124 



stances with you, but I change persons and characters. My 

 grief, therefore, is entirely upon your account, and not in the 

 least, upon my own. It is not, therefore, in the least selfish." 1 



It is thus a 'social self which enables us to effect, not only 

 an imaginary change of situation with the person chiefly con- 

 cerned, but a complete identification of our own person and 

 character with that of another person. Moral action engages 

 our sympathy, not only because we imagine ourselves in the 

 place of the person concerned, but because we enter into the 

 spirit of the agent. 



As indicated, Adam Smith's theory supplies us with the 

 complement of that put forward by Hume. The estimate of 

 the merit of an act, for Hume, rests on its external effect, 2 its 

 advantage to others, but Adam Smith places the emphasis 

 upon the disposition. For the latter, the moral character of 

 an act is determined, not only by its external consequences, 

 but by the motives which give rise to it. The moral senti- 

 ments do not arise originally and essentially from any per- 

 ception of utility, though no doubt such perception enhances 

 and enlivens them; for, "it seems impossible that the appro- 

 bation of virtue should be a sentiment of the same kind with 

 that by which we approve of a convenient and well-contrived 

 building; or that we should have no other reason for praising 

 a man than that for which we commend a chest of drawers". 

 "The usefulness of any disposition of mind is seldom the first 

 ground of our approbation." "The sentiment of approbation 

 always involves in it a sense of propriety quite distinct from 

 the perception of utility." 3 Hence, while the maxims of utility 

 ido not lose all significance, they play a subordinate part. 



Adam Smith, as already stated, explains justice, as well as 

 all other virtues, on the basis of sympathy. The acts of others 

 arouse in us an emotion of gratitude when we feel ourselves 

 benefited by them, and an impulse of revenge when we feel 

 ourselves injured. Such sympathy may be described as a 

 retributive impulse, if the term is understood to include both 

 gratitude and revenge. 4 It is from this standpoint that Smith 

 deals with the ethical motive of justice. Hume had failed to 

 derive 'justice' from the natural moral feelings, and had 

 ascribed it to reflection. Smith, however, finds the emotional 

 root of justice in the retributive impulse. Justice is only this 



iS.B. 339. 



*Seep. 120. 



3 S.B. 327-8. See also 357. 



4 This retributive impulse is used by Westermarck in his "Origin and 

 Development of Moral Ideas", 1906, as supplying an emotional origin for 

 all moral judgments. See especially Vol. I, Ch. 2, of his work. 



