The result of the preceding chapter, in which the relation of Adam Smith's theory to other ethical theories has been defined, is that it is a theory in which all that is true in the "selfish" system of Hobbes or Mandeville, in the "benevolent" system of Hutcheson, or in the "utilitarian" system of Hume, is adopted and made use of, to form a system quite distinct from any one of them. It seeks to bridge over their differences, by avoiding the one-sidedness of their several principles, and taking a wider view of the facts of human nature. It is therefore, properly speaking, an Eclectic theory, if by eclecticism be understood, not a mere commixture of different systems, but a discriminate selection of the elements of truth to be found in them severally.
The ethical writers who most influenced Adam Smith were undoubtedly Hume and Hutcheson, in the way of agreement and difference that has been already indicated. Dugald Stewart has also drawn attention to his obligations to Butler. (8) It would be interesting to know whether he ever read Hartley's Observations on Man , a work which, published in 1749that is, some ten years before his ownwould have materially assisted his argument. For Adam Smith's account of the growth of conscienceof a sense of duty, is in reality closely connected with the theory which explains its origin by the working of the laws of association.
From our experience of the constant association between the acts of others and pleasurable or painful feelings of our own, according as we sympathize or not with them, comes the desire of ourselves causing in others similar pleasurable, and avoiding similar painful, emotionsor in other words, that desire of praise and aversion to blame which, refined and purified by reference to an imaginary and ideal spectator of our conduct, grows to be a conscientious and disinterested love of virtue and detestation of vice. The rules of moral conduct, formed as they are by generalization from particular judgments of the sympathetic instinct, or from a number of particular associations of pleasurable and painful feelings with particular acts, are themselves directly associated with that love of praise or praise- worthiness which originates in our longing for the same sympathy from other men with regard to ourselves that we know to be pleasurable in the converse relation. The word "association" is never once used by Adam Smith, but it is implied at every step of his theory, and forms really as fundamental a feature in his reasoning as it does in that of the philosopher who was the first to investigate its laws in their application to the facts of morality.
This is, perhaps, internal evidence enough that Adam Smith never saw Hartley's work. (9)But the writer who, perhaps, as much as any other contributed to the formation of Adam Smith's ideas, seems to have been Pope, who in his Every on Man anticipated many of the leading thoughts in the Theory of Moral Sentiments . The points of resemblance between the poet and the philosopher are frequent and obvious. There is in both the same constant appeal to nature, and to the wisdom displayed in her laws; the same reference to self-love as the basis of the social virtues and benevolence; the same identification of virtue with happiness; and the same depreciation of greatness and ambition as conducive to human felicity.
Adam Smith's simple theory of happiness, for instance, reads like a commentary on the text supplied by Pope in the lines, "Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three wordsHealth, Peace, and Competence."Said in prose, the same teaching is conveyed by the philosopher: "What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?"Or, to take another instance. Adam Smith's account of the order in which individuals are recommended by nature to our care is precisely the same as that given by Pope. Says the former: "Every man is first and principally recommended to his own care," and, after himself, his friends, his country, or mankind become by degrees the object of his sympathies So said Pope before him "God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole.
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds Another still, and still another spreads;Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;His country next; and next all human race."To turn now from the theory itself to the criticisms upon it: it may perhaps be said, that if the importance of an ethical theory in the history of moral philosophy may be measured by the amount of criticism expended upon it, Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments must take its place immediately after Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals .
The shorter observations on it by Lord Kames and Sir James Mackintosh bear witness to the great interest that attached to it, no less than the longer criticisms of Dr. Brown, Dugald Stewart, or Jouffroy, the French moral philosopher. The various objections raised by these writers, all of whom have approached it with that impartial acuteness so characteristic of philosophers in regard to theories not their own, will best serve to illustrate what have been considered the weak points in the general theory proposed by Adam Smith. But in following the main current of such criticism, it is only fair that we should try in some measure to hold the scales between the critics and their author, and to weigh the value of the arguments that have been actually advanced on the one side and that seem capable of being advanced on the other.
