88 ADAM SMITH. 



we seek other men's happiness, because by so doing we 

 gratify our own feelings. This presupposes, says he, 

 that there is a pleasure to ourselves in seeking their hap- 

 piness, else the motive, by the supposition, wholly fails. 

 Therefore there is a pleasure as independent of selfish 

 gratification, as the thing pursued is necessarily some- 

 thing different from the being that pursues it. 



These two great philosophers, then, may be reckoned 

 the founders of the received and sound ethical system, 

 to which Tucker, by his profound and original specula- 

 tions, added much. Hartley and Bonnet, who were a few 

 years later, only introduced a mixture of gross error in 

 their preposterous attempts to explain the inscrutable 

 union of the soul and the body, and to account for the 

 phenomena of niiiid by the nature or affection of the 

 nerves; while at a somewhat earlier date, Berkeley, an 

 inquirer of a much higher order, had applied himself to 

 psychological, and not to ethical studies. 



As ethics in its extended sense comprehends both the 

 duties and capacities, and the moral and intellectual 

 qualities of individuals, and their relations to each other 

 in society, so may it also extend to the interests and the 

 regulation of society, that is, to the polity of states, in both 

 its branches, both the structure and the functions of govern- 

 ment, with a view to securing the happiness of the people. 

 Hence it may include everything that concerns the rights, 

 as well as the duties of citizens, all that regards their 

 good government, all the branches of jurisprudence, all 

 the principles that govern the production and distribution 

 of wealth, the employment and protection of labour, the 

 progress of population, the defence of the state, the edu- 

 cation of its inhabitants ; in a word, political science, 



