Account of 
Dr Smith, 
78 HISTORY of the SOCIETY. 
planted the feeds of this irregularity in the human breaft, her 
leading intention was, to promote the happinefs and perfection 
of the fpecies. 
‘Tue remaining part of MrSmirn’s theory is employed in 
fhewing, in what manner our /enfe of duty comes to be formed, 
in confequence of an application to ourfelves of the judgments 
we have previoufly pafed on the conduct of others. 
In entering upon this enquiry, which is undoubtedly the 
moft important in the work, and for which the foregoing f{pe- 
culations are, according to Mr SmitTu’s theory, a neceflary pre- 
paration, he begins with ftating the fact concerning our con- 
{cioufnefs of merited praife or blame; and it muft be owned, 
that the firft afpect of the fact, as he himfelf ftates it, ap- 
pears not very favourable to his principles. That the great 
objeét of a wife and virtuous man is not to act in fuch a 
manner as to obtain the actual approbation of thofe: around 
him, but to a& fo as to render himfelf the juff and proper ob- 
ject of their approbation, and that his fatisfaction with his own 
conduct depends much more on the confcioufnefs of  deferving 
this approbation than from that of really enjoying it, he can- 
didly acknowledges; but ftill he infifts, that although this may 
feem, at firft view, to intimate the exiftence of fome moral fa- 
culty which is not borrowed from without, our moral fenti- 
ments 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 ; and that if it 
were poflible, that a human creature could grow up to manhood 
without any communication with his own fpecies, he. could no 
more think of his own character, or of the propriety or deme- 
rit of his own fentiments and condutt, than of the beauty or 
deformity of his own face. There is indeed a tribunal within 
the breaft, which is the fupreme arbiter of all our actions, and 
2 which 
