198 ADAM SMITH. 



certain, that, in point of fact, we feel this sentiment of 

 approbation or disapprobation without being in the 

 least degree sensible of making any reference to other 

 men's feelings, and no sympathy with them is inter- 

 posed between our own sentence of approval or dis- 

 approval and its object. But it is enough to say, and 

 it seems to answer the theory at once, that even if our 

 sympathy were admitted to be the foundation of our 

 approval, our inability to sympathise the ground of our 

 disapproval, this in no way explains why we should 

 approve because of the accord and disapprove because 

 of the discord. 



The theory, with the utmost concession that can 

 be made to it as to the ground-work, leaves the super- 

 structure still defective, and defective in the same de- 

 gree in which the 'Theory of Utility' is defective ; we 

 are still left to seek for a reason why approval follows 

 the perception of corresponding feelings in the one 

 case, of general utility in the other. Dr. Paley is so 

 sensible of this, that after resolving all questions of 

 morals into questions of utility, he is obliged to call 

 in the Divine Will as the ground of our doing or ap- 

 proving that which is found to be generally useful. 

 Other reasoners on the same side of the question pass 

 over the defect of their system altogether, while some 

 try the question by assuming that we must desire 

 or approve that which is useful ; while a third class, 

 much more consistently, consider that the approving 

 of what is generally useful, and disapproving of what 

 is generally hurtful, arises from the exercise of an in- 

 herent faculty or moral sense, an innate principle or 

 property in our nature, irresistible and universal. The 

 like defect is imputable to Dr. Smith's theory, and is 

 only to be supplied either by Dr. Paley 's method of 

 reasoning, or by the last supposition to which I have 

 referred. But all this concedes a great deal more 

 than is due to the ' Theory of Sympathy,' and assumes 

 it to stand on as good a foundation as that of ' Utility.' 



