselves are comparatively impotent in cases
where the imagination of pleasure to be given, as well as to be
received, does not enter into the account. Let it not be objected
that patriotism, and chivalry, and sentimental love, have been the
fountains of enormous mischief. They are cited only to establish the
proposition that, according to the elementary principles of mind,
man is capable of desiring and pursuing good for its own sake.


JUSTICE

The benevolent propensities are thus inherent in the human mind.
We are impelled to seek the happiness of others. We experience
a satisfaction in being the authors of that happiness. Everything
that lives is open to impressions or pleasure and pain. We are
led by our benevolent propensities to regard every human being
indifferently with whom we come in contact. They have preference
only with respect to those who offer themselves most obviously
to our notice. Human beings are indiscriminating and blind; they
will avoid inflicting pain, though that pain should be attended
with eventual benefit; they will seek to confer pleasure without
calculating the mischief that may result. They benefit one at the
expense of many.

There is a sentiment in the human mind that regulates benevolence
in its application as a principle of action. This is the sense of
justice. Justice, as well as benevolence, is an elementary law of
human nature. It is through this principle that men are impelled
to distribute any means of pleasure which benevolence may suggest
the communication of to others, in equal portions among an equal
number of applicants. If ten men are shipwrecked on a desert island,
they distribute whatever subsistence may remain to them, into equal
portions among themselves. If six of them conspire to deprive the
remaining four of their share, their conduct is termed unjust.

The existence of pain has been shown to be a circumstance which the
human mind regards with dissatisfaction, and of which it desires
the cessation. It is equally according to its nature to desire that
the advantages to be enjoyed by a limited number of persons should
be enjoyed equally by all. This proposition is supported by the
evidence of indisputable facts. Tell some ungarbled tale of a number
of persons being made the victims of the enjoyments of one, and he
who would appeal in favour of any system which might produce such
an evil to the primary emotions of our nature, would have nothing
to reply. Let two persons, equally strangers, make application for
some benefit in the possession of a third to bestow, and to which
he feels that they have an equal claim. They are both sensitive
beings; pleasure and pain affect them alike.